Film Review: MICHAEL IRONSIDE: MENTAL SABOTEUR (2014, Karen Stetler)

This short documentary is a simple, twenty-minute interview with Michael Ironside (beloved Junta Juleil Hall-of-Famer and star of SCANNERS).  It was included on Criterion's release of SCANNERS, and it was a good enough interview that I thought it deserved its own mini-writeup.

Shot in March of 2014, Ironside is incredibly forthcoming and speaks to a mix of topics, both weighty and jovial.

He dips into some interesting childhood anecdotes, including one about his grandfather "Jock" who turned him on to science fiction.  "I came from a very poor family. Our house was twelve and a half feet wide... very proud.  You had to be able to escape in books."

He describes becoming involved in the industry as an actor and a crew-person––anything to pay the bills.  "My father used to say that I ran away and joined the circus.  And he was right.  I would do anything to stay around the big top.  I would be in front of the camera, behind the camera, deliver food, I worked for production services for a while..."

He even did some behind-the-camera work on SCANNERS, literally pulling the trigger on the shotgun that exploded SCANNERS' most infamous special effect.

Also in regard to SCANNERS, he tells a sobering story about actor Larry Dane's back pain, describes the contact lens effects (some were borrowed from LITTLE BIG MAN), and coins the term "mental saboteur" in reference to his character, Darryl Revok. He has a lot of praise for Cronenberg as an actor-friendly director, and as a "navigator" of film who never loses his story-compass.

He also speaks about taking his first steps toward the larger, scarier world of Hollywood ("I went broke trying to stay in Canada...  I'd watched people go down to the States and come back with their tails between their legs").

The most amusing anecdote is the story of a dinner with co-star Jennifer O'Neill and her husband, and she asks him about what he's buying the crew for Christmas.  The massively underpaid Ironside says, "What am I buying the crew for Christmas?!––I'm trying to steal my own wardrobe!"  When he learns what salary Jennifer O'Neill is making, he flips his lid.  "It was a major growing moment for me," he says. "You can make a living doing this?"

In any event, this brief but densely-packed interview is well worth checking out, for fans of Ironside and Cronenberg alike.

2015 HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN

1.  SCANNERS (1981, David Cronenberg)

2.  ...

Only now does it occur to me... MY CRASY LIFE

Only now does it occur to me...  that French arthouse director and Jean-Luc Godard crony Jean-Pierre Gorin's 1992 documentary on Samoan street gangs in Long Beach features the voice of accomplished character actor and quintessential 80s dad Richard Masur!

You'll naturally recognize Masur

from such films as STEPHEN KING'S IT, THE THING, LICENSE TO DRIVE, MY GIRL, MY GIRL 2, MR. BOOGEDY, HEAVEN'S GATE, BRIDE OF BOOGEDY, RENT-A-COP, RISKY BUSINESS, NIGHTMARES, THE BELIEVERS, MY SCIENCE PROJECT, and MULTIPLICITY, but he doesn't show his face here.  In the MY CRASY LIFE, he voices a snarky, fictionalized police dashboard computer which serves as a quasi-artsy and not-entirely-successful narrative device that acts as a sort of comic foil to the the gritty vérité.

Pretty bizarre, but there it is.  (And obviously any shortcomings in the computer as a narrative device ought not to be blamed on Masur, who does a fine job.)

Strangely, this credit does not appear on IMDb, but I'm here to confirm it for all you Masur die-hards out there.  Now let's go watch some BOOGEDY!

