The Twilight Saga (Paolo Kagaoan and Nadia Sandhu)

The Twilight Saga

Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Elizabeth Reaser, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Dakota Fanning, Rachelle Lefevre

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, Chris Weitz, and Bill Condon

Paolo:

Toronto offers many things for its citizens and consumers to do. For example, I could have watched a documentary about AIDS that will probably never screen in this city again. Rihanna was playing in an intimate music hall ten minutes away from my apartment. Instead, Nadia Sue Sandhu and I chose, deliberately, to watch The Twilight Saga, a movie series based of Stephanie Meyer’s atrocious vampire books, to celebrate the release of the last one. And we are hoping that the last one IS the last one.

In order to understand the relief that the series will finally come to an end, we have to explain and revisit the pain of watching the first one. I’m a Catherine Hardwicke fan, or someone who roots for her despite not having made a good movie since Thirteen. And I understand her aesthetic of harsh colours but why did she have to choose just one to depict all of the locations covered in this movie? Both Arizona, the provenance of Bella Swan (Stewart) and Forks, Washington State, where she moves, has a turquoise lens filter. The movie just made me want to punch anything turquoise for the rest of my life.

On the negative side, the Twilight Saga teaches us how to be submissive to the first guy who pays the least attention to us in high school. I’ve been swayed away from the books and the movies by my feminist friends who sees Bella’s object of affections, Edward Cullen (Pattinson), as a manipulative stalker. The faintest silver lining in this wet blanket of a romance is the soundtrack that goes with it. Tracks from the soundtrack were apparently crated by Stewart, exposing the Saga’s virginal audience to bands like The Black Ghosts and Metric. If you listen closely, the end credits of the third movie is the sound of Emily Haines wanting to buy a condo. And I shouldn’t say anything bad about Haines because I’m apparently connected to Haines by three degrees, just like everyone in Toronto.

Nadia and I tried to keep an open mind to the film series and I’m trying to keep to that spirit despite that we were both yelling at the screen for eight hours. I already talked about what I like about the first one so here are the few positive things I can say about the rest of the series.

New Moon is my favourite of the bunch because as much as I still lament the firing of Harwicke or any female director, Weitz (American Pie, etc.) seems to have no respect for the series at all. Edward’s line, reminding Bella that he’s 109 years old, echoes Pattinson’s interviews, where he basically bites the hand that feeds him. Why would a century old vampire go back to high school many times to eventually pay attention to female Quasimodo?

Also, how is Edward the hottest member of a family that also includes well-meaning troglodyte who is Kellan Lutz, who plays Emmett. Anyway, a central plot point to New Moon also takes Edward out of Forks, and Meyer has no idea how much it benefits her story. With Edward gone, Bella throws her affections to her childhood friend Jacob Black (Lautner). While her relationship with Edward is built on this non-climatic tension that he’s the unattainable hot one, her relationship with Jacob is more organic. There’s no pressure for her to impress Jacob, the latter of whom develops into this inappropriately muscular and manly figure that Bella is equally attracted to. And if Meyer and Bella aren’t aware of this, Weitz and Stewart are at least aware that a young woman like Bella can fall in love with two young men, no matter how imperfect either one could be. Another plot point in New Moon also introduces the Volturi, whose members include Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning, both of whom slither against the amateur-like actors surrounding them.

New Moon’s irreverence also means that Weitz and the screenwriter he works with have fun with the teenage pop culture that Bella and Jacob are aware of. Bella, Jacob and a mutual friend watch a movie called Face Punch, a movie I would have rather seen in rather than the whole series.

The first two movies of the series also benefits from Lefevre, who plays Victoria, a baddie whose predatory motives are a foil to the Cullens’ Mormon-like restraint. During the third movie, called Eclipse, she gets replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard, who, despite being more beautiful, doesn’t exude the feral air that Lefevre does. Despite of that, Howard is a part of a movie that pits her and her new vampire recruits, turning the movie into a white version of Riki-Oh. Here, are so many severed limbs in the movie that caters to the sadist in all of us. Not even the PG-13 rating can make it shy away from its gratuitous violence.

