Category Archives: Jay

Movie Inspired Halloween Costumes

I adore the movie Up and have nothing but warm fuzzy feelings for these costume ideas – particularly loving the baby as the grumpy old guy. Bowties are awesome.

Wes Anderson costumes? I can’t even. I love how binoculars are NOT optional in these ones inspired by Moonrise Kingdom.

Kinda love the Fantastic Mr. Fox ones, but really, how long would I last in a fox head? And how would I eat all the cheese ball?

This is the sweetest little Edward Scissorhands I’ve ever seen. I love the plastic knives!

Zomg, love this! Genius to put baby Marty McFly into his DeLorean…and now you’ve taken care of the problem of this kid not being up for much walking at the same time! Way to go, parent who spent a whole lot of time on this!

Seriously, this kid probably has no idea who he is for Halloween but it’ll get a smile from all the grown-ups.

This The Shining costume is pretty inspired, and he does have a passing resemblance to Jack Nicholson, don’t you think?

I admire the commitment of this Corpse Bride. But doesn’t she look kind of sad?

This group of gals has pretty ably recreated the cover photo of Bridesmaids. That’s a lot of pink dresses! Think they also wore them to prom?

I totally approve of this Wilson costume from Castaway. Now all you need is the perfect accessory – an emaciated Tom Hanks (also: brownie points for a woman in a non-slutty costume!).

I only know enough about Harry Potter to say this must be a reference to one of those movies. The three-headed dog is a nice touch if your pooch will allow such an indignity.

Wayne & Garth have never looked so cute.

So I’m dying. We were obsessed with Labyrinth growing up. I like that she even has a David Bowie. Swoon.

Does this take the cuteness cake? Who you gonna call?

Ghostbusters!

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Do you think these kids have any idea who Napoleon Dynamite even is? That movie came out before they were born! You used to only be able to do this to dogs because kids have minds of their own, but I guess now it’s fair game to dress your kids to suit your own in-jokes. Speaking of which…

I want to believe that this dog is a really big fan of The Little Mermaid.

In a perfect world, I would have had my dogs suit up in Pixar’s Inside Out costumes. It’s fairly easy to dole out the characters: Gertie would of course be Joy, because she has a constant heart of happiness. Herbie would be Anger because he’s the boss and he relishes being surly. Fudgie would be fear because he’s such a neurotic little guy. And Bronx would be sadness because although he’s actually a bubbly, playful guy, he has weirdly sad eyes. Which leaves Disgust for yours truly (a fitting moniker, I assure you) and Sean could be Bing Bong, the big guy who smells like cotton candy. But the truth is, you might also call me Lazy and Inept because I could never get my shit together in order to pull that off. So here are my guys in their store-bought costumes.

This cowpoke is Herbie. He’s the alpha but he leads mostly benignly.

Herbie is aloof but he puts on a good show for company. He’s also a closet cuddle bug. Gertie, on the other hand, is very up-front about wanting to get close to you. You can’t escape the kisses.

She’s definitely our princess – the unicorn costume she didn’t pull off quite as convincingly. She was a bit too fluffy, which is a constant challenge for our gray girl.

Fudgie wasn’t very into being a shark either. Although, to be fair, Halloween makes Fudgie very tired. Too tired to be a very menacing dragon.

He did make a pretty cute pirate though. He’s one of those super happy fun-time pirates that you hear so much about.

And this is Bronx. See what I mean about his eyes? Saddest chicken ever. Or maybe it’s because he knows he’s wearing a hand me down.

So what was your best Halloween costume? Any famous movie characters?

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You

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Rock The Kasbah: a has-been (never was?) agent (Billy Murray) decides to cash in on his one remaining client (Zooey Deschanel) and have her tour the USO circuit in Afghanistan. A panic attack has her taking off with his cash and passport, which means he’s stuck in the middle east with his thumb up his ass. He meets a number of expats – Scott Caan and Danny McBride are war profiteers, Kate Hudson is a very profitable hooker, and Bruce Willis is “Bombay Brian” – but none are overly helpful (unless you count being hog-tied in a Marilyn Monroe wig, which I don’t) and some are down right exploitative. But then he comes across big talent (Leem Lubany) in a small cave in Kabul, and convinces her to seek fame and fortune on Afghan Star (their American Idol). The only problem: women in her culture are forbidden to sing, or to even remove the face covering that would allow her to do so. Critics are savaging this as a one-note performance and I suppose they’re right. I kinda loved it though. I love Bill Murray, and I liked Kate Hudson very much in this too. I wish we could have seen more of Deschanel but Lubany was such an interesting discovery I couldn’t help but root for her.