Junta Juleil's Top 100: #90-86

90. THE USUAL SUSPECTS (1995, Bryan Singer)

A heist film that's at once fun and fatalistic, it's cleverly written and incredibly well-constructed. However, its fanboyish following and unfortunate susceptibility to pea-brained parody certainly threaten to undermine any prospective "Greatness." But after a handful of viewings across the past decade and a half, I've come to the conclusion that it really holds up– John Ottman's flowing, occasionally beautiful, occasionally malevolent score; Christopher McQuarrie's razor-edged but never self-congratulatory dialogue; Kevin Spacey's furtive, crippled sad sack; Gabriel Byrne's classy Euro-gangster; Kevin Pollak's smartassed grease monkey; Benicio Del Toro's fashionable, generally incomprehensible sidekick; Pete Postlethwaite's ominous litigator; Chazz Palminteri's loud-mouthed, thick-necked cop; even Stephen Baldwin makes for a believably rugged gunman. And even beyond the intricacies of the now-notorious plot, there's plenty of layers to uncover here: blue collar (criminal) heroes overwhelmed by shadowy, international corporations; homosexual undertones fused with themes of criminality and counterculture that run far deeper than the surface gag of "going straight"; strange mirrorings of THE WIZARD OF OZ; and, hell, bit parts by Paul "EATING RAOUL" Bartel and Dan "COMMANDO" Hedaya. Yep, I still stand by this movie.

89. GREY GARDENS (1975, Albert & David Maysles)

Perhaps the ultimate experience in "cinéma vérité," GREY GARDENS observes the goings-on at the eponymous, ramshackle mansion which is home to a pair of reclusive, ex-high society Bouviers who go by the sobriquets "Big" and "Little" Edie. In turns funny, tragic, horrifying, heart-warming, and simply hard to watch, the Maysles brothers cross that sterile, journalistic boundary, going beyond simple exploitation and into a deeper truth; perhaps they even form a makeshift family along the way. It's a film about decay and aristocracy, sure, but its aims are chiefly humanistic– beneath each mould'ring shutter and crumbling wall we find alternations of genuine vibrancy and misplaced dreams. One of the great documentaries.

88. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971, Stanley Kubrick)

The sort of film that was my all-time favorite when I was seventeen, but now, apparently, it's somewhere closer to #88. Regardless, it's a work of operatic beauty and hideous ultra-violence, one of quasi-futuristic daydreams and elaborate linguistic fascinations, of oppressive institutionalization and unhinged criminality. Based on Anthony Burgess' novel of moral choice (a novel which I highly recommend, along with other Burgess classics like ONE HAND CLAPPING, ENDERBY, and THE LONG DAY WANES), Kubrick's film really feels like an event; a larger than life, more than occasionally grotesque extravaganza of free will and urban decay. Wendy Carlos' electronic reimaginings of Purcell, Beethoven, and Rossini lend the film an evocative, dystopian soundscape, punctuating the drama, in turns, with black comedy and Stygian dread. And how can I neglect to mention Malcolm McDowell, whose volatile, darkly enthusiastic portrayal has come to define the film and its place in history. Also, Patrick Magee's completely over-the-top, eyebrow-indicating appearance as a revenge-seeking writer is well worth the price of admission.

87. TALES OF HOFFMANN (1951, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)

Hot damn– TALES OF HOFFMANN! The (Techni)colors, the sets, the choreography– pure, radiant, cinematic spectacle that has irrevocably and personally shaped filmmakers from George A. Romero to Martin Scorsese to Francis Ford Coppola. Powell and Pressburger's definitive adaptation of Jacques Offenbach's renowned opera is a smorgasboard of eye candy, enchanting harmonies, and morbid reverie. It's absolutely absorbing; I defy anyone to watch the first twenty minutes and not find themselves enthralled by the movement, by the dancers, by the overwhelming waves of joie de vivre and frenzied emotion... Eh, I'll shut up for now and let the damn thing speak for itself:

86. RIO BRAVO (1958, Howard Hawks)

John Carpenter's favorite movie and my most-beloved Hawks. One might accuse Carpy of overindulging in imitation (ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, GHOSTS OF MARS), but the set-up is too damned fun for even Hawks to resist– he remade it twice himself! (EL DORADO and RIO LOBO). What we got here is a stalwart sheriff (John Wayne) determined to make a solitary stand against a horde of voracious outlaws. Of course, there's a drunk (Dean Martin), a cripple (the adorably hilarious Walter Brennan), an up-and-comer-guitar-slingin'-show-off (Ricky Nelson), and a inscrutable, hard-drinkin' lady (Angie Dickinson) waiting in the wings, not yet sure what parts they'll play. The eventual shoot-outs and the gut-mashin' pay-offs are thrilling indeed, but the movie's not about them; it's about character development, it's about waiting, it's about the forging of regular dudes into men of action. It's got comic relief, silly romance, nail-biting suspense, but, most of all, a genuine depth of story, of character, of locale. It's the sort of movie that people mean when they say "Boy-o, they don't make 'em like that anymore."



