Tag Archives: entertainment

Zoolander 2

Zoolander 2 is really, really, ridiculously dull. There was so little going on all I could really do was wonder why this movie got made and why so many recognizable faces pop up. The only answer I came up with was that no one involved had anything better to do. Well, I had better things to do – I could have been watching Deadpool!

There really isn’t a good reason to watch Zoolander 2. The “good” moments are rehashes of the original, and the rest seems like stuff they cut from the original (and rightly so). We get it, the fashion industry is vapid and empty, but you can’t satirize it with a movie that’s even more vapid and empty, because then the joke is on the movie. And the joke is definitely on the movie here. Even Justin Bieber should have known better than to be involved with this mess.

I honestly can’t think of one moment in the movie that I liked, and this is coming from a guy who laughed from start to finish during both Daddy’s Home and Dirty Grandpa. The original Zoolander was another movie that consistently made me laugh, but the sequel comes up woefully short. It’s old and tired, and made me feel the same way. Zoolander 2 gets a score of two glasses of prune juice out of ten.

The Abyss

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Rewatching the original Star Wars trilogy seems to have made me nostalgic for the 80s. And when the latest Star Wars instalment recently sailed past Avatar and Titanic to become the highest grossing movie ever in North America, I couldn’t help but think of James Cameron’s other work, the stuff that he made before appointing himself the king of the world.

Aliens, Terminator and Terminator 2 are all wonderful and all high on my list of movies to make Jay watch (a list that has shrunk considerably in the last few weeks), but the first James Cameron movie that comes to my mind is The Abyss. To me, that’s the true precursor to Avatar and Titanic, the movie that hinted at what James Cameron was capable of (both good and bad).

The Abyss is near and dear to me, mainly because it provided one of the first signs that I was destined to become an Asshole Watching Movies. In the early 90s I became really obsessed with letterboxed movies even though we had a 30 inch (at best) tube television. This was before DVDs so my options

LaserDisc on the left, DVD on the right. I have enough trouble finding shelf space for my DVDs, thank you very much.

were either letterboxed
VHS (few-and-far-between) or LaserDisc (too-expensive-for-an-unemployed-teenager). But my parents, seeing my interest, indulged me by renting a LaserDisc player on a few occasions, and The Abyss was the first movie I ever watched on that strange format (on two 12″ discs!).

As for the movie itself, The Abyss is an underwater odyssey that is a bit of a mess, both on screen and behind the scenes. Again, it seems obvious in hindsight given James Cameron’s later works, but at the time it seems to have been a surprise that The Abyss’s production went way over time and way over budget. Filming consisted of 15-18 hour days and lasted 140 days total. Total cost: a reported $70 million, which if accurate would make it the most expensive movie ever at the time (surpassed by Terminator 2, which was surpassed by True Lies, which was surpassed by Waterworld, which was surpassed by Titanic). It is not a coincidence that all but one of those movies was made by James Cameron. He clearly has a talent for spending money. abyss13

When you watch the Abyss, though, you can see where the money went. All the diving scenes are practical effects and the movie looks amazing for it. The underwater scenes were shot 30 feet deep for up to five hours at a time in 40 pound helmets. There were
other costs than money that resulted from this underwater mayhem. Complaints from cast and crew were rampant. Ed Harris refuses to ever talk about the film to this day. James Cameron almost died when he lost track of time and ran out of air at the bottom of the 7,000,000 gallon water tank, and then on his way to the surface was given a broken emergency regulator, so when he thought he would finally get a much needed breath of air, he got a lungful of water instead. Knowing all that makes me wonder whether the end product, as beautiful as it is, was worth the trouble. Watch it and tell me what you think. In my view, the climactic visit to the “aliens” is a bit of a letdown and the ending seems rushed (which is particularly problematic for a movie that’s this long).

The original theatrical cut (which I have never seen) was released in 1989 and was 145 minutes long. The Abyss is one of the first forays into CG but the technology was not quite there yet so a climactic scene had to be cut because Industrial Light & Magic just couldn’t get the world- The-Abyss-Water-Face destroying waves to look right. Technology had advanced significantly by 1993, and so a special edition was released with 25 minutes more footage, including the ending as it was originally conceived. The CG effects hint at what is to come from Cameron and ILM (or, by the time the special edition was released, what had already come). The tentacle water effects in particular are very close relatives of the T-1000’s liquid metal goodness in T2 and they seem to hold up a lot better than most early CG (maybe because CG is used so sparsely in The Abyss).