Zooey Deschanel interviews Palestinian co-star Leem Lubany here.

Our Brand is Crisis: Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton play fictionalized versions of American political analysts brought in to help rival parties during a Bolivian presidential election (based on a true story and a documentary of the same name). This movie goes straight to a cynic’s heart, not even bothering to pretend that politics are remotely about doing good or making change, or that elections are the will of the people. They have no respect for the electorate they manipulate so easily. I’m not always crazy about Bullock but she’s better in this than I’ve seen her before. Her talents are harnessed effectively, her comedic timing not wasted on idiotic movies nobody would ever watch if it wasn’t for cross-Atlantic flights (and this role was converted for her – it was originally intended for man). That said, there’s a little something lacking in Our Brand is Crisis. It’s not biting enough. You can’t make a political satire and then go limp.

Burnt: the Assholes were busy dancing with Dan Aykroyd so we passed our screener tickets along to a couple of conscripted assholes, Justin and Ben. When I asked Justin what he thought about the movie, about a nasty chef played by Bradley Cooper, he said “It was good.” So what do you think? Does he have what it takes to become a permanent Asshole? When prodded for further detail, he called it “decent”, which in a way is a win because half of all of Justin’s movie reviews consist of him making the retching throw up sound, but it’s also a loss because what he means is: it’s fine. If you’re curious to see Cooper play an asshole, then rent it when it comes out on DVD, but don’t waste your money on this one.

Tips for Surviving Horror Movies if You’re A Chickenshit Like Me

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October is a very divisive month: to scary movie, or not to scary movie. Some people just don’t tolerate horror very well, but it’s hard to avoid this time of year. So for those of you who would otherwise spend the whole time breathing noisily while staring at your shoes, may I suggest:

1.Stress eat. Forgo the popcorn, that’s too easy to eat mindlessly. You need something to really sink your teeth into. Try veggies and humus, that’s a little more difficult to navigate, and will give you something to focus on. Or a cheese ball with crackers, so long as the crackers are tough enough to withstand your anxious spreading maneuvers.

2. Pour yourself a generous rum & Diet Pepsi. The rum will slowly relax you, and the caffeine will make your bladder spastic – bathroom breaks are a great excuse to avoid a particularly gruesome scene. While on a fake bathroom break, use your phone to look up cute pictures of puppies getting into trouble.

3. Play a game for distraction. I find that Simpsons Tapped Out works best, and they’ve got a lovely Halloween event on now where you can tap zombies, snakes and skeletons for rewards. Plants VS Zombies has also worked for me. What’s key is picking a game that you can play quietly, and where you can afford quick, furtive glances up at the screen to see if they’re still getting murdered as fuck up there.

4. Sing a little song to yourself. Or sing a loud song to everyone. Why can’t the Saw franchise be a musical? Narrate what’s happening on screen in your best opereto.

5. Watch the movie as if you’re the editor and it’s your job to find all the mistakes. The more low-budget this horror is, the more you’ll find.

For instance, in the movie Halloween, when Michael attacks the nurse outside the sanitorium, he smashes through her car window. If you watch carefully, you can see a little wrench taped to his glove, which allowed the actor to easily break the glass.

In Dawn of the Dead, a zombie gets hit by a truck and goes flying, but astute viewers can pick out the mini trampoline that helped create the effect – boiiiiiiiiing! See? Not scary! He’s just a grown man in a silly costume jumping on a too-small trampoline, and failing to hide it from you.

6. Think about the makeup lady who’s just out of shot right now, waiting on set to touch up the blood or bits of brain. She’s got a little toolbox full of bloody cotton balls and bone fragments she made out of styrofoam last night while watching reruns of Seinfeld and smoking unfiltered cigarettes. She’s forgetful, this makeup lady, so if you pay close attention, you’ll often see that a slash to the right cheek becomes a slash to the left, and then flips back again. Now imagine the director yelling cut, and this poor fool trying to order a Whopper at Burger King with this hideous makeup. Do you think he wants fries with that? Or imagine, if you will, a small child visiting Mum on set between takes, and licking the blood right off her neck, because that shit’s almost pure corn syrup. Someone’s going to have to clean this mess up afterward, and be grateful it’s not you.

