Archive for the 'Film Festivals' Category

Nights and Weekends

Published
by
James McNally
on June 19, 2008
in Film Festivals
. 0 Comments

Nights and Weekends

Nights and Weekends (2008, Directors: Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig): A fitting opening night film for the Toronto leg of the Generation DIY mini-fest, Nights and Weekends is co-director Joe Swanberg’s fourth feature film in four years (in addition to two series of online shorts), and he’s still just 26. Perhaps no other director better exemplifies the DIY spirit right now. This particular film grew out of a close collaboration with Greta Gerwig, who has acted in most of Swanberg’s previous films. Their real-life friendship informs and adds some tension to this story of a long-distance relationship.

James lives in Chicago while his girlfriend Mattie lives in New York. We eavesdrop on their hurried lovemaking and awkward conversations in both cities and then quickly it’s a year later and they’ve broken up. The last half of the film deals with their unresolved feelings as they both want to make it work but know that it can’t. For anyone who’s ever been involved in a long-distance romance, much of this will ring true. Physical distance creates both intense longing and emotional blind spots. The film begins with them tearing each other’s clothes off at the beginning of a rare weekend together. But once that’s done, they spend the rest of the time trying not to deal with their impending separation. Though they promise to come up with a plan to be together, it never takes shape. The film is full of awkward silences and glances, as these inarticulate characters struggle to hold onto what they have. There is a tension throughout the film that gradually slackens into sadness, and in another sex scene near the end of the film that bookends the opening scene, both characters can’t keep their fatalism at bay long enough to consummate their desire. It’s an emotionally affecting scene, even in the absence of any particularly well-written dialogue.

According to Swanberg and Gerwig, a lot of the dialogue was improvised, and credit must be given to the skillful editing (also by Swanberg) for shaping this into a film with an emotional arc. Of all the “mumblecore” directors, I think Swanberg is the least concerned with filmmaking “flourishes”. His films are the least “arty” in my opinion. Instead he seems to aim for emotional authenticity and in this case, he has the perfect collaborator. Gerwig is the better actor (something Swanberg freely admits), and her mood changes effectively communicate her confusion and frustration in every scene. It doesn’t hurt that the camera adores her. Even the harshness of digital video cannot dim her natural beauty.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the intensely intimate sex scenes in the film. Though we never see James and Mattie actually having sex, there is plenty of nudity and foreplay on screen. When Hollywood films show people in sexual situations, you’re keenly aware that these are actors who probably don’t know each other very well, but here we have two real-life friends, co-writers and co-directors of the film, not only emotionally but physically naked in front of each other and the audience. It’s raw and brave and awkward all at the same time. I couldn’t help but wonder what Swanberg’s wife thought of all of this, though he’s featured this sort of matter-of-fact sexuality in all of his films.

In my review of his film LOL, I wondered (perhaps a little unfairly) what it would be like for Swanberg to work with “real” actors, but I think Gerwig is the real thing. Still, I’d like to see him stay behind the camera (preferably a 35mm film camera) and work with a fully-formed script next time. That being said, and although this film feels unpolished and slightly unfinished, Nights and Weekends contains moments of genuine emotional power.

Here is the Q&A with directors Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig from after the screening (and that’s Canada AM’s film critic Richard Crouse asking the first few questions) :


Duration: 25:49

Official site of the film

7/10(7/10)

The Last Pogo

Published
by
James McNally
on June 15, 2008
in Documentaries and Film Festivals
. 1 Comment

The Last Pogo

The Last Pogo (1978, Director: Colin Brunton): In 1978, I was too young to get into bars, but I was a huge fan of punk rock. Of course, at that young age, I thought it all came from England. It wasn’t until a year or two later that I got into a punk/rockabilly band from Hamilton called Teenage Head. But in 1978, they headlined a rather infamous gig at The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern on Queen Street West in Toronto. Concert promoters Gary Topp and Gary Cormier (”The Two Garys”) were well-known for promoting the best new music, and were booking punk bands into the Horseshoe from the beginning. But by December 1978, they’d lost the lease and were set to move to a new venue, the Edge. They decided to stage a going-away bash with all their favourite local bands, and The Last Pogo is the visual record of that wild night. Featuring The Scenics, The Cardboard Brains, The Mods, The Ugly, The Viletones, and Teenage Head, it was a legendary show which ended with the cops breaking up a near-riot. The film had not been screened theatrically in 30 years, so I was really looking forward to the screening (part of the annual North by Northeast Music and Film Festival), and Brunton had promised that several special guests would be in attendance.

