Entertainment Maven

TIFF 2011 – Midnight Madness

We’ve just received some exciting news here at the maven. Apparently some funds have trickled down from our parent company, allowing some of our correspondents to attend the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)! In particular, entertainment maven will be covering the complete midnight madness lineup.

TIFF 2011 runs from September 8th-18th and will be host to many world premieres as the festival seems to gain more and more clout in the film world with every passing year. The midnight madness program, selected by Colin Geddes, has been the home of some impressive world premieres including, Cabin Fever, Hostel, Ichi the Killer and Ong Bak. In addition to these, midnight madness has also screened films such as Borat and Saw which subsequently enjoyed wildly popular success. As you can see, the Midnight Madness program is hugely important to weird and unusual cinema. The focus is on films by directors that are willing to push boundaries and try to redefine genres and as a result, you are guaranteed to see something special if you attend the madness. Suffice it to say, I am going to have trouble sleeping until September 8th.

Ticket packages for all ten