There are plenty of makeup mistakes to spot here as well. In The Exorcist, you may find that the little girl shakes her head back and forth a lot while she’s possessed, poor thing, but this causes her hair to move and expose her pretty pink ear lobes – oops! Guess the makeup team didn’t think we’d see them. They remain unpainted, and apparently, unpossessed.

7. Protect your face. Something feeling scary? Put your hands to your face, shield your eyes, then spread your fingers ever-so-slightly. Not too much. Just let in a little light. Feeling okay? Spread em a little wider. Can you see glimpses of the screen? It’s much more manageable this way. You can probably find at least one small section of a body that’s not currently getting ax-murdered. Fixate on that. Foreboding music starting to build? Slam those fingers shut again!

8. Do a project. Have a colouring book on the go, or do some ironing. I like to give Sean back massages, because it keeps my brain half-occupied and also, he’s much bigger than me, and blocks my view. If you’re actually at the theatre, see how many times you can fold a paper napkin from the concession stand, or count the seconds between screams. Anything for distraction!

9. Have a therapy dog on hand. A small dog who will cuddle works best. A small dog who can hold your hand on command is even better. Remember: nothing bad can happen if a puppy is kissing your ear.

10. If all else fails, remember that no matter how many bite-sized pieces she’s currently getting chopped into, this actress makes it. Eventually she left work for the day. She had to shampoo her hair twice to get all the sticky fake blood out. She went shopping for Monistat to treat her yeast infection. She stalked her ex-boyfriend on Facebook. And then she stood naked in front of a mirror wondering where she went wrong in life.

So that’s how you watch a movie like a wuss. It’s not pretty but it gets the job done. How about you – are you blood-lusty, or do you whimper your way through? What techniques work for you?

Inside Out Film Festival

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Not to be confused with the latest Pixar offering, Inside Out is a not-for-profit film festival that runs in both Toronto and Ottawa and showcases movies from around the world that are made by or about the LGBT community. Access to queer cinema is a big draw in the community, as evidenced by a packed house at the Bytowne and the enthusiastic applause that ended the night. Inside Out screened The Girl King earlier this week, which you may know we took in a few days ago at another film festival. That’s right. We hit up two film festivals this weekend alone.

We did catch a screening of Fourth Man Out, about a small-town car mechanic who comes out to his best friends on his 24th birthday. They promise him that their relationship won’t change…famous last words. Because things fucking change. Of course they do. The quartet of young actors are great together, but I’m not going to call this a bromance because I think that word cheapens and mocks friendship between men. They are good friends, and Adam’s coming out does mark a big transition for the group – although it’s someone on the outside who has to remind them that this is not really about how hard it is for them. The movie is legitimately funny and accessible, but as Matt pointed out, feels a bit dated. “It’s okay that our friend is gay” feels like something that should have been made 15 years ago, and if it’s taken this long for a movie like this to get made, that’s a sad commentary indeed and even more justification for festivals like this to exist.

Another movie that we haven’t begun to talk about yet is Mississippi Grind, which Sean and I saw at the New Hampshire Film Festival (a third festival, but that was last week, keep up!). Mississippi Grind is about a chronic gambler (Ben Mendelsohn) who meets a human good luck charm, or so he believes (Ryan Reynolds), who bankrolls his new loser buddy on a redemptive road trip. They scheme to travel the country together raking in the big bucks, but let’s remember that gambling is a serious addiction, and these people never know when to quit, and, voila: you know this isn’t going to get a happy ending. Ben Mendelsohn is great, and as much as I loved him in Animal Kingdom, it’s nice to see him in such a nuanced role; he seems quite comfortable straddling the line between pathetic and hopeful. Ryan Reynolds is at his best, which is nowhere near what Mendelsohn is doing, but he’s in his comfort zone so this odd pairing works on a strictly chemistry level. The script is loose and leisurely, maybe too leisurely for its genre, but I enjoyed its unpredictability and defiance of the expected arc.

Where Better to See Swedish Films than Upstate New York?