And speaking of violence, the series has also been frank about body horrors. It also benefits from Stewart, who is further from Meyer’s original vision of Bella Swan. Meyer’s original casting choice for Bella was Emily Browning, who can look like a doll-like, willowy Suicide Girl whose can be both simultaneously graceful and awkward. Stewart on the other hand, brings bad posture and lumpiness to Bella. She’s also surrounded by annoying female stereotypes like Ashley Greene and Anna Kendrick, making her Bella seem less offensive. In Breaking Dawn Part One, she suffers because her unborn child is killing her internally.  Esquire Magazine, among other publications, have compared the series as an inadvertent advocate against marriage and pregnancy, and Bella’s monstrous baby will probably make young women stay away from having babies for as long as they can.

Nadia:

Paolo Kaogan and I did an all night Twilight marathon and lived to tell the tale. Along the way we laughed, we shouted at the screen and we lost a fellow traveller who could not make it through New Moon (Holla James Spurling!) This despite the presence of libations.

I had been working on a theory that rom coms so often veer into tragic stupidity and lack emotional maturity because the majority are written and directed by men… but hats off to the trio of screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, author Stephanie Meyer and director Catherine Hardwicke for a truly unredeemable piece of tripe. The only memorable moment  in the original Twilight film is when Edward tells Bella that he is “a sad masochistic lion.”  Say what?!

If curiosity has simply got the better of you, or you secretly want a new guilty pleasure and think Twilight could be it, please do yourself a favour and skip the first one. In fact, I would skip New Moon as well, but that happens to be the film where it becomes painfully obvious how contrived this supposed “love triangle” is, what with the character development and chemistry between Jacob (Tyler Lautner) and, gasp! Bella (Kristen Stewart). Sorry Robsten fans, they may be a legit romance in real life but it most certainly is not apparent on the screen.

So, starting with Eclipse, you get a nicer colour palette, less grey pancake make up slapped haphazardly on the vampires, and continued evidence that Bella is a suicidal depressive who has no chemistry or objective reason to be with Edward other than she wants to take the easy way out and die.

As Paolo touches on, Breaking Dawn Part 1 veers nicely into body/medical horror, truly shocking from the man who brought us Fossey on the big screen (Chicago) but Bill Condon actually delivers a right proper film even down to making the deliberately drawn out pacing seem intentional!  Kudos Bill. Kudos. Kirsten Stewart definitely looks better in colour.

SPOILER: Breaking Dawn part 1 can totally be seen without the other three because nothing actually happens in any of these movies aside from Edward loves Bella and so does Jacob.

Ah yes. Edward. Let’s talk about our brooding vampire. The problem here is not necessarily Robert Pattinson, who has a bizarrely flat profile that actually works for the other worldly nature of his character.  The problem my friends is that this has been done much, much better. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Angelus. brooding, tortured Vampire with a soul destined to love a Vampire Slayer at probably around the time Meyer was writing her questionable tome. Want to do an instant comparison?  How about Stefan Salvatore, brooding, tortured Vampire who is destined to love sad, fragile high school girl Elena in the Vampire Diaries (FYI the young adult books on which the television series is based came out well before Meyer ever picked up a pen).  I mean brooding, tortured Luis in Interview With the Vampire (Hello Brad Pitt!) is more inspirational than Edward is.  Why you so sad Eddy?

We are told Edward loves Bella. That’s the sum of the epic romance. Apparently he can’t read her mind, ergo love. Four movies and he only smiles at her in the fourth one… this guy spends his honeymoon withholding sex for goodness sake.  What is there to love except the repeated promise he will kill Bella so she doesn’t have to, you know, live in the world.

I think Paolo and I both agree on this point. Edward clearly represents escape for a socially awkward, depressed teenage girl who is afraid to live and is therefore running away from a guy who is hyper alive  (werewolf Jacob).  If Edward loves her why does he want her to die so they can be together?  How does he know he will even like Vampire Bella?  Does this not strike anyone else as a typical scenario: guy likes a challenge, obstacles only make him want the girl more, but eventually a shiny new object will come along?

Meanwhile, Jacob is every social misfit’s dream- a buff guy who likes her for being a socially awkward, gawky misfit!  If that don’t pull the girl out of the old teenage hormone doldrums, then I’m sure a prescription anti-depressant will.

Now on to The Talk. Paolo and I discussed the theory floating out there that Twilight is a story in the Victorian tradition, meant to signify repressed sexual longing or some such… but if this is the exquisite build up to intercourse, I would rather be a virgin until I die.