On my way to the screening, I had to pass by the Much Music studios, which for some unknown reason were surrounded by screaming teenage girls. Queen Street was closed off and there was a stage set up as well. Before long, some band of scantily-clad women jumped onstage and sang some forgettable ditty while shaking their junk in perfectly choreographed time. It was ironic that on my way to see some punk history, I had to be subjected to some of the unspeakable horrors of popular music.

I took my seat at the NFB cinema behind a group of rowdy fifty-something punk ladies, who proceeded to hoot and howl all through the film itself. It was rather disturbing. The special guests included Dave Quinton who drummed for The Scenics and later for the Dead Boys, Vince Carlucci from The Cardboard Brains, and a few others, but alas, no one from Teenage Head. And the film itself, though a treasured document of the event, proved to be slightly disappointing. The reason is that as the concert wore on, the club reached and then exceeded its capacity, and just before Hamilton’s finest took the stage, they were notified that they were only permitted to play one song and then the police would be shutting the place down. Understandably, the place went nuts, and so the footage from their performance isn’t the greatest. I even think the audio is out of sync.

Interestingly enough, Teenage Head would be at the centre of another riot a few years later, and for the same reasons. When they played the Ontario Place Forum, hundreds of fans were locked out after the venue reached capacity, and the resulting riot caused the management of Ontario Place to ban rock concerts for many years. Luckily, I was prepared and had arrived early. It was one of only two times I saw the band live. The other was at my high school, and was forgettable because in my excitement, I’d consumed an entire mickey of rye, became separated from my friends, and peed my pants. I was so mortified that I ran home, missing most of the show.

In happier news, director Brunton has spent the past two years filming and editing an expanded version of the film, to be called The Last Pogo Jumps Again. He’s revisited many of the players from that night and I’m eagerly looking forward to the film’s release, tentatively planned for Hot Docs 2009. It was also through him that I found out that writer Liz Worth has written what looks to be the definitive history of punk in Toronto. Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond, 1976-1981 should be released this year. I’ve been wanting to write this book since reading Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s incredible Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, but at least now I’ll be able to read it.

After the screening, I was hoping there would be a Q&A with the director and maybe some of the participants, but no such luck. I was able to speak briefly with both Colin Brunton and Liz Worth, and hope to conduct some short email interviews with them in the next several months.

P.S. It seems strange that it was at this very time and place last year that I was seeing Nightclubbing, another document of those years which is being made into a longer retrospective documentary.

Official site of the film

7/10(7/10)

June 19-22: Generation DIY

Published
by
James McNally
on May 29, 2008
in Film Festivals, Special Events and Theatrical Release
. 1 Comment

Generation DIY

Ron Mann and Gary Topp’s Filmswelike is presenting “Generation DIY” from June 19-22 at the Bloor Cinema. This is perhaps the biggest collection of “mumblecore” films ever screened together in Toronto and I’m seriously excited about seeing a bunch of these, some for the second time (and all for the first time on a big screen). This is a no-brainer if you want to see what’s been happening in the American indie film scene over the past few years. Here’s the jam-packed lineup:

  • Nights and Weekends (dir. Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig)
  • Quiet City (dir. Aaron Katz) (review)
  • LOL (dir. Joe Swanberg) (review)
  • Frownland (dir. Ronald Bronstein)
  • Funny Ha Ha (dir. Andrew Bujalski)
  • Dance Party USA (dir. Aaron Katz) (review)
  • Four Eyed Monsters (dir. Aron Crumley and Susan Buice)
  • A Simple Midwest Story (dir. Blake Eckard)
  • Orphans (dir. Ry Russo-Young)
  • The Guatemalan Handshake (dir. Todd Rohal) (review)
  • The Death of Indie Rock (dir. Rob Fitl)
  • Backroad Blues (dir. Blake Eckard)
  • Mutual Appreciation (dir. Andew Bujalski)

Festival passes are just $25. Even better is that the mini-fest is travelling to Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver after its stop here.