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The St. Lawrence International Film Festival is nothing if not ambitious. It’s hosting movies in four different cities this weekend, in two different countries: Ottawa and Brockville in Ontario, Canada, and Canton and Potsdam in New York state, USA. This is its inaugural run and it has not been without wrinkles. The website and handbook tend to disagree an awful lot. On Friday night we took in a movie that was slated to run until 9:06pm, according to the internet, which meant that a second movie at 9pm was a no-go. The program told a different story and indeed we were out by 8:40 and could have made the other film. We saw another instead. The next day the internet had us at Snell Theatre at SUNY college when in fact the movie was in another auditorium altogether. We discovered this mistake before it was fatal, but the run-time was again amiss (and it didn’t help that they started late) so we missed our next movie. When you’re asking people to travel to different countries, which in fact we had, it’s a long way to go to be disappointed. Fortunately, this festival has been a lot more than just its mistakes. We already told you about the fabulous opening night gala with Dan Aykroyd at Gatineau’s beautiful Canadian Museum of History. where we screened an anniversary edition of Blues Brothers but guess what – we actually saw some movies that are not older me!

At the American Theater Canton, NY:

The Girl King: tells the incredible (true) story of Kristina, Queen of Sweden since age 6 (roughly 17th century, I believe), who fought against the conservative values and religion of the time to modernize her country, to make it a mecca of wisdom and curiosity. And she also happened to be a lesbian, which would have been frowned upon anyway, but when your first job in life is to produce a royal heir, it’s a crazy scandal. Malin Buska is stunning and gives a great blank stare (and also, she’s like 78% legs, so when she gallops about it’s kind of a thing to see) but she’s most dynamic when lady-in-waiting cum royal-bed-companion (Sarah Gadon) shares her screen. At times the film is quite lush and there are certainly lots of costumes fit for a queen, but the film betrays its limitations; there’s a low-budget filter over the thing, and the production values just aren’t there, especially considering it’s a period piece. But it’s a pretty great story with an interesting philosophical bent, and it’s refreshing to see a historical female figure for once.

The Break-In: about a couple going through a rough patch in their marriage who seem to bond anew over a shared trauma when they accidentally murder an intruder. The film starts with the break-in and subsequent concealment of a dead body in their freezer, and then unravels backward in time to let us know how exactly we ended up at this awkward point in time. Even though you know about the murder in advance, this movie still managed to keep me on tenterhooks almost the entire time. The director has these agonizingly long shots that keep us watching beyond what’s comfortable. We feel the tension; we become complicit in it. Betrayal and failure waft throughout this thoughtfully quiet film, leaving lots of room for the morality of the thing to seep into our bones. It’s interestingly ambiguous, with neither a true villain nor hero, and guarantees a lively discussion during the car ride home. Director Marcus Ovnell and leading lady Jenny Lampa, who gave a restrained but strong performance as the disconnected and discontented wife, were both on hand at the screening, and Ovnell said of casting both his wife and Lukas Loughran, that you hire great actors and “hopefully they do something interesting.” And I believe that in this small and humble way, they have.

At the Proscenium Theater, SUNY Potsdam, NY

The Hunting Ground: an intensely riveting documentary from the people behind The Invisible War spotlighting the troubling epidemic of rape on college campuses across the country. Unflinching in its approach, it bravely puts a face (in fact, many faces) to the overwhelming statistics: nearly 1 in 4 female college students will be sexually assaulted during their studies. 1 in 4. Think about that. Do you have a daughter going off to school soon? Is that a number you can live with? It’s a tough one to swallow, so the schools are all complicit in massive cover ups to massage those numbers down. They revictimize the victims by discouraging reporting of any kind. If a woman cannot be intimidated into dropping the charges, the schools hold disciplinary committees that are a joke – out of the 259 reported rapes at Stanford during the past couple of years, only 1 of the rapists was expelled. So now your daughter has not only been raped, she’s forced to attend class with her rapist, eat meals with him, see him on campus, maybe even share a dorm. And she’s likely receiving death threats from her fellow students, especially if she’s accused a BMOC. The big men on campus, namely fraternity brothers and student athletes, are completely insulated from consequences by the universities because the schools’ main priority is not student safety but fundraising. And scandal doesn’t pay. So rapes are constantly swept under the rug, women feel violated by administrators who won’t support them, and not a single thing is being done to remove predatory repeat offenders from campuses that provide them a steady stream of young, ripe victims. The film’s scope is quite impressive and paints the villain as not just institutional but societal. It’s high-impact and unapologetic and I hope it gets an Oscar nomination not only because it’s very effective film making, but because this cause needs to get as many eyeballs on it as possible. Executive producer Sarah Johnson was on hand to tell us that it is the activism and the outreach behind the film that is most important to her – check out the website to find out what campuses are screening it now, and how to get a screening at yours.