Coming up next: Harry Dean Stanton, crumpled metal perversions, and eyeball-popping insanity!

Previously on the countdown:
#95-91
#100-96
Runners-up Part 1
Runners-up Part 2

Film Review: ALICE COOPER- PRIME CUTS (1991, Neal Preston)

Stars: 3.9 of 5.
Running Time: 90 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Alice Cooper, Slash, Ozzy Osbourne, Bob Ezrin, Shep Gordon, Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway, Michael Bruce, Neal Smith, Kane Roberts, Kip Winger.
Tag-line: "The Alice Cooper Story."

Also known as THE ALICE COOPER STORY, this 1991 documentary could serve as a great primer for the burgeoning Alice fan. For the die hards, however, chances are that you'll hear only an anecdote or two that you're not already familiar with, but the cross-section of concert footage and refreshingly candid interviews goes a long way toward making this extremely watchable.

Alice weighs in on his collaboration with Dali, his mistaken 7 AM audition for Frank Zappa (Zappa meant PM!), and the founding of the 'Hollywood Vampires,' a group (whose ranks included John Lennon and Keith Moon, among others) who boozed it up like real rock n' rollin' dipsomaniacs until only one man was left upright.

We hear about the notorious chicken 'murder,' the original band burning out on tour, going solo with WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE, and his first sanitarium sojourn (which inspired FROM THE INSIDE). You get a terrific sense of his exquisite theatricality and the influence he has exerted on popular music (and showmanship in general); and scintillating, intellectual conversations with the likes of Slash and Ozzy provide a broader cultural context.

Slash muses on cultural memory and the creative process, extensively citing Proust to the point of immoderation.

My one complaint, however, is that the film completely skips the 80's. Now, the film runs slightly under an hour, and a lot of people seem to dislike that particular phase of his career, but we jump straight from his 1980 'new wavish' foray FLUSH THE FASHION to his 1989 mainstream/Bon Jovi comeback TRASH.

We completely skip the 'Blackout Years' (ZIPPER CATCHES SKIN, et al.) the Soldier of Fortune phase (SPECIAL FORCES), his multiple personality masterpiece (DADA), the final Rehab, his contributions to 80's horror films (FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 6, PRINCE OF DARKNESS, MONSTER DOG, FREDDY'S DEAD, etc.), and the albums that truly rebuilt the fanbase and set the stage for his comeback (CONSTRICTOR, RAISE YOUR FIST AND YELL). Regardless of these omissions, however, it remains a solid overview of the man and his work, and thus, I patently recommend.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD (2009, Mark Hartley)

Stars: 3.9 of 5.
Running Time: 103 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Interviews or archive footage with everyone from Richard Franklin (ROADGAMES), Jamie Lee Curtis, Stacy Keach, Dennis Hopper, George Miller (MAD MAX), Russell Mulcahy (HIGHLANDER), Ted Kotcheff (RAMBO, WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S), George Lazenby (ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE), Steve Railsback, Jeremy Thomas, Quentin Tarantino, Rod Taylor, Bruce Beresford (BREAKER MORANT), Alan Arkin, Henry Silva, Broderick Crawford, David Hemmings, Christopher Lee, Olivia Hussey, James Mason, George Peppard, Donald Pleasence, and Lesley Ann Warren.
Tag-line: "Finally an Aussie film packed full of boobs, pubes, tubes ... and a bit of kung fu."

Grab a "thick, crunchy hamburger," sit back, relax, and enjoy a measured overview of that oft-forgotten, oft-maligned genre: 'Ozploitation.' Now, there's not much depth to this film, the reality-TV style (different, generic, upbeat music cues every 25 seconds; the inability to hold a shot for more than 2 seconds) is frequently obnoxious, and a lot of your enjoyment will hinge on your ability to tolerate Quentin Tarantino, but the absurd clips, psychotic personalities, and colorful anecdotes go a long way.

