Special Events

Reflections in the Hall of Mirrors: American Movies and the Politics of Idealism

by James McNally on December 20, 2011 · 0 comments

in Critics,Special Events

Kevin Courrier

Now before you think that I’m breaking out of my writer’s block with a ven­geance, based on that title, I’ll have to let you down ever so easily. It’s actu­ally the title of a really inter­esting film lec­ture series coming up at the Miles Nadal JCC. Each Monday night from January 16 through March 26, from 7:00 until about 9:00, critic and author Kevin Courrier (Critics at Large) is going to examine this meaty-sounding sub­ject with a selec­tion of film clips. The films under dis­cus­sion make this sound fascinating:

  • Monday January 16: The Kennedy Era (The Godfather, Part II, The Manchurian Candidate, JFK assas­sin­a­tion news coverage)
  • Monday January 23: The Johnson Era (Bonnie and Clyde, Dr. Strangelove, In the Heat of the Night, Cool Hand Luke, Night of the Living Dead, The Wild Bunch, Bullitt)
Midnight Cowboy
  • Monday January 30: The Nixon Era (Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider, Alice’s Restaurant, Dirty Harry, Billy Jack)
  • Monday February 6: The Carter Era (The Conversation, All the President’s Men, Taxi Driver, Winter Kills, Who’ll Stop the Rain, Nashville, Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, Star Wars)
  • Monday February 13: The Reagan Era (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Blow Out, Pennies from Heaven, Diner, The Border, The Survivors, Moscow on the Hudson, Under Fire)
  • Monday February 20: No class
  • Monday February 27: The Bush Era (Field of Dreams, True Believer)
Primary Colors
  • Monday March 5: The Clinton Era (Primary Colors, Forrest Gump, JFK, In the Line of Fire, Love Field, Three Kings, The Contender, Wag the Dog, The West Wing (TV))
  • Monday March 12: No class
  • Monday March 19: The GW Bush Era (We Were Soldiers, Tears of the Sun, The 25th Hour, Team America: World Police, Fahrenheit/Fahrenhype 9/11)
  • Monday March 26: The Obama Era (Rachel Getting Married, Definitely, Maybe, No Country for Old Men, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Hurt Locker, The Visitor)

Tickets are $12 for each class ($6 for stu­dents) or $100 for the entire series, and are avail­able in person at the Miles Nadal JCC inform­a­tion desk (750 Spadina Ave. at Bloor St.). Hope to see you there!

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Announcing Shorts That Are Not Pants!

by James McNally on December 14, 2011 · 0 comments

in Personal,Special Events

Shorts That Are Not Pants

I know things have been pretty quiet around here since my big philo­soph­ical post last month. And while I’m still exper­i­en­cing writer’s block when it comes to reviewing indi­vidual films, I haven’t been sit­ting around feeling sorry for myself. In fact, I’m busier than ever. In addi­tion to coordin­ating the second edi­tion of the CAST Awards (look for an announce­ment early in the new year), I’ve decided to take my long-gestating idea for a shorts screening public.

I’ve always enjoyed short films, but seeing them out­side of fest­ivals has never been easy. In fact, even at fest­ivals, they’re usu­ally bundled together in unprom­ising sounding pack­ages like “Canadian Shorts 1″ or “Programme 6.” And the problem at the spec­tac­ular Worldwide Short Film Festival, where they group the films them­at­ic­ally, is just over­load. I’ve always wanted to curate a reg­ular pro­gram of films that would be some­thing like a mix­tape, and in 2009, I started doing it on a small scale.

I’d been a huge fan of Wholphin, a DVD “magazine” of short films from the people behind McSweeney’s, ever since the first one came out in 2005. By 2009, I was still amazed that hardly anyone I knew had heard of it, so I decided to screen a selec­tion of films for a small group of friends at my apart­ment. It was a hit, and not only because of the cup­cakes my wife thought­fully provided. After run­ning a few more of these nights, I wanted to share my enthu­siasm and some great films with the rest of the city. Starting last winter, I began researching venues and licensing fees and pos­sible part­ners, and I’m very happy to announce that we’re finally launching!

On January 13, 2012, at 7pm, Shorts That Are Not Pants will screen our inaug­ural pro­gram of inter­na­tional and Canadian shorts at the NFB Mediatheque (150 John St. at Richmond). I’ll refer you to the site for more details, but I sin­cerely hope you’ll join us at the start of this new adventure.