Lady Gaga’s stirring song in support of the film:

The Monster Pool Horror Anthology

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On Sunday Sean and I were wrapping up our coverage of the very enjoyable New Hampshire Film Festival, which means we were, you know, in New Hampshire. Which is about 700km and a border crossing away from home. But we had something we were anxious to cover back in Ottawa later that same day, so we drove non-stop (and when I say non-stop, I may or may not be glossing over a stop in Vermont at the Ben & Jerry’s factory) and made it to Ottawa’s Mayfair theatre with mere minutes to spare to see the anthology of horror films presented by Andrew JD Robinson and Vincent Valentino.

Monster Pool rules: your 6-minutes max film must contain 1. a cursed skeleton key that “causes” the horror and 2. a randomly assigned monster or horror film trope – like zombies, or a cabin in the woods. Robinson & Valentino had an exhaustive job ahead of themselves, soliciting entries and cobbling the whole thing together into a 2 hour marathon of local talent, and they premiered the thing to a packed house and enthusiastic crowd. The Mayfair atmosphere was pierced with screams and roared with laughter. The great outcome: it was a non-competitive showcase, and it was obvious that everyone had a great time just supporting each other.

Unfortunately, there being 20 films on hand, I don’t have the space to review them all, so instead I’ll offer my heartfelt congratulations to all the filmmakers, and I’ll focus on just a few of the highlights.

First, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you about an 11-year-old director and movie star called Daniel Elston. He recruited friends and family for his impressive entry, which featured droves of zombie pigs and lots of kung-fu and fart noises. Any of you who were once little boys are probably groaning with envy right now. He was the only kid entrant, and I found it very moving to think about how hard he, and his family (and I’m thinking his mom) must have worked to put this piece together. What a wonderful thing to receive this kind of encouragement at a young age.

Pseudocoma, directed by Adrian Matthews & G. John Leslie, is about a girl who finds a strange key in a time capsule at her high school reunion, and then goes home craving blood (and worse), to majorly creep out her roommate, and me. I was particularly drawn to the excellent score, which I see is credited to Marcus Fong.

Pandora’s Box, by Vincent Valentino, about a victim getting her revenge, was maybe the blood-lustiest showing of the night. It had awesome effects, blood galore, and is it just me or did I see some vertebrae?

Gifted, directed by James Campbell & Nick Wilson, is about a wife’s birthday gift to her husband of an antique robot to add to his odd collection. But when his daughter uses a mysterious key to fix it up, the robot turns hostile. In this one I noticed the impressively gruesome sound design (Allen Roulston’s doing, I presume?).

Vlog #79 was an undeniable crowd-pleaser with a strong, punchy script that accomplished a lot in under 6 minutes. With Luke Gabriel at the helm, it confidently blended horror and comedy and maximized its effect. A charismatic Youtube star has a life-changing experience in the woods one day, and the effects are…other-worldly?

It’s actually really exciting to see so much local talent congregating together. One film, Engineers, by Tyler Williams, had great use of lighting and set design. One Small Step for Man, One Giant LEPUS for Mankind by Andrew Robinson was a fan-favourite work of mixed media shock & appall, while also garnering laughs between buckets of blood. The Golden Dawn had an excellent script. Marcello Varanda’s Room 666, was the sole animated contribution and managed to achieve quite a bit considering the constraints. Allen Roulston’s Very Bad Dreams had some really cool camera work, while Patrick Murray’s Scapegoat was visually stunning. Not a bad film in the bunch.

Thanks for having me along, and I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.

Some Independent Titles to Look Out For, Courtesy of the NHFF

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A Light Beneath Their Feet – Taryn Manning plays a bipolar mother who has worked hard to get her life back on track. After a severe episode left her hospitalized, she lost custody of her daughter for several years and only with diligent, close work with a doctor did she earn back that custody and now has a very close relationship with her. The daughter (Madison Davenport), however, a high school student in her senior year, is feeling the pressure of that relationship. This is really the daughter’s story. She dreams of going away to college – to California, where the weather is “stable,” but knows that her mother remains medicated only for fear of losing her. If her daughter is gone, what’s the point? I liked this for the portrayal of bipolar disorder – not always done well or compassionately or truthfully or fairly in the movies. Yes, Hollywood likes to dramatize. But at this film’s poignant core is a loving mother who would do anything for her daughter. And she happens to have a disorder that’s really tough to manage – tough on her, and tough on her loved ones. And yet we’re able to talk about the daughter’s challenges without vilifying her mother. It’s an honest conversation that I wish we’d see more often.