If you can't even stomach this photograph, you'd do best to stay away.

See the one-armed censor; endless vomit; a Mondo-style film called AUSTRALIA AFTER DARK; Henry Silva dangling 70 feet above the ground without a safety net; clips from Russell Mulcahy's early 'giant warthog' flick RAZORBACK; and endless, marauding biker gangs, scouring the Outback for people to fuck with! You hear about a washed-up David Hemmings' drunken directorial style, Richard Franklin’s big break with the coma-horror flick PATRICK (immediately ripped-off by Italians, and later by KILL BILL), the xenophobia faced by Jamie Lee Curtis and Stacy Keach while starring in Franklin's ROADGAMES, Steve Railsback delivering semi-coherent rants, and Dennis Hopper pronounced dead while filming MAD DOG MORGAN.

Hopper, in fact, survived.

Witness the miracle of marsupial werewolf birth in HOWLING 3:

live ammo fired at Railsback in TURKEY SHOOT (a.k.a. ESCAPE 2000 on DVD):

Railsback shot at FOR REAL.

George Lazenby on fire for real in THE MAN FROM HONG KONG; a possessed game of Chinese Checkers in HARLEQUIN (a.k.a. DARK FORCES on DVD); and majestic, SHINING-style, bone-chilling cinematography in NEXT OF KIN. You’re forced to respect these filmmakers’ ingenuity, their commitment to trash cinema, and their nonchalance about risking life and limb for movies about giant alligators, killer bikers, or naked ladies who take lots of showers. It’s almost like if a dozen quasi-Herzogs were unleashed upon the heyday of American International. So if you can stomach the periodically inane presentation, NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD is well worth a watch.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: CANE TOADS- A UNNATURAL HISTORY (1988, Mark Lewis)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 47 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Directed by Mark Lewis (RAT, THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF DOGS).
Tag-line: "The story of a bizarre biological blunder, warts and all!!"
Best one-liner: ""I still love the animal, and they give me a lot of enjoyment."

A whimsical look at humankind's hubristic, unavoidable folly, and notably Werner Herzog's favorite film. And it's easy to see why everybody's favorite whacked out Bavarian loves it so much: told in a style approximating early Errol Morris (like GATES OF HEAVEN or VERNON, FLORIDA) with a dab of Monty Python, the film certainly has a sense of humor, but never loses its interest in the humanity of its subjects. Whether we're hearing from a shadow-entrenched Cane Toad drug abuser:

a scientist with an axe to grind (a vendetta born from Cane Toads killing his beloved cat):

They killed his cat, and he is PISSED.

local yokels who possess love/hate relationships with the toads, or a researcher who simulates toad sex, the film clearly adores the hell out of its interviewees. Sure, the film may be smirking while they're on screen, but it's a gentle form of kidding, like between you and your favorite eccentric aunt. Or between Herzog and, say, everything contained within STROZEK.

The problem presented by the film began with human greed: beetle grubs were hindering the Australian sugar crop, so the Cane Toads were introduced from Hawaii to eat them. Unfortunately, as invasive species are wont to do; they multiplied exponentially, ravaged the ecosystem, and ate everything (from ping-pong balls to cute little mice) EXCEPT the Cane Beetles.

A Cane Toad eats a cute little mouse. What an asshole.

Furthermore, they're extremely poisonous and kill almost everything that tries to eat them, from stray dogs to birds of prey to that scientist's unfortunate cat. Nature: 1. Humans: 0.

But then the humans strike back (if you can call it that) with our own unpredictable nuttiness- staging Cane Toad tea parties, erecting monuments, feeding them cigarettes, and making them their companions. "I still love the animal, and they give me a lot of enjoyment," gently says an elderly man wearing a dingy wifebeater:


At several points in the film, there are dramatizations that could practically be outtakes from 1972's FROGS, which you've got to love.


