October 2009

Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival 2009

by James McNally on October 21, 2009

Each year, the Reel Asian festival’s lineup gets stronger and stronger, and this year looks particularly good to me. Now in its 13th year, this annual festival of cinema from East and Southeast Asia will bring 49 films from 14 different countries to Toronto audiences from November 11–15. Here are a number of films I’m particularly excited about:

When The Full Moon Rises (Malaysia, Director: Mamat Khalid): A mashup of film styles including film noir, horror, slapstick and musical make this hard to resist. Disgraced journalist Saleh blows a tire out in the countryside and soon finds himself in a very strange village filled with gangsters, spies and cabaret singers. A string of disappearances keep him in town to write the story he knows will get his career back on track. That is, if he can survive to tell the tale.

White on Rice (USA, Director: Dave Boyle): Reel Asian always seems to have at least one zany comedy scheduled each year (Finishing the Game, Ping Pong Playa) and White on Rice seems to take the same delight in playing with Asian stereotypes as those other films did. Jimmy is a 40-year-old Japanese man who comes to the US to live with his sister’s family after a painful divorce. Sharing a room with his 10-year-old nephew doesn’t seem to bother him, though, as Jimmy’s a bit of a child himself.

Breathless (Korea, Director: Yang Ik-Joon): Described as both incredibly brutal and incredibly moving, this story of a violent man who meets his match in a schoolgirl has been scooping awards all over the place, most recently winning the award for Best Feature Film at Montreal’s Fantasia Fest. If I know anything about Korean dramas, there won’t be a dry eye in the house by the end.

Fish Story (Japan, Director: Yoshihiro Nakamura): I count on festivals like Reel Asian and Toronto After Dark to bring me some of the stuff from the fringes of Asian cinema, too. While Asia produces a huge number of accomplished “art” films, it also produces some stuff that’s just plain weird. Japan is a particular source of strange cinema, and Fish Story seems a perfect example. In 2012, a giant comet is set to destroy the earth, but all is not lost. A forgotten punk band’s obscure song will save us. Somehow. I’m a sucker for Japanese films that feature bands, so whether this makes any sense at all isn’t really that important to me.

Those are just a few of my picks so far, but I’m sure there will be a few surprises as well. Tickets and passes are on sale now. See you at Reel Asian!

Tagged as: #reelasian09, asia

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CBQM

by James McNally on October 14, 2009 · 2 comments

in Documentaries,Film Festivals

CBQM (Director: Dennis Allen): 150 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, Fort McPherson is a small town of about 750 inhabitants in the Northwest Territories. At the heart of this community is the citizen-run radio station, CBQM. This shoestring operation broadcasts everything from music and news to bingo games and moose calling contests. Dennis Allen’s verité portrait of life in the north is grounded in the operations of the station, and much of the film’s considerable charm comes from the filmmaker’s simple observation of the details of everyday life. We eavesdrop on a wide range of DJs, including the local minister teaching a Bible lesson, an RCMP constable issuing a crime report that concerns incidents of egg-throwing, and several local characters playing live music tunelessly while the phone rings in the background.

In a community as small as Fort McPherson, people often use the radio station to send messages to each other, from the simple (“good luck at bingo”) to the hilarious (“hang up your phone, I’m trying to call you.”). The broadcasting is sloppy but the earnestness of these volunteer DJs makes it easy to overlook. Allen’s cinematography is often stunning, and his generous use of wide-angle lenses conveys both the feeling of infinite space in the Arctic as well as the sense of isolation that the residents must feel.

In fact, the thread present throughout the film is that CBQM is the voice of a friend to many lonely older people in the community. When winter means that the sun hardly rises above the horizon, this little radio station is a beacon to a community that might feel forgotten otherwise.

CBQM is screening as part of the 2009 imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival on Friday October 16 at 1:00pm at the Al Green Theatre at the Miles Nadal JCC.