Interestingly, we’ve kind of come full circle, moving away from CG in favour of practical effects (Mad Max: Fury Road being a prime example). Kwame Opum of The Verge calls practical effects, “vinyl for cinema”, and as someone with a large record collection, that comparison feels right. It makes me wonder where James Cameron, formerly a practical effects adherent, stands on the issue today since Avatar was so CG-heavy. Perhaps we’ll get a sense of that if Avatar 2 ever gets made, but that’s a long way off as it’s been delayed again and will not come out until 2018 at the earliest.

In the meantime, dust off your LaserDisc copy of The Abyss and enjoy!

Netflix Double Feature: Slow Learners and People Places Things

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If you’re recovering from surgery like Jay is, it’s nice to have Netflix available to pass some of the time. The trick is finding something worthwhile among all those options.

Last night we tried twice to find a hidden gem, with mixed results.

The first movie we tried was Slow Learners. Starring Adam Pally and Sarah Burns, Slow Learners tells the story of two geeky teachers who make a pact to change themselves over their summer vacation in order to improve their dating lives. Naturally, it gets super awkward, super fast, to the point where Jay couldn’t bear to watch Burns attempt a southern accent to make herself more interesting. We eventually fast-forwarded through that part, after initially stopping the movie.

The fact we came back to this movie after stopping it is something positive, but that’s really the best that I can say about Slow Learners. It’s not terrible and there are a few good bits, but overall it’s really shallow, really predictable, and only moderately watchable. I give Slow Learners a score of four random literary quotes out of ten.

While we were on a break from Slow Learners, we took a look for something less awkward and settled on People Places Things, starring Jemaine Clement (Netflix recommended the movie because we watched Slow Learners, oddly enough). Jemaine does his usual quirky Kiwi thing in People Places Things, and I for one find him hilarious almost no matter what else is going on.

In People Places Things, Jemaine plays a semi-starving artist who understandably has a hard time coping after discovering his spouse is cheating on him (which happens in the middle of their twin girls’ fifth birthday party, no less). We catch up with him one year after that party as he tries to move on or make up or…really, he’s not at all sure what he wants and I liked that. People Places Things is clearly more about Jemaine’s journey than his ultimate destination.

I’m happy to report that the journey is entertaining, fairly cliche-free, and full of interesting characters. I really liked watching the discovery process play out for Jemaine’s character, and I enjoyed this movie all the way through. I give People Places Things a score of seven trips to Astoria out of ten.

Joy

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Joy is joyless. There is nothing entertaining about watching Joy and her family of unsympathetic characters make bad decisions. And even when Joy eventually triumphs, it’s not fulfilling in the least because by then you are tired of her.

Apparently this is all based on a real person, Joy Mangano. According to Wikipedia, the real Joy is a big deal on the Home Shopping Network and invented the mop in this movie along with a bunch of other stuff. The real Joy is now a multimillionaire and an executive producer of Joy the movie. I didn’t know of her beforehand and in hindsight I would rather have kept it that way. I did not find Joy’s story interesting and it’s certainly not entertaining. The only way I can rationalize this movie’s existence is as an ego trip for the real Joy.

So naturally, I am surprised this is nominated for a Golden Globe in the Musical or Comedy category for two reasons. First, it’s not a good movie. Second, it’s not funny at all. I didn’t laugh once.

I’m surprised as well that Jennifer Lawrence is nominated for best actress. I don’t think she gives a bad performance but there’s nothing here worthy of recognition. Joy needed to be a sympathetic character in order for this movie to work, but she’s not. There’s nothing Lawrence could have done to change that, it’s an inherent flaw of the underlying character. You don’t feel sorry for Joy because she’s letting her family (and ex-family) take advantage of her, so of course her life is shitty. She keeps letting that happen over and over, and I quickly stopped caring whether she would have a happy ending. All I wanted after about 20 minutes was for the movie to end.

But because of those Golden Globe nominations, I stuck with it. I felt obligated and I figured Joy must turn around sometime. Well, it doesn’t. Joy is a chore all the way through, which is ironic considering Joy is a movie based around a cleaning product. I give Joy a score of four Miracle Mops out of ten.

River

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Of all the films we saw at the 2015 Whistler Film Festival, River was my favourite, and apparently, I’m not alone. When the bulk of WFF’s awards were handed out yesterday, River won the Borsos Competion for Best Canadian Feature Film!

As well, writer/director Jamie M. Dagg was honoured twice in connection with River, for Best Director and Best Screenplay (naturally). River’s lead, Rossif Sutherland (Donald’s son and Kiefer’s half-brother) also received an honourable mention in the Best Performance category. And when the People’s Choice Award is announced tomorrow, I will be rooting for River to win that too, because it’s awesome.