Near the end of the film, a question of sorts is indirectly posed by the insane shit that is happening on screen: What's more perverse– the necrophiliac Cane Toad that humps away for eight hours, or the human who watches said humping, just to confirm that it lasted eight hours? Yes, this film shows nature to be vile, base, obscene, and deadly. ...But like Herzog, the film loves it anyway- against its better judgment. Four stars.

-Sean Gill

Special note: Supposedly, Mark Lewis has recently completed CANE TOADS 2: THE CONQUEST. Werner and I both eagerly anticipate its release.

Film Review: BEST WORST MOVIE (2009, Michael Stephenson)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 93 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: George Hardy, Margo Prey, Robert Ormsby, Claudio Fragasso, Darren Ewing, Connie Young.
Viewed at: Rooftop Films' screening on Friday, July 31st in Brooklyn.

The bad filmmaking gods smiled down upon Claudio Fragasso and his cast of American misfits in 1990, and TROLL 2 has- nearly twenty years later- reached a truly iconic status. BEST WORST MOVIE, directed by Michael "They're eating my Mom- AAAAHH!" Stephenson, chronicles the cult phenomenon as well as the present-day lives of many of those involved. And it's in turns hilarious, devastating, weird, sad, sweet, and spit-take inducing.

George "You can't piss on hospitality!" Hardy is a dynamo; so elated to be a piece of bad movie history that he becomes this movie's feel-good core.

Robert "Goblins still exist! Your Grandpa Seth is telling you!" Ormsby is charming and candid, but is sadly selling himself short if he truly believes he's led a wasted life. Connie "He'd cut off your lit-tle nuts and eat-them" Young makes some difficult self-assessments and removes TROLL 2 from her resumé. (But does ICE SPIDERS make it on there?) Margo "Come on, sing that song I like so much!" Prey provides a sobering detour for the film, as she seems to live her life in a disquieting state of limbo amongst lost dreams, fatiguing responsibilities, and perhaps even mental illness.

Several other actors and original filmmakers make appearances, but a few of them are so choice and brief that I shan't spoil them here.

But stealing the show is director Claudio Fragasso, whose intense, easily pissed-off countenance provided TROLL 2's sincerity (and most of the comedy here).

When actors joke about TROLL 2 at a Q&A, Fragasso labels them ungrateful, bullshit-spewing "dogs." Any irony whatsoever seems lost on Fragasso, king of plagiaristic Italo-trash (and maker of such 'unofficial sequels' as TROLL 2, TERMINATOR II- SHOCKING DARK, EVIL DEAD 5, and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 3. Also see MONSTER DOG, starring Alice Cooper, and featuring both pissing and mention of hospitality). There should be a TV show following this guy around. It could be the next I'M WITH BUSEY.

BEST WORST MOVIE is at its best when it's surreally reenacting scenes from TROLL 2 at original locations ( á la LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY), and at its worst when it drags a bit (it could be a little tighter, especially near the end), but overall, it's a fitting tribute to the squad of eccentrics, weirdos, and regular folks who assembled one of the most insane films in the history of the medium.

Odd side note: at the Q&A, Michael Stephenson denied having seen any other Fragasso films and failed to mention that he starred in Fragasso's LA CASA 5 (also known as BEYOND DARKNESS and EVIL DEAD 5). It seems odd that the film or Stephenson would make no mention of this, as it's a key role in the same vein as his TROLL 2 role (a nearly constantly screaming, grating child). I've even got the proof:


-Sean Gill

Film Review: THE SILENT WORLD (1956, Jacques Cousteau & Louis Malle)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 86 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Jacques Cousteau (oceanographer, hero, legend, defender of the environment, filmmaker, and scientist), Louis Malle (AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS, ATLANTIC CITY, MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, THE FIRE WITHIN).
Tag-lines: None.
Best one-liner(s): See review.

Shit the bed! I have been rendered speechless. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Jacques Cousteau and his cronies (the inspiration for Wes Anderson's far less ludicrous LIFE AQUATIC- from the stilted re-stagings to a musician on board to the bulbous underwater observatory to red woolen caps to island diversions to exactly duplicated camera angles) wander the high seas more in search of shits and giggles than genuine scientific research in this 1956 documentary. A lot of the novelty revolved around the then-new high-tech underwater cameras, but now this film is appallingly hilarious. Need a coral reef sample?- use an axe! Need a census of reef-dwelling fish? Blow the bastards up with TNT!