Director Valerie Weiss is also the kind of film maker we need to see more often. With a dual passion for both art and science, she majored in Molecular Biology at Princeton while earning a Certificate in Theater and Dance. “It was at Princeton that I transitioned from acting to directing plays and really felt that I’d found my niche. Directing was so much more suited to my personality and my desire to think about the whole picture as well as the minutiae. So, I decided to keep going with these dual interests and went to Harvard Medical School to do a Ph.D. in X-ray Crystallography (the 3-D photography of molecules) and founded a film program for graduate students so I could continue directing and learn to make movies. I made my first film while I was writing my dissertation, and two weeks after we wrapped production, I had to defend my thesis.”

The Second Mother: I enjoyed this movie even more in the discussing than the watching. Brazil’s official submission to the 2016 Oscar race for best foreign language film, The Second Mother (actual title: Que Horas Ela Volta) tells the story of Val (Regina Case), a long-time housekeeper to an affluent family, who spent years caring for someone else’s child while her own daughter is raised “back home”, the recipient of Val’s hard-earned paycheques but not her physical presence. After a decade’s absence, her daughter moves into the employer’s home, and cracks open the class system, exposing hypocrisy. The film is quite subtle, and I struggled with the fact that I actually found the daughter to be quite abrasive, which made it hard for me to admit she was making some valid points. The film is character-driven, but I suspect that you’ll find afterward that it has provoked the heck out of your thoughts at the same time. What’s interesting is that eschewing the drama, this film is actually quite mild in tone, and often more than a little comic. It’s not lecturing you, but there’s a subversive undercurrent that builds. The writing is taut and the acting on-point; Regina Casé is so good that we inhabit her shabby shoes despite the fact that the action belongs to everyone else.

Director Anna Muylaert (that’s right, two female film makers in a row! – good job, New Hampshire!) co-wrote the piece with star Casé and held two special screenings in Brazil. The first was for housekeepers and nannies, including the woman who worked for her parents for 30 years. There were lots of tears at this screening. The second screening was attended by friends of family, many of whom felt uncomfortable watching the film, and recognized themselves in the mirror staring back. The country’s social dynamics are persistent, Casé remarks “If you cannot change the world, at least you can change the situation that is close to you.”

Bridgend: Sara and her dad move to a small village in the county of Bridgend (Wales) where the quiet teenaged girl starts to make friends with a group of kids her cop father doesn’t approve of, and not because of their clothes or manners or grades or attitude. It’s because this small town is having an epidemic of teenaged suicide, and now his daughter’s smack in the middle of it. If that’s not unsettling enough, this film is actually based on real events – between 2007 and 2012, 79 suicides were reported in the tiny borough of less than 20 000. The movie never explains why these suicides are happening because the real world was never able to either. Cult mentality? Small town boredom? Irresponsible press? Teenaged rebellion? Bad parenting? It was disorienting and I felt helpless and scared – one by one these kids just disappear. There’s a communal depression that’s oppressive, and yet it’s pain-stakingly well-shot, at times visually beautiful, a jarring juxtaposition to what we’re experiencing emotionally. The memorial rituals and obsession with mortality deteriorate near the end into what I can only describe as a fever dream, because I honestly don’t know what to make of it. I’m desperate to know one single other person in the world who’s seen this movie and who can guess as to why I felt this movie was so…aggressive. Grounded sadly in reality, this film still has the shivery feel of a horror, and it’s been hard to shake.

Housebound/Creep

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2 scary movies for the price of 1! (actually I bought Housebound from Amazon for $5 and watched Creep on Netflix, but anyway.)

Housebound: Kylie faces a fate worse than prison when she’s arrested for stealing to feed her addiction: house arrest, with her mother. Sober, presumably. Exactly the reason she did crack to begin with. But we pretty soon see that it’s not just her Corrie-loving mother and silent-as-a-stump stepdad she’s avoiding – there’s a fourth presence in the house, and lately it’s making itself known. The visiting psychologist has a thing or two to say about this of course (it may land her in a psych ward if she’s not careful) but the dude who’s monitoring her ankle bracelet is more keen – turns out, Amos is a bit of a paranormal savant.