My plan is to make this a quarterly event, and we hope to be working with a variety of part­ners. For the first screening, we’re showing the entirety of the Future Shorts Pop Up Festival lineup, as well as a couple of won­derful anim­ated Canadian shorts from the National Film Board. But I’m excited by the fact that there is such a wealth of great material out there that has either never been screened before in Toronto, or was buried amongst hun­dreds of other films at fest­ivals. I’m looking for­ward to dis­cov­ering and sharing films with you, live and on the big screen. Hopefully we’ll even get a group together after the screen­ings to dis­cuss the films over a drink. Short films are worthy of your atten­tion, and I hope to demon­strate that to a larger audi­ence than just the dozen I’ve been cram­ming into my apart­ment. I hope you’ll join us!

You can buy tickets for just $8 in advance. At the door, tickets will be $10, or $5 if you’re crazy enough to show up in shorts. Even if you can’t make it and want to sup­port the series, buy a ticket and just let me know that’s your inten­tion. Of course, men­tioning us on Twitter (follow us here), Facebook (we have a page) or any­where else online or off would be helpful, too. I’m cer­tainly not hoping to make money on this, but it would be great if I didn’t lose too much. :)

Tagged as: shorts

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Waiting for the End of the World: Lars von Trier Retrospective at TIFF Bell Lightbox

by James McNally on November 9, 2011 · 0 comments

in Cinematheque,Directors,Special Events,Theatrical Release,TIFF

Waiting for the End of the World: Lars von Trier Retrospective at TIFF Bell Lightbox

Years before he was per­sona non grata at the Cannes Film Festival, I dis­covered the films of Danish “bad boy” Lars von Trier at the old Cinematheque Ontario. So it’s fit­ting that the folks behind the Cinematheque are bringing a mini-retrospective of his work to their new digs at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Beginning tonight and run­ning through November 19, six of von Trier’s earlier films will be shown as a sort of appet­izer for his latest, Melancholia, which opens on Friday November 18.

Melancholia (2011)
Still from Melancholia (2011)

Though I’m dis­ap­pointed with the omis­sions, both obvious (no Antichrist?) and not-so-obvious (The Kingdom would have been per­fect run­ning over a few nights, and Epidemic seems not to be shown much), I’m most excited to revisit the (lit­er­ally) dark early films that were my intro­duc­tion to his work. The Element of Crime (1984) is a sort of police pro­ced­ural, with a prot­ag­onist who prac­tic­ally goes mad trying to track down a serial killer in a post-apocalyptic and dream­like envir­on­ment that just might be the inside of his own head. And Europa (1991), the very first of von Trier’s films I saw, which fol­lows a naive young American working as a porter on a very strange train in post-World War 2 Germany. Both films are drip­ping with style, evoc­ative images, and dark, dream­like plots.

The Element of Crime (1984)
Still from The Element of Crime (1984)

I’d also like to finally see The Idiots and Dogville, both of which seemed reli­ably pro­voc­ative when I saw clips during Adam Nayman’s excel­lent class earlier this year at the Jewish Canadian Cultural Centre.

Europa (1991)
Still from Europa (1991)

Here are the details for the schedule. Don’t forget that in addi­tion to the ret­ro­spective, you can see Melancholia begin­ning Friday November 18.

  • Breaking the Waves (1996) — Wednesday November 9, 6:30pm
  • The Element of Crime (1984) — Friday November 11, 6:30pm
  • Europa (1991) — Saturday November 12, 8:00pm and Thursday November 17, 9:15pm
  • Dogville (2003) — Wednesday November 16, 6:30pm
  • Dancer in the Dark (2000) — Friday November 18, 6:00pm
  • The Idiots (1998) — Saturday November 19, 8:00pm

As always, tickets are avail­able online.

Tagged as: denmark, larsvontrier, lightbox

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Hollywood Classics: The Cinema Is Nicholas Ray at TIFF Bell Lightbox

by James McNally on September 29, 2011 · 2 comments

in Cinematheque,Directors,Special Events,Theatrical Release,TIFF

Hollywood Classics: The Cinema <em>Is</em> Nicholas Ray at TIFF Bell Lightbox

From October 2nd through December 13th, TIFF Bell Lightbox will present a ret­ro­spective of the work of icon­o­clastic American dir­ector Nicholas Ray (1911–1979). It’s a full-scale exhib­i­tion in honour of the cen­tenary of Ray’s birth, and will con­tinue into the new year with another selec­tion of his work.