This is, indeed, really happening.

A hapless dying blowfish, now on land, inflates itself in a panic. Jacques explains that it's a defensive measure against being eaten- 'BUT IT'S NO MATCH FOR DYNAMITE!' (Jacques himself provides a vaguely self-aware, smarmy Herzogian narration throughout.)

Prepare yourself for some surreal fuckin' sights. Like six Frenchmen riding each other's ankles as they hitch a ride on a water scooter. Speaking of hitching rides, ANY time they see a giant turtle or tortoise, the initial reflex is to take it for a free ride.

See a Frenchman weighing down a sea turtle as it struggles to reach the surface and breath! See a Frenchman riding two tortoises like giant, mobile shoes! What's the first thing you think of when you see tortoises? To use them as picnic tables and benches, of course! While on this 'tortoise island,' they encounter a black "island man" who explains the life cycle of the tortoise to them in offensively dubbed pidgin English. "Me think the turtle cry not because of 'de pain...but cause of 'de sorrow."

Later, they make friends with a Grouper they name 'Ulysses,' feeding it scraps of meat, trying to dance with the fish. All I can think of is Herzog, in GRIZZLY MAN, saying "And what haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food." So they 'befriend' the Grouper, who then keeps coming back for food...because they fed it. This pisses off Cousteau and the gang who now dub Ulysses a 'nuisance.' 'Time to put him in jail!' They bring down a shark cage and imprison the Grouper for a spell. As they depart, they release him and wistfully impart 'We'll never forget you, Ulysses!' Indeed.

And the science?! They frequently boast about how great their technology is, mocking a Greek diver using outdated equipment, and then they run one scientific test across film's entirety. What do they do the rest of the time? They dick around like frat boys on vacation. There is one incident in particular that is the perfect example of mankind's folly, and the ability of tragedy and comedy to bleed into one another. Cousteau and his crew are chasing a group of sperm whales, trying to get close and "study" them. Things get off to a good start when they accidentally ram one whale and then one of the crew tries to harpoon another, just for the hell of it. And they're riding these whales' asses, too. "Increase the throttle!" Of course, tragedy strikes. They ran over a baby whale, which is now horrifically lacerated by the engine. Immediately, Jacques blames the whale, saying its 'youthful brashness' was the reason for the tragedy. Of course it's the whale's fault that was run over at top speed. Blood is pouring everywhere; one wouldn't think that a single animal could contain so much blood. The ocean, now crimson, begins to fill with sharks- 30 or 40 of them. Jacques and the team harpoon the dying whale and shoot it in the head to put it out of its misery. The sharks begin to gorge themselves. Jacques and the team immediately spring into action, pulling out the shark cage so that they can film it, Jacques  adding that he 'hopes the cable will hold' for the sake of the cameramen within. Given the scarce amount of the whale left at the finish, I have to imagine that they filmed the feast for several hours. As soon as the cage is out of the water, and they're finished shooting the 'orgy,' the sailors seek righteous revenge against the sharks. They actually say the phrase that they're 'avenging' the baby whale.'
So let me get this straight: they ran over a baby whale because they were dickin' around, the sharks came because they're animals and that is their instinct, they let the sharks eat until they were done filming, and then they murdered the sharks to avenge the whale?  They must harpoon and pull up twenty or thirty sharks out of the water onto the deck, whereupon the crew bludgeons the shit out of them with poles, harpoons, and, my personal favorite, giant axes. Whew. I feel like I'm watching a dozen bulls in a china shop. Why don't we just beam this out into space and let the aliens put us out of our misery?
Alright, guys, four stars for being fuckin' lunatics, and showing me far more about the depths of humanity's ignorance than the depths of the ocean's 'silent world.'

