Guillermo del Toro has long been one of my favourite story-tellers even though he makes movies that, technically, I shouldn’t care to see. He operates mostly within genres – horror and fantasy being his favourite, and generally, my least favourite. But I’ve been drawn in by the visual spectacle. There is beauty in everything he creates. It sparks my imagination, as it so clearly springs from his. Sean hasn’t seen as much of his catalogue as I have but I hesitate to rewatch them with him because to be honest, lots of his movies have genuinely scared me. It’s not the monsters or the horror that’s scary, it’s del Toro’s excellent world-building. You can get lost in the details, and that’s what haunts me. These fabulous details really fuck with me: anyone can create a monster, but when that monster has a horrifying little trinket on a shelf in his cave, that thing whispers to me, sticks with me.
Del Toro grew up in Mexico, raised by a strict Catholic grandmother who tried to exorcise him (twice) because of the monsters that sprang from his pen. Sean and I were 
in Toronto this weekend where the Art Gallery of Ontario is hosting a special exhibit on Guillermo del Toro called At Home With Monsters. Del Toro’s visual panache extends well outside the bounds of his film making. The themes that so often crop up in his movies appeal to him in his real life as well: religion, death, magic and alchemy, gods and monsters, insects and their symbolism, gothic detailing. He’s obsessed with Charles Dickens, Frankenstein, and macabre art – so much so that when his collection overwhelmed his home, he bought two more just to house the stuff. Adjoining the two houses, which he calls Bleak House, it has become a museum of sorts, stuffed to the gills with every crazy thing that’s ever inspired him. And now he’s curated from among his pieces and sent them out into the world for the rest of us to enjoy and think over. The exhibit comprises some 400 pieces – just 10% of his collection, but still more vast than I had anticipated, and it includes story boards, props, and costumes from his movies. It runs in Toronto until January 7th so you should really check it out if you can. If you can’t, you can try to console yourself with just a small sampling below.
Del Toro based the Pale Man’s face on the underside of a manta ray – as a kid he found the fish’s tiny mouth and nostril slits frightening. In Pan’s Labyrinth, the Pale Man consumes fairies and children, but in today’s political climate del Toro sees his creation as an example of predatory white male supremacy. Just after the 2017 US Presidential inauguration, he tweeted “The Pale Man represents all institutional evil feeding on the helpless. It’s not accidental that he is a) Pale b) a Man He’s thriving now”
There’s also a piece about how del Toro believes that simply moving the eyes creates a monster. It gave me shivers: he’s not wrong, is he?
Kate Hawley did the wonderful costumes for Crimson Peak. Her team spent 8 weeks on the leaf motif of Jessica Chastain’s blue dress alone. Period pieces are always a challenge, but for this movie, with del Toro always wanting more more more, every piece had to be created from scratch, often taking inspiration and silhouettes from real life vintage pieces but being made more dramatic, with more fabric and volume than would have been historically accurate, strictly speaking.
This you may recognize as the Angel of Death from Hellboy II: The Golden Angel. Again
del Toro has simply moved the eyes to instantly create monstrosity. We learn as babies to expect two eyes, and when we don’t find them where they should be, it’s instantly disorienting. He drew inspiration from the archangels of medieval manuscripts, which had eyes on the feathers of their wings. The Angel of Death has a bony faceplate and misplaced eyes, making it literally blind to human suffering – the opposite of what we think a ‘guardian’ angel should be, which throws us off balance. Del Toro is really, really good at that. He defies and challenges our expectations.
Wooden puppets created by Simon Verela for The Book of Life. Guillermo del Toro’s works are always about death in one way or another, and his dead characters don’t often stay dead. But The Book of Life is actually a celebration of life, and a vibrant tribute to Mexican folklore.
Yes, that enormous Frankenstein head really does usually hang in the entrance of Guillermo del Toro’s home. Frankenstein is his favourite movie monster and his memorabilia is plentiful. “Frankenstein, to me, is instrumental in the way I see the world…It is the essential narrative of the fall of man into an imperfect world by an uncaring creator.”
The Faun, from Pan’s Labyrinth, was inspired by del Toro’s recurring childhood dream (nightmare?) of a goat-faced figure who slowly emerged from behind his armoire. In the film, the Faun is intended as neither good nor evil, like nature, he is there to witness but has no agenda – he literally doesn’t care whether Ofelia lives or dies.