Now excuse us while Paolo and I complete our journey with Breaking Dawn Part 2 which devoured the US Thanksgiving Box Office this weekend.  We are both still traumatized by the pedo-wolf development and I for one am curious to see how Jacob can possibly be redeemed.

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Life of Pi Review (Paolo Kagaoan)

Life of Pi (2012)

Starring Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall and Gerard Depardieu

Directed by Ang Lee

The opening credits already worried me, showing me every exotic animal with names I’ve already forgotten in the slowest pace possible. Is this the beat that Life of Pi will be flowing to?

This adaptation of novel of the same name show these animals within a zoo that’s managed by the father of the young Piscine Molitor or ‘Pi’ Patel (Sharma), the latter being an Indian boy growing up in Pondicherry, a land transforming from French colonization into joining independent India.

The adult version of Pi (Khan) lives in Montreal, his voyage between the two countries – or three, for technical purposes – is so compelling that an off-screen character named Mamaji recommended him to a man (Spall) who’s stuck on what he’s going to write. Pi is a religious professor, the writer is a North American brand of young secular atheist. Both of them aren’t smug about their intellectual backgrounds. But part of Mamaji’s recommendation of Pi is that his story will convince the writer that God exists but again, not in a smug way. I can feel some eyes rolling at such a premise.

I loved the book, its simple language evoking the energy of a boy’s growth and his lonely and one in a trillion journey that puts him in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in the same lifeboat as a terrifying tiger named Richard Parker. Or at least, that’s what I remember from the novel.

It’s the opposite of the film’s approach. Again, the pacing in the first scenes, as well as its mixture of Indian and French music softening the impact of the moments when Pi takes a stand on his (religious) identity. It almost damages my experience of the entire film. Those scenes should have amped us up to the movie’s climax, its chaos building up and complementing the ocean’s disturbing quietness. The scenes in India as also have this digital, amateurish texture capturing the shallowest characters in Ang Lee’s directing career.

His time in the ocean, then, isn’t stark but a magical although scary time. Allow me to compare this another director’s work, James Cameron, who has championed the film. I’ll also say that the shipwreck scenes, when the camera occasionally follows Pi in and out of ships and lifeboats, are more audacious than its predecessor. And since Pi, Richard Parker and the rest of us are out in the ocean, we get to see every type of real marine life that evokes the fictional life forms in Avatar. I never pegged Lee as a visual director but his rural/exurban landscapes should have given me that hint, and the aesthetics are what I can give this movie its credit. It’s worth the 3D medium although it’s not necessarily worth its price.

But does watching someone with God’s creatures, or watching him in a Job-like situation make anyone feel closer to God? Not necessarily (Full disclosure: you probably all know that I’m gay but I’m also a Catholic, one of the religions that Pi adheres to). The movie dazzles and thrills but its main goal should come from a text not just about wonderment but endurance and perseverance. I never really felt those here, and knowing the movie’s ending, as well as other factors in the movie’s storytelling might have spoiled that for me. The ending also doesn’t offer any answers, and this is the kind of movie that should have done that.

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Hitchcock Review (Kirk Haviland)

Hitchcock (2012)

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Toni Collette, James D’Arcy, Jessica Biel and Michael Wincott

Written by John J. McLaughlin based on the book “Alfred Hitchcock and the making of Psycho” by Stephen Rebello

Directed by Sacha Gervasi

New this week in theaters, opening exclusively at the Varsity in Toronto and expanding nation-wide in the weeks to come, from Fox Searchlight comes Hitchcock. The biopic about the master of suspense himself Alfred Hitchcock, despite the inference of title, is not a story of the man and his life, but the shooting of his seminal film Psycho and his relationship with his wife and most trusted collaborator Alma Reville.

Hitchcock starts at the premiere for Alfred Hitchcock’s (Hopkins) North by Northwest. With the media convinced that the director’s best days are behind him, Alfred sets his wife Alma (Mirren) and assistant Peggy (Collette) on the lookout for his next project. Hoping to get his script in contention Whitfield Cook (Huston) shows up and starts sweet talking his former flame Alma. Meanwhile Hitch becomes enamored with the new book based on the real story of serial killer Ed Gein (Wincott), who Hitch sees as a manifestation during the filming, entitled Psycho. Against the wishes of the studio, his wife and everybody else, Hitchcock embarks on adapting the story and getting it committed to film. But the studio, his health, his former starlet Vera Miles (Biel) and current starlet Janet Leigh (Johansson) may all conspire to get in the way. And Whitfield may have other plans for Alma.