-Sean Gill

Film Review: TROUBLE THE WATER (2008, "Carl Deal & Tia Lessin")

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 90 minutes.
Tag-line: "It's not about a hurricane. It's about America."
Awards: Nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary, Jury Award Full Frame Documentary Festival, Best Documentary at Gotham Awards, Honorable Mention at the Silverdocs Festival, and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE is basically the definitive Katrina documentary, a film as devastating as it is epic. TROUBLE THE WATER's scope is much smaller- we follow Kimberly Roberts and her husband Scott (and some people they pick up along the way) as they survive the storm, attempt to receive FEMA funds, and try to forge a post-Katrina future. It's in turns tragic (we see the ease with which they become accustomed, even blase, to discovering corpses) and darkly hilarious (the tourism PR girl who dances along with an offensive video while saying people don't want to hear about the destroyed 80%, they want to hear about the unscathed 20!). We see bewildered FEMA crony Michael Brown fumbling on TV as, literally, an ocean rises on their neighborhood street. The most cutting moments are some of the simplest- audio recordings of 911 calls where the dispatchers tell the drowning and dying that no aid will be sent; or Kimberly's brother describing survival in a prison abandoned by guards. Kimberly's footage is raw, matter-of-fact, and representative of a growing media alternative. She is the auteur of this picture. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal just meet up with them along the way, bringing nothing to the table except poor choices in music (banal "be sad now" music, forms of which are used in almost every Sundance doc), public domain news footage, and the holiest god of American indie film: contacts for distribution. But make no mistake, for better or worse, this is Kimberly's film, a depiction of her life and worldview. Also, Kimberly and Scott's relationship is largely unexplored (one of her songs refers to slicing his face with a razor at 16, from which he has a nasty scar, then him giving her a wedding ring just a few years later). If Deal and Lessin were worth their salt at all, they would have at least followed up on intriguing nuances like that! Herzog would've. Instead, it seems that they stumbled upon Kimberly and her footage at the right time and place...I mean, come on, at least give her co-director credit.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: MY WINNIPEG (2008, Guy Maddin)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 80 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Ann Savage (DETOUR), Louis Negin (SISSY-BOY SLAP PARTY), Darcy Fehr (COWARDS BEND THE KNEE).
Tag-line: "The truth is relative."
Awards: Named Best Canadian Film by Toronto Film Festival and the Toronto Film Critics Association, two key groups that snubbed Maddin back when he was doing his freshest, most inventive work.

It pains me greatly to say it, but MY WINNIPEG is a disappointment, and in many ways a massive justification by Maddin, for Maddin, telling himself that it's okay that he's never left Winnipeg, that it's okay not to grow as an artist. I'm usually a Maddin apologist. COWARDS BEND THE KNEE, BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!, and THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD occupy well-deserved places on my list of all-time greatest films. Half of his appeal is his obsessive analysis of his own life, of Canada, his nitpicking self-hatred and need to almost LIVE in the past, to relive it again and again until he understands it, until it has either no power and he can shelve it away, or it has reached such lofty, mythological heights that he can lionize it, love it, and live with it. MY WINNIPEG takes the impressions, moments, and memories of Maddin's life, and feels the need to completely enumerate, catalogue, and give his feverish fantasies complete self-awareness. Maddin's running commentary is frequently amusing, but he is so much less of an orator than someone like, say, Herzog, that it demystifies and overliteralizes of what we have previously only seen in glimpses and shadows. But there are moments of brilliance. Everything with DETOUR's Ann Savage (here, a stand-in for Guy's mother) is gold. Even the outtakes, which Maddin hilariously weaves into the film, are brilliant. But when he settles on this main thrust (reenacting childhood with actors in order to break free of the stranglehold of the past), he quickly changes gears and digresses, ultimately, and almost criminally, underusing Savage. Certain tangents, however (like the "Golden Boy" man pageants, the icy graveyard of frozen racehorses, and the "If Day" fake Nazi invasion), hit their notes perfectly, ranging from poeticism to hilarity. But overall, no matter how eccentric, personal, cavernous, or hilarious the city may be, it is a frozen city, now dangerous, a frosty selpulcher that threatens to swallow Maddin's promise. I sincerely hope that his subsequent work will emerge from the beneath the shadow of his past and stride confidently out of Winnipeg.