What was it about this movie that grabbed me? There’s so much there to love. It’s a Canadian-Laos co-production, the first of its kind and the first western movie to be filmed in the southeast Asian country of Laos (if you’re rough on your geography, Laos is nestled between China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar). It’s hard to call anything we see onscreen beautiful, exactly, but the surroundings almost become a character of their own. The title, though generic, is fitting because the seemingly omnipresent water is an obstacle that our protagonist grapples with again and again.

The movie starts in a frenzied emergency room and the tension only builds from there. Every sight and every sound tightened the knot in my stomach as I watched the action unfold from there. The cinematography is fantastic, the editing is tight, the score is amazing, and Rossif Sutherland is a revelation as Dr. John Lake. Dr. Lake is one of the doctors in that frenzied opening scene, and the outcome results in him being asked to take some time away. After a night of drinking at a vacation spot in south Laos, Dr. Lake witnesses a sexual assault and from there everything goes to hell.

Rossif commands our attention right away. He’s got more than a little Jack Bauer in him, frenetic, unstoppable, and big enough to have eaten Kiefer whole. But Rossif is clearly set on making his own name rather than relying on his lineage, and in River he delivers a star-making performance. From the start, Dr. Lake is not a super likable guy, but Rossif makes us root for him anyway. We’re with him all the way through his journey and Rossif owns every single frame.

At all times, Rossif is an overpowering presence in the best of ways, and it is clear that the foundation for his stellar performance is Jamie Dagg’s work behind-the-scenes. It’s hard to believe this is a Canadian movie and even harder to believe this is Jamie’s first feature film. The action scenes, and there are many, flow naturally, are perfectly staged and suck the viewer right in. Despite the fact we know in our gut that this can’t end well, we follow Rossif eagerly, because he and River are so compelling. And just when you think it can’t get any better/worse, Dagg’s script delivers a fantastic payoff that elevates Dr. Lake and this movie to a whole new level, which did not even seem possible because what came before was already so great.

During the Q&A, we were told that this movie is being given a wide release in the spring of 2016. How wide seems yet to be determined, but this is a movie you need to track down and experience. Because River will take you on a wild ride that you won’t soon forget. Don’t miss it!

Flashback Friday – Rocky Edition

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One of the things I loved most about Creed (as mentioned in my review) was how nostalgic and referential (even reverential) it was about the previous Rocky movies. I’m still thinking about the references I caught and wanted to spend a little more time with them here.

Lots of spoilers follow, so with that said, once you’ve seen the movie come inside and let me know what you thought!

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Mistress America

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It was about this time 6 years ago when my mother went to her school’s Christmas party and the janitor brought a date who thought my mom would be perfect for her dad. Turns out, she was right, and now Jay has a new daddy.

That’s the condensed version, anyway. She has 4 kids, he has 2, and together they have 5 grandsons and 1 extremely imminent granddaughter. We have a weird blended family but those sweet grandkids have never known any different.

In Mistress America, two women make nice because their parents are about to marry. Tracy, a lonely college freshman (Lola Kirke) is thrilled to go along on the adventures of her impetuous 30-something soon to be step-sister, Brooke (Greta Gerwig). Sure she’s uneducated and unstable, but to an 18-year-old, that seems glamourous and free.

Greta Gerwig is a force of nature – like, that’s her permanent state. Is Gerwig her generation’s Diane Keaton? Or maybe she’s a little more screwball than that? I can never quite put my finger on it, but she’s a gem and a star and man oh man I can never keep my eyes off her. Her performances feel free and unselfconscious, just totally unleashed and genuine. She has a physicality that I’m not used to with young actresses, a way of using the space, of filling up the screen without taking up all the room.

She co-wrote this script with director Noah Baumbach and the lines just keep zooming by; you can almost see the trail they’re blazing around the screen as they get launched by one character and hit their target. This is Baumbach’s funniest – and dare I say, most accessible – work to date. It’s frenetic but feels more accomplished than his previous collaboration with Gerwig, Frances Ha.

The movie’s as flighty as its main character, but I was utterly charmed not just by the leads but by the entire cast, who lend the movie that feel of an older comedy, with randoms popping up with funny lines and disappearing again just as quickly, keeping us guessing, keeping us on our toes. It makes for an almost caffeinated ride, and it has left me wanting (needing?) more.

Interview with Horror Makeup FX artist Ashley Robinson

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Little Linda Blair, tiny star of The Exorcist, didn’t roll up to the set in her mom’s station wagon, fresh from a spelling test and a bologna sandwich, looking all demonically possessed. Someone had to paint her that way. Doing makeup special effects is someone’s job.