7/10 (7/10)

Tagged as: aboriginal, arctic, imaginenative, nfb

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imagineNATIVE 2009

by James McNally on October 14, 2009

in Film Festivals

From October 14–18, the 10th annual imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival celebrates aboriginal cinema from all over the world, while showcasing many of Canada’s native filmmakers and artists.

Tonight’s Opening Night film is Neil Diamond’s acclaimed documentary Reel Injun, which recently screened at TIFF. Tickets for this 7:00pm screening at the Bloor Cinema will be on sale at the box office from 6:00pm.

The rest of the program looks good, too, with screenings scattered between the Bloor Cinema, the Royal Cinema, and the Al Green Theatre at the Miles Nadal JCC. Check the website for showtimes and venues.

P.S. Isn’t the poster gorgeous?

Tagged as: aboriginal, imaginenative

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Love You More

by James McNally on October 6, 2009 · 1 comment

in DVD

Editor’s Note: Love You More is available on Wholphin No. 8, a great compilation of short films from the same people who publish McSweeney’s.

Love You More (Director: Sam Taylor-Wood): Based on a short story by English playwright Patrick Marber, this slice of life evocatively recalls the powerful combination of music geekery and sexual discovery that makes our teenage years so awkward and exciting. Buzzcocks fans Georgia and Peter meet at the record store on the day the band’s new single is coming out, but there’s only one copy. Cool Georgia invites the geeky Peter back to her place to listen to it. Their awkward attraction is unshackled as the 45 spins on the turntable, again and again.

In just 15 minutes, Taylor-Wood, known mostly for her photography, is able to convey so much. The swagger of teenagers, and the underlying terror of not knowing as much as you think. The way that shared musical taste can make you notice someone you never noticed before. The crumbling border between childhood and adulthood. It’s a beautiful piece of work, anchored in two brave performances and a couple of killer Buzzcocks singles.

Official site of the film

8/10 (8/10)

Tagged as: buzzcocks, coming-of-age, music, punk, shorts, wholphin

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Dead Snow (Død Snø)

by James McNally on October 5, 2009 · 2 comments

in DVD

Dead Snow (Død Snø) (Director: Tommy Wirkola): With a great tagline (“Ein! Zwei! DIE!”) and a winning concept (Nazi zombies!!), Dead Snow should have been a lot of fun. I’d missed it when it screened recently at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival and so was happy to catch up with it on DVD. The setup is pure cheesy horror cliché: a group of six medical students head up to the mountains for a weekend of drinking, skiiing, and maybe a little romance. But what they soon find out is that the site of their little weekend getaway was once a notorious Nazi outpost during the days of Germany’s occupation of Norway. The exposition is helpfully provided by a creepy old man who happens to drop by to ask for coffee. He tells them that many people were tortured and killed until the villagers rose up to drive the Nazis into the mountains, where they froze to death. He also tells them the Nazis had been hoarding gold toward the end of the war, and that it’s never been found.

His function in the story over, he leaves and is soon dispatched in his tent by an unknown assailant. Our rowdy group of friends soon discovers a chest in their cabin full of, you guessed it, Nazi gold. Meanwhile, the one guy who knows the area takes off on his snowmobile to find his girlfriend, who had been skiiing over the mountains to join them but who hasn’t yet turned up. He soon comes upon the old man dead in his tent and begins to get a bad feeling. Back at the cabin, one of the girls hasn’t returned from the outhouse, and before you know it, the cabin is under siege by undead German soldiers.

At this point, the film has been predictable but fun. Our first sight of the zombies in Nazi uniforms is interesting, but the film itself quickly degenerates into repetitive scenes of running away or hacking at the zombies with whatever implements are available. Our snowmobiling friend is forever catching air on his machine, even when being chased by the undead, and the repetition turns what could have been a unique take on the zombie film into a bore. The characters are almost interchangeable in their blandness and by the end, I wasn’t really keeping track of who’d been killed.

Although this could have been a bit more fun with a crowd, I’m sure it wouldn’t have made it a better film.

Official site of the film