Housebound is given to us by way of New Zealand, which means it’s a horror-comedy hybrid, and it actually delivers on both fronts. Gerard Johnstone is a newbie director and he’s not too flash but he’s got all the creepiest angles down pat.

Creep: God-damned found footage. I wouldn’t even have attempted this one if it wasn’t for the charming Mark Duplass, who has cast his spell on me ever since I first came upon him on The League. There are two actors in this movie, but since one is behind the camera, this is really Duplass’s show, and it succeeds on his performance. Having placed a Craigslist ad for a cameraman’s services for the day in order to record some words of wisdom to his unborn son before cancer takes him away, the two men find the transaction not going quite as advertised.

Patrick Brice, the guy behind the camera, is in fact the director, and the two wrote (or improvised) the piece together. It’s truly minimal, low on blood but high on creep. I won’t say much more because it’s good to go in blind, but this is not exactly horror, so much as…unease? Anxiety? Terror? Something like that. Something interestingly outside the genre.

The Preppie Connection

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A gifted teenager from a working-class family gets accepted into a fancy prep school, with scholarship, without ever having applied. His mother has certain pretensions you see, and wants to see her family move up in the world. So she did the applying, and the accepting, for him (her depression and classic guilt trips assure compliance). But Tobey (Thomas Mann) knows he doesn’t belong there – “Before I even started Sage, I knew he was finished.”

A Columbian exchange student lets him know how to fit in (copious amounts of Lacoste go a long way – it’s 1984) and a pretty blonde girl, Alex, (Lucy Fry) gives him the motivation to stay. She’s in love with the preppiest, poppiest collar of them all though, so that spells trouble. How to get into the inner circle? Well, keeping in mind it’s 1984, Tobey figures it out pretty quickly: cocaine. Lots and lots of blow.

This movie is actually based on a true story of how a high school kid smuggled $300k of uncut cocaine into the US (remember that conveniently Columbian friend he made on the first day of school?).

You may have cut school once or twice in your day. What kind of shenanigans did you get up to? Pot? Sex? Soap operas? This kid flies to a foreign country and makes friends with a drug cartel. You can probably guess that things kind of get out of hand. The reason to watch this movie is to find out two things:

Did he have fun while it lasted?
Was it all worth it?

I really liked Thomas Mann in Me and Earl & The Dying Girl, and again in The Stanford Prison Experiment (he even popped up in Welcome to Me); this kid is someone to keep your eyes on. He’s excellent in this, effortless.

Director Joseph Castelo went to boarding school himself in the 80s, and remembers hearing about this story. Ultimately, it broke on 60 Minutes and then the whole country knew, and were aghast. Reflecting on his own experience, Castelo says “I was looking back on many of my own experiences and my own feelings of being an outsider in a boarding school. I wasn’t from a wealthy family and I was experiencing culture shock when I went to boarding school, just like Tobey experiences culture shock. You know you very much want to be a part of those circles, and it’s like any kid in high school, you need to figure out what’s the way in, how do I get into that inner circle, how do I become a part of this system that you have suddenly been thrust into and either you rebel against it or you work at being a part of it, and in a way, Tobey did both which is interesting. It made me think about my own impulses and my own thoughts and feelings when I was in boarding school. It really was cathartic. I really did feel like I worked through a lot of my own life.”

Sam Bisbee, the film’s music composer, adds his own personal touch, having worked and toured during the 80s. He says he “jumped at the chance” to work on the film because “the world and universe of the film is the same universe I grew up in, at almost the same time as the film’s setting. In the mid 1980’s I was a boarding school student at a New England prep school, and this was the time when I fell in love with music (I, also, clearly remember when the real life scandal happened at Choate).”

This film debuted just a few weeks ago at the Hamptons Film Festival, and was an excellent choice for the New Hampshire Film Festival as well. It’s not your average coming of age story, but it’s funny how even a rags to riches high school drug kingpin can still feel relatable and familiar. Maybe it has something to do with the intimacy of the film – it feels like we’re very close to Tobey. We know what he’s thinking before he says the words. We’re really inside his head, but there’s a cinematic wash, an 80s patina if you will, that still gives the movie an interesting sense of style.

I really enjoyed this one, and I’m pretty sure you will too. It’s playing at the St. Lawrence International Film Festival this weekend – Saturday October 24th in Potsdam, where it is receiving the inaugural Empire State Award, for excellence in filmmaking for either a New York Story or a New York Filmmaker. I’ll keep you posted on its wide release date – this is an independent movie that deserves to find its audience.