Hitchcock is far from an in depth, hard hitting biopic, but almost immediately the audience realizes they are in for a more whimsical and light hearted treatment. Hopkins is memorable as Hitchcock, like his Nixon he does not completely disappear physically into the role, but uses his performance to allow the audience to buy into the character. That said it’s Mirren and her portrayal of Alma that steals the show. Her Alma is a confident and strong woman who is long overdue for her room in the spotlight after all the work she has done in her husband’s career, and sensing this Huston’s Whitfield attempts to take advantage. The rest of the supporting cast is quite good here, with Johansson doing some excellent work as Leigh and Biel possibly doing here best work in ages as Vera Miles. The decision of including Ed Gein as a character in the film is far-fetched and would have been terribly out of place if the performance by Wincott wasn’t so accomplished. His Gein makes you yearn for a biopic of his own on the serial killer.

The script plays it light in tone and strives more for comedic beats rather than hard hitting, dramatic interpretations. More “My Week with Marilyn” than a straight biopic, Hitchcock only serves to explain and enact the period in 1959/1960 surrounding the filming of Psycho and not much else. The characters are fleshed out well here, though the script does manage to stay close to the surface throughout, not delving too deeply into any of the relationships besides Hitch and Alma’s. And other characters, like the studio head for example, are more caricatures than characters. The film would be better suited with a title that exudes this whimsy and tone rather than the more serious sounding Hitchcock.

Kudos must be given however to the team behind the film as the set design and decoration, costuming and cinematography are all fantastic. The film looks phenomenal and provides an exceptional peek into the work of producing a feature film in the late 1959 studio system. From the small housing offices for the production and the soundstages to the vintage vehicles and decor of the Hitchcock home, the film doesn’t miss a beat. The film will not surprise me at all if Oscar comes calling in February rewarding the fine work here with some technical nominations.

Audiences going into this film expecting a warts and all telling of Hitchcock’s life and loves will be disappointed with this effort. But audiences willing to go with the tone and playfulness of the film and really invest in the performances, especially Hopkins, Mirren and Wincott, will be satisfied with the effort. Despite its flaws, Hitchcock is indeed a recommend.

Till Next Time,

Movie Junkie TO

Make sure to keep up with what’s going on at Entertainment Maven by liking our Facebook page and having updates delivered right to your Facebook News Feed. It’s the only way to stay on top of all of our articles with the newest blockbusters and all the upcoming films, festivals and film related events in Toronto.

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Fright Nights: The Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival Preview (Nadia Sandhu)

There will be Blood in the Snow and on the big screen at Projection Booth (1035 Gerrard Street East) as the First Annual Fright Nights:  Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival scares up thrills this November 30 to December 2, 2012 in a weekend long celebration of the best in contemporary Canadian horror filmmaking.

Festival Director Kelly Michael Stewart has been a strong supporter of the national horror filmmaking scene, writing about it for Fangoria and Planet Fury, and regularly showcasing these talented filmmakers at the hugely successful Fright Nights at Projection Booth screening series.  “I have noticed an incredible renaissance of horror directors coming out of Canada in the past few years. Southern Ontario in particular has become a hotbed of horror talent. Now the scene has grown large enough and vibrant enough that it warrants a dedicated yearly festival and we’ve been able to pull together an impressive lineup including the world premieres of SICK featuring Canada’s own scream queen Debbie Rochon and In the House of Flies starring Henry Rollins.”

Blood in the Snow kicks off on Friday, November 30 with a zombie infection in SICK at 7pm and critical darling Beyond the Black Rainbow at 9:30pm, and closes on Sunday, December 2 with art house vampire film Blood for Irina at 7pm, a film that also marks the feature directorial debut of Fangoria Editor in Chief Chris Alexander.  

In true rep house style, Saturday will be a late night with psychological thriller In the House of Flies at 6:30pm, classic 80’s style slasher film Devil’s Night starring Danielle Harris at 9pm and old school grind house throwback Famine at 11:45pm.