Ray was a unique char­acter, making per­sonal films about ali­en­ated youth and vul­ner­able people within the Hollywood studio system. Perhaps best known for his work with James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Ray had been exploring the same themes from the very begin­ning of his career. His first fea­ture, They Live By Night (1948), fea­tured two naïve young lovers on the run from the law; it was remade by Robert Altman as Thieves Like Us (1974) and was a huge influ­ence on Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973). Other career high­lights screening during the series:

  • In A Lonely Place (1950): Humphrey Bogart gives one of his best per­form­ances as a man accused of murder who finds love but sees it des­troyed by his self-loathing rage.
  • On Dangerous Ground (1952): Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino star in this noirish tale of the trans­forming power of love.
  • Bigger Than Life (1956): a Technicolor marvel fea­turing James Mason in a ter­ri­fying turn as a bene­volent teacher trans­formed by the side effects of a drug treatment.
  • Bitter Victory (1957): an anti-heroic war film set in the North African desert during World War II, the film pits two British officers against each other in the after­math of a love triangle.

Ray’s focus on out­siders, on the lonely and mis­un­der­stood mis­fits in our midst, was ahead of its time, and has endeared him to modern dir­ectors like Jim Jarmusch (who studied under him at NYU in the 1970s), Martin Scorsese, and many of the fig­ures of the French New Wave, most not­ably Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. It was Godard who, in his review of Bitter Victory, provided the quo­ta­tion that forms the title of the series:

There was theatre (Griffith), poetry (Murnau), painting (Rossellini), dance (Eisenstein), music (Renoir). Henceforward there is cinema. And the cinema is Nicholas Ray.

Tickets for all screen­ings are now avail­able to order online.

Tagged as: lightbox, nicholasray

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Masks and Faces: The Films of John Cassavetes at TIFF Bell Lightbox

by James McNally on July 6, 2011

in Cinematheque,Directors,Special Events,Theatrical Release,TIFF

John Cassavetes

From July 14–31, TIFF Bell Lightbox is presenting a ret­ro­spective of the work of pion­eering American inde­pendent film­maker John Cassavetes (1929–1989). It’s the first time in 20 years that such a major exhib­i­tion of Cassavetes’ work has taken place in Toronto.

Beginning his career as an actor with roles on stage as well as on tele­vi­sion and film (including a mem­or­able turn as Mia Farrow’s hus­band in Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby), Cassavetes always chafed against the strictly eco­nomic focus of the studio system, and was one of the first film­makers to fin­ance, make and exhibit his films out­side the existing infra­struc­ture of the Hollywood movie busi­ness. Working with a small group of col­lab­or­ators and friends, including his wife Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes made a handful of films that have had an enduring influ­ence on American film­making, including the work of dir­ectors as dif­ferent as Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.

I am eagerly looking for­ward to cor­recting yet another blind spot in my know­ledge of American film his­tory, espe­cially since Cassavetes’ obses­sion with char­ac­ters rather than plots is right up my alley. In many of his films, his char­ac­ters are ordinary people facing dif­fi­cult situ­ations or at major turning points in their lives. He also chose to work with actors who looked and spoke like reg­ular people, using his friend­ships to chal­lenge them to dig deeper and to give some of their rawest and most direct per­form­ances. Some of his reg­ular col­lab­or­ators (Peter Falk, Seymour Cassel) are among my favourite actors, and I’m espe­cially looking for­ward to seeing the recently-departed Falk light up the screen again.

Tickets are avail­able online for the entire series, including a very spe­cial con­ver­sa­tion with Gena Rowlands on July 14th at 6:30pm. She will also intro­duce her Oscar-nominated per­form­ance in A Woman Under the Influence (1974) at 8:45pm that evening, as well as Cassavetes’ second fea­ture Faces (1968) on Friday July 15th at 6:30pm. More inform­a­tion on the series is avail­able on the TIFF Bell Lightbox site.

Tagged as: cassavetes, independent, lightbox

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