Meet Ashley Robinson, an emerging Canadian freelance SFX artist and a filmmaker in her own right. You might expect that someone who creates stab wounds all day would be a little bit twisted – and you’d be right. Matt and I had the chance recently to not only sit down with Ashley but to undergo “the process” and it turns out that not only is Ms. Robinson incredibly interesting, self-taught, and artistic, she’s funny as hell too.

Jay: So how did you get into this line of work?

Ashley: I started by working with my brother (Andrew JD Robinson, founder of WORKOBEY Films). I’ve been his go-to makeup effects consultant for whatever project he is working on for some time now. It’s only recently I have decided to dabble more into the gore FX and showcase my creations on social media. [You can find her on Instagram @ash_fx] At the moment I’m working exclusively for his production as well as whatever project I have up my sleeve, but am open to expanding in the future if the timing is good and the right project comes along.

Jay: What kind of work is available for you in Ottawa?

Ashley: Indie films, Halloween events, building a photographer’s portfolio, etc. are all different opportunities for an FX artist. Ventures like that can exist anywhere; you just might have to dig a little deeper in some areas.

Jay: Were you a creepy kid? What I mean is – did you make your dolls look like monsters? Give your friends gruesome makeovers? Look at books of accident photos?

Ashley: If filming a feature-length called “Slaughterhouse” with my Barbie dolls (blood pumps and all) is considered strange…then yes.

Jay: What’s more fun – to make someone look beautiful or hideous?

I think there is something beautiful about transforming someone once attractive into what we view as repulsive or ugly. It requires a type of vulnerability to welcome others’ disgust.

Jay: What kind of reference materials do you use for inspiration?

Ashley: Depending on the type of wound that I am interested in creating, I will research real images. This can be really gut-wrenching. Nothing beats the real thing though. Accuracy is the force behind a positive (aka disgusted) reaction.

Jay: Obviously there’s some artistry involved in the process as well. We know you write and direct films. Do you do other kinds of art ?

Ashley: I was definitely that quiet, weird, artistic girl in high school that doodled on every binder. Drawing, painting and writing have always been things I enjoyed. So I guess naturally the next step was disfigurement?

Jay: What are some of your favorite makeup effects that you’ve created?

Ashley: One of my first attempts would have to be a favourite. It was cuts across the fingers using my homemade molding wax (which can be a pain to make yourself). I was proud I was able to blend it the way I did and thought it came out well for my first time.

Jay: Do you go all out for Halloween or is that too much like work for you?

Ashley: My go-to costume as a kid was always a witch- every single year. Surprisingly I haven’t gone all out for Halloween since then. But why mess with a classic?

Jay: What movie do you wish you could have worked on?

Ashley: I would have loved to been a part of ‘Excision’- in any way shape or form. The visual dream sequences, the blood…oh the blood. I just wish I had beaten them to it!

Jay: Were you a fan of horror first, or did that interest come as you started with the FX?

Ashley: I have lived and breathed horror since I was about 10 years old. My brother and I would somehow get away with renting stacks of VHS horror movies from a local video store down the street. Watching horror movies literally consumed the majority of my life growing up and still does to this day.

Jay: What actors or directors would you most like to work with?

Ashley: Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino. They can make anyone look fucking cool.

Jay: In such a CGI-heavy time in the movie industry, do makeup effects still have a place?

Ashley: When you look back at the 70’s and 80’s makeup FX, it is mesmerizing how artists, with their own hands and pure talent could create something so amazing. I believe they will always have a place in a true horror fan’s heart, but industry wise, I’m not so sure anymore. It’s a rat race to make the quickest dollar as opposed to creating as a fan for the fans. Animatronics are the shit. Stop Motion is the shit. CGI is just crap.

Jay: Does what you do ever affect you emotionally? Do you get nightmares?

Ashley: Gore FX is oddly therapeutic to me. If I’m having a stressful day at my full-time job for instance, I get excited with the thought of coming home and putting boils on my face…It’s like any hobby, it’s a great and fun distraction.

Jay: What about this work do you think would surprise most audiences?

Ashley: Constantly coming up with new and innovative ways to throw your own spin on standard wounds can be challenging. In the end, a cut is a cut…but it’s a matter of how can I make this one stand out from the hundreds of others?

Jay: Is there any movie character or effect that you would have done differently?

Ashley: Twilight. I think that says it all.

If you think Ashley’s work is pretty clever, wait till you see what she does with our FACES.

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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.