Touched With Fire

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We saw four movies on Friday at the New Hampshire Film Festival, and this was Sean’s favourite of the bunch. Starring Katie Holmes and Luke Kirby as two bipolar poets who meet in group therapy while unhappily committed to a psychiatric ward, they feed each other’s mania and explore the possibility that maybe their illness is actually a gift.

The movie derives its name from the book that examines the relationship between bipolar disorder and creativity, citing lots of artistic minds assessed as probably having suffered this or a similar disorder: Ernest Hemingway, Edvard Munch, Jackson Pollock, and Vincent van Gogh, to name a few.

Two things about bipolar disorder:

It’s a serious disease. But it is a disease, and like many diseases, it can be managed with lifestyle choices and medication. It used to be called manic-depression but those two moods are misleading because not everyone experiences them like they’re often depicted in the movies. The mania is not always energizedfun – some people get very irritable and paranoid during their manic phases. And other people will be angry and violent during the down phase, rather than depressed and sad. Medication and psychotherapy help a lot, but just like a diabetes, it’s a hard illness to manage. It’s a life-long commitment, and they’ve got the disease actively working against them at times – often just when they’re doing well, it starts whispering that they’re fine, they can get off the meds. That’s not really the case, but since the medication can make people feel sluggish or not quite like themselves, it’s really difficult to battle against those thoughts. And just like someone with heart disease who knows darn well they should cut down on red meat and stress, people who suffer with bipolar disorder can relapse, but for some reason we’re always harder on people with mental illness compared to other bodily illnesses. Bipolar disorder doesn’t get cured, but I have known people to live happy lives with it. I really salute them because it takes a lot of care and diligence and support.
There does seem to be some kind of link between bipolar disorder and genius\creativity. I can’t tell you what that means because science has no fucking clue what it means. I can tell you that it doesn’t guarantee anything, and it isn’t true of everyone with bipolar disorder, or even most. But during the manic episodes, people have racing thoughts that can lead to all kinds of ideas and links and thinking outside the box. If you are a writer or musician who gets inspired and does your best work during this phase, think about what it means to have to give it up in order to “get well.”

So that’s what this movie explores: that fine line between wanting to get well, but also wanting to keep the aspects of the disorder that make you unique. Carla and Marco, in the movie, are both poets of a sort, and are transfixed by this sacrifice they’re being asked to make.

I am happy to report that this movie was not reckless. It did place value on medication, but it did it within a questioning context, which I think is important.

Let’s consider, for a moment, Vincent van Gogh. He’s one of the most acclaimed and famous artists ever. Was he bipolar? His “diagnosis” is only in retrospect since the disorder wasn’t even named or classified during his time. He certainly showed many of its dispositions. You know that during one of his “episodes” he mutilated his own ear, after which he checked himself into an asylum and spent there a fruitful year during which he painted many of his most prominent pieces, including the irises, his blue self-portrait, and this one, A Starry Night, which was the view from his asylum room (minus the bars on the window, of course). This is what a night sky looks like to a “sick” brain. Isn’t it something? The world, our culture, places great value on this remarkable painting, and yet it would not exist had he been “well.” Doesn’t that make you think?

On the other hand, manic episodes are often accompanied with impulsivity, and poor judgement; sometimes even psychosis. About half will experience delusions or hallucinations, which can lead to violence. And the higher the high, the lower the low. The depressive state can include feelings of sadness, anxiety, anger, guilt, self-loathing, helplessness, and morbid thoughts of suicide. You wouldn’t wish this part on your worst enemy, and it makes it tough to maintain the relationships and support network so crucial to health. Half of those suffering with bipolar disorder will attempt suicide or self-harm.

I valued this movie for asking the right questions, even if we don’t have all the answers. It felt like a pretty honest look at the disorder, the good and the bad, and the fallout that hits those that love them (Christine Lahti contributes a solid performance as a mother constantly on the brink), and I can see it being enlightening for audiences, and a good conversation starter for a disorder that’s often misunderstood.

This film was written and directed by Paul Dalio, who was going to school in the Graduate filmmaking program at NYU, where he was discovered by his professor, who just happened to be Spike Lee (Lee believed in the work so much that he’s the executive producer on this film). Dalio made this film after overcoming his own struggles with the disorder as a way of reconciling the beauty and horror that comes from it, and dedicated it his fellow suffering artists.