These are part of a distinctly sad collection in the exhibit – concept art from a movie that never got made. HP Lovecraft has always been a huge inspiration in everything that del Toro does, and he spent a decade adapting Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness for the screen. In fact he and his studios have created over 400 pieces of art, part of the pitch they presented over and over to studios, who have rejected his wish for an R-rated tentpole horror with no love story or happy ending (even with Tom Cruise and James Cameron on board to produce). With Oscar buzzing around his The Shape of Water, will del Toro’s At The Mountains of Madness finally get made, or will this always be the one that got away?
Anything here look familiar? Aside from his influences, this exhibit covers all of Guillermo del Toro’s movies except his most recent. Which ones can you identify?
Pixar’s Coco is about a little boy who crosses into the colourful Land of the Dead in order to resolve a family issue. To celebrate this movie’s release, and to learn a little more about the culture behind it, I visited local makeup artist Tammy Fonseca, and had my own transformation into a Catrina.
keeping the old ways alive and vibrant in their culture today. So when we watch a movie like Coco, or the similarly-themed 
The very first film to be shown at the festival in 1932 was Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A couple of years later they made it competitive, offering up the “Mussolini Cup” for best foreign film and best Italian film. [As you can guess, the festival underwent some bumpy times. Prior to 1938, political pressures distorted the festival. In the 1940s, there was pretty much a monopoly by movies and directors from the Rome-Berline Axis. But by 1946, things were back on track, the Mussolini Cup renamed once the dictator was ousted.] More recently, the prize takeaway is a Golden Lion (Leone d’Oro) for the best film screened in competition; the Silver Lion (Leone d’Argento) awarded to the best director; and Volpi Cups (Coppa Volpi) for best actor and actress. These are awarded via jury, this year presided by Annette Bening. Bening will be supported by Baby Driver director Edgar Wright; British actress Rebecca Hall; Hungarian filmmaker Ildiko Enyedi; Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco; French actress Anna Mouglalis; film critic David Stratton; Italian actress Jasmine Trinca; and 
Taiwan-born filmmaker Yonfan. John Landis will preside a jury judging the virtual reality competition. He’s also debuting something of his own – a 3D version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller (also screening at TIFF).
Actually, the programming is such that there are tonnes of not-to-be-missed films, including Netflix’s Our Souls At Night. Its stars, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, will be receiving Lifetime Achievement Golden Lions at the September 1st screening.
Spider-Man: Homecoming Virtual Reality Experience released last weekend on PS4 (it’s also available on PC).
Born Norma Jeane Mortenson June 1, 1926, Norma Jeane was not her mother, Gladys’s, first child, but she was the only one in her care at the time. Norma Jeane’s father is unknown as her mother would never reveal his name. Norma Jeane was raised by foster parents as a baby, though her mother also lived with them. Feeling strong, Gladys bought a small home for herself an
d for Norma Jeane and they lived there happily for a time. Gladys had tried her hand at acting but was now working at a movie studio as a film negative cutter. She was schizophrenic and had a very bad crack up, leaving her permanently hospitalized and Norma Jeane back in foster care. She bounced around from home to home, even spending time in an orphanage.
named James “Jim” Dougherty. It wasn’t a love match and though she wasn’t unhappy, she wasn’t happy either. The two had little to say to each other, but Norma Jeane dropped out of high school and seemed to enjoy being a housewife. In In 1943, Dougherty enlisted in the Merchant Marine. When he went over to the Pacific a year later, she moved in with his parents and went to work for the war effort at the Radioplane Munitions Factory.
discovered. David Conover, taking ‘morale boosting’ photos of female workers came across her dark curls and brilliant smile. He persuaded her to defy her husband and her in-laws: she moved out and became a model. Her voluptuous body unsuitable for fashion modelling, she was featured instead as a pin-up in men’s calendars and magazines. She was told to straighten her hair and dye it blonde to be more employable.
Dougherty, who was against her having a career. She took acting, singing, and dancing classes, but had only a couple of roles with almost no lines between them. After the end of 2 terms, the studio dropped her. But the guy she was sleeping with, a Fox executive, persuaded someone over at Columbia to give her a try, and eventually they did, styling her after Rita Hayworth. Her hairline was raised by electrolysis (!) and her hair lightened even further, to platinum. She starred in a low-budget musical called Ladies of the Chorus, which was released to no fanfare. She had an affair with her vocal coach, who paid to have her overbite corrected. Her contract was once again not renewed.