Wild Combination

Published
by
James McNally
on May 25, 2008
in Documentaries, Film Festivals and Inside Out
. 1 Comment

Wild Combination

Wild Combination (2007, Director: Matt Wolf): Until about a year ago, I’d never heard of Arthur Russell. A classically-trained cellist who died at the age of 40 in 1992, Russell was in danger of falling into obscurity. But then something wonderful happened. Those closest to him began to re-release some of the music he created and suddenly a man who seemed out of his time while alive began to influence a new generation of musicians. The 2004 compilation Calling Out of Context is a good place to begin. It was around the time of that CD release that director Matt Wolf became familiar with Russell, and decided to make the film.

Russell was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa, but ran away to San Francisco while still in his teens, where he joined a Buddhist commune. It was in San Francisco that he made the acquaintance of Allen Ginsberg, and the two remained friends and collaborators for years to come. Russell soon followed Ginsberg to New York, where he soon become part of the artistic landscape at The Kitchen. Part of the avant-garde scene that included Philip Glass, Russell wrote and performed here regularly, often singing along with his cello-playing. It was during this period that Russell began to acknowledge his homosexuality, eventually meeting and falling in love with Tom Lee, who was (and remains) a tireless supporter of his work. His involvement in the gay scene introduced him to underground discotheques, and soon he was writing dance music under aliases such as Dinosaur L, Indian Ocean and Loose Joints. Though he achieved some modest commercial success with these records, he never really made a breakthrough, perhaps because his talent was too big to be confined to one type of music. The film features a generous selection of his work, and it ranges from avante-garde to dance to pop to folk rock, all of it accompanied by Russell’s utterly unique singing voice. He used his voice as another instrument but it gave all of his music a slightly odd quality, making it commercially unappealing at the time. It didn’t help that he was a perfectionist, rarely feeling that a record was “finished” and making it extremely difficult for him to take direction from others. Later in his life, he began to exhibit symptoms of paranoia, feeling that other musicians were stealing his ideas.

Matt Wolf has made an immersive film that rightfully foregrounds the music, often accompanying it with evocative scenes of the vast Iowa landscape that seems to have informed Russell’s work. Another musical theme was the expansiveness of water, and perhaps it was this desire for open space that led Russell to spend so much time on the Staten Island Ferry, scenes which Wolf has recreated by filming with vintage video cameras. I had a mixed reaction upon learning that so much of the “archival” footage in the film was recreated. As Wolf explains, there just wasn’t that much real archival footage to work with, but I think I would have preferred that the film itself carried some disclaimer that the footage wasn’t authentic instead of having to hear it from him in the Q&A. But don’t let that stop you from seeing the film. For those with some familiarity with Arthur Russell, it will fill in the picture behind the music, but more importantly, it will help you to introduce the work of this undisputed genius to your friends.

Here is the Q&A with director Matt Wolf from after the screening:


Duration: 13:43

Official site of the film
Teaser

8/10(8/10)

Second Sight

Published
by
Brooke Smith
on April 30, 2008
in Documentaries, Film Festivals and Hot Docs
. 2 Comments

Second Sight

Second Sight (2008, Director: Alison McAlpine): Through the wit and charm of near-80 Donald Angus MacLean, filmmaker Alison McAlpine explores the oral tradition in northern Scotland on the Isle of Skye. Donald “Angie” is quite a character, an entertaining rogue with an eye for the ladies and an ear for a good story. A former preacher, Donald drives around the town in his red car (his name written across the trunk), his dog in the passenger seat, visiting a few of the island’s even more entertaining characters. These residents reveal their stories of premonitions, spectres and ghost cars. Their ability to see what is unseen, known as second sight, is set against the hills, moors and mist that make up the island. However, these are not simply ghost stories—at least, that’s what the residents would have you believe. They tell their tales in earnest, retelling them as if what they witnessed happened only hours earlier. McAlpine certainly captures the overall eeriness of the subject while at the same time framing the beautiful landscape that is Scotland north. With a few laughs along the way, Second Sight will make you think twice about the things you cannot see.

Official site of the film

9/10(9/10)