A retrospective shorts program, Fright Nights: Class of 2012, on Saturday, December 1 at 3pm showcases some of the best genre shorts from the last year of Fright Nights programming, including a personal favorite when it played here as part of the Viscera Film Festival last winter- Doll Parts from Karen Lam.  The retrospective also features a bonus screening- fan fave Cinemall, which documents the yearly pilgrimage of zombie fans to the mall where Romero filmed Dawn of the Dead!

“With films like Hobo With a Shotgun, The Corridor, Pontypool, and really anything from the guys at Astron 6, the Canadian horror film scene is bursting with creative talent and we are proud to support Kelly and what we truly feel is a killer line up of the next wave of genre directors. These are the ones to watch,” enthuses Jonathan Hlibka, partner at Projection Booth Cinemas.

And I for one am relieved that in this case at least, blood in the snow does not refer to baby seals.

Festival passes and tickets are on sale now and while there won’t be any chick flicks, I won’t completely rule out finding a touchy feely angle to report back on.

You can show your support for Canadian Horror by downloading the Blood in the Snow banner and using it as your Facebook Cover this Black Friday!

The Fruit Hunters Review (Kirk Haviland)

The Fruit Hunters (2012)

Written by Yung Chang and Mark Slutsky – based on the book by Adam Gollner

Directed by Yung Chang

After a highly successful Toronto debut screening as part of last week’s Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival Richmond Hill program, Yung Chang’s The Fruit Hunters starts an exclusive engagement this weekend at the Hot Docs Bloor Cinema. The film about people obsessed with seeking out and growing exotic fruits from around the world spans the globe in search of these hidden treats and director Chang introduces us to people of all nationalities. From the South American trying to save the banana business from extinction to the Hollywood celebrity trying to launch a community orchard in the Hollywood Hills, we are invited into all of these stories through Chang’s lens.

The Fruit Hunters is indeed a globetrotting tour of places with the people to whom fruit is a way of life and not just a suggested daily dietary recommendation. Spanning from Borneo to Colombia, Italy to Hollywood, these fruit-obsessed individuals band together through the shared joy of hunting down these sources of the elusive “sublime taste”. These Fruit Hunters come from all walks of life, including life-long scientists, obsessed average Joes, and celebrities like Bill Pullman. They search the world for new mango varieties, track down surreal-sounding fruit like orange cloudberry or the blackberry jam fruit, and the Superfruit, which alters your taste buds, making lemons taste sweet.

The film comes with a multitude of information and facts about these fruits and is likely to make your mouth water a bit. The end credits even include pictures and names of all of the fruits used in the film so that the audience can investigate them for themselves. Director Chang also strives to show us the impact the globalization of the fruit industry has had on the way we buy and consume the fruit we get in supermarkets. The characters are plenty, you can imagine as with all obsessions that you can attract a varied assortment of people, and Chang finds many quirky and oddball hunters to flesh out the film. The camera does spend most of its time with Pullman and his efforts in Hollywood and hunting abroad, seemingly enamored with someone so famous who has been ensnared in this small niche group.

What doesn’t work for Fruit Hunters are the goofy, ill produced re-enactments that pop up on the film, trying to explain that these exotic fruits have been influential through history. These excursions are usually jarring and ill-fitting to the general story being examined. While I give kudos to Chang for trying to lighten and liven up some of the more dry sequences of the film with these vignettes, they really do not work well. And that does bring up the other issue of the film in that there are dry spells in various places. Either some more in-depth exploration of some of the other non-Pullman storylines or even trimming the film down a bit may have resulted in a stronger beginning-to-end flow.

The Fruit Hunters does achieve its ultimate goal in educating and fascinating the audience with all the exotic treasures, but as a film it is hardly a slam dunk. Even with its issues, Fruit Hunters still packs more than enough punch and information to entertain and fascinate. The Fruit Hunters is a mild recommend.

The Fruit Hunters starts its exclusive run at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema Friday Nov 23rd. For more information check their Online Schedule.

Till Next Time,

Movie Junkie TO

Make sure to keep up with what’s going on at Entertainment Maven by liking our Facebook page and having updates delivered right to your Facebook News Feed. It’s the only way to stay on top of all of our articles with the newest blockbusters and all the upcoming films, festivals and film related events in Toronto.

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Email me at moviejunkieto@gmail.com