gained her public sympathy but cemented her status as a sex symbol. She followed it up with a very revealing dress as the Grand Marshal at the Miss America Pageant parade, and by telling gossip columnists that she wore no underwear. Joe DiMaggio saw pictures of the “it girl” and insisted they go out. She tried a couple of meatier roles that year: a fish cannery worker in Clash By Night, and a mentally deranged babysitter in Don’t Bother To Knock. Her other roles were more typecast: a beauty pageant contestant in We’re Not Married! served as an excuse to film Marilyn in not one but TWO bathing suits; a dumb blonde secretary opposite Cary Grant in Monkey Business; and a prostitute in Full House. 
terribly bullied and harassed by directors and male colleagues. This is when she started using barbiturates and amphetamines.
clinch her on-screen person as the “dumb blonde.” That role was supposed to go to Betty Grable, Fox’s previous blonde bombshell, but Marilyn had eclipsed her. How To Marry a Millionaire was more of the same, and a huge box office success.
he used a photo from that Miss America Pageant on the cover, and one of her 1949 nude photos as the centrefold.
picking up Photoplay’s “Most Popular Female Star” prize. She settled with the studio in March; she got a new contract, the starring role in The Seven Year Itch, and a bonus of $100,000. To generate buzz for this movie, they staged a filming of a scene on Lexington Avenue in New York. You know the one: she’s standing on a subway grate with air blowing up her white dress. She did that for several hours, attracting a big crowd with lots of professional photographers. The stunt infuriated DiMaggio, and they split just 9 months after marrying.
Itch. The press brutally ridiculed her for this move, and she was parodied in Itch screenwriter George Axelrod’s Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, about a Monroe lookalike (played by Jayne Mansfield) dumb blonde actress who starts her own production company.
an actress and box office success despite its departure from her sexy comedies. She won a Golden Globe for her performance. For MMP she did The Prince and The Showgirl, with Laurence Olivier starring and directing. He’d originated the role on the stage, opposite Vivien Leigh. Monroe and Olivia clashed on set: he wanted her to take Leigh’s lead, and condescendingly told her all she had to do was “be sexy.” Her drug use escalated; she miscarried during filming. She took an 18 month hiatus to concentrate on marriage but had two more failed pregnancies.
success at the box office, though more recently it has earned critical respect. In 1961 she had surgery for her endometriosis and a cholecystectomy, and spent 4 weeks in hospital, including a sting in the psych ward for depression. DiMaggio helped her out, and she dated Frank Sinatra for a while. In 1962 she was back on set for Something’s Got To Give, but came down with sinusitis, delaying production. Despite having several doctors corroborate the illness, Fox alleged publicly that she was faking. In May she sang Happy Birthday to JFK at Madison Square Garden. Back at work, the studio invited photographers on set for a scene in which she would swim nude. The photos were published in Life magazine, a major shift from the studio’s earlier policy about nude pics. But when she got sick again, Fox fired her from the movie and sued for $750 000 in damages (they were barely afloat making 
Cleopatra, which was way overbudget). Fox told the press that she was mentally unstable. Of course Fox quickly realized this was a stupid idea and re-opened negotiations to get her back onboard the film. She tried to repair her image by posing for a Vogue photographer – those photos would be published posthumously in a spread called The Last Sitting.
Ralph Greenson on August 5, 1962. The housekeeper had woken up during the night and when no one answered when she knocked at Marilyn’s door, she summoned the doctor. Her death was ruled a suicide, the drugs in her system several times over the lethal limit. Joe DiMaggio arranged her funeral service.
Anytime you get a chance to watch Alien with Sir Ridley Scott, you take it. How great is it that we got that chance? Even better, Scott was not alone. He brought Alien: Covenant footage with him, as well as Covenant stars Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride, and Michael Fassbender. An entertaining Q&A took place after the bulk of the new footage. We didn’t learn any big secrets but it’s obvious that all three actors were thrilled to have had the chance to work with Scott, particularly McBride who joked that his parents were thrilled he was finally making a real movie.
The new footage proves that Scott is not afraid to rip himself off, and that’s great news as far as I’m concerned. You would expect Alien: Covenant to bear at least a passing resemblance to Alien (as the former’s purpose, aside from making tons of money, is to bridge the gap between Prometheus and the original quadrilogy. But the similarities are greater than that, they’re intentional callbacks to the original. That made the footage from Covenant FEEL like Alien, as it took us to the same places that Alien did, only now we know what’s going to happen (and what has to happen). Scott delivers on his setups with glee, letting us know he’s right there with us. A facehugger scene featuring Billy Crudup was especially awesome. It’s a good bet there will be more moments like that in the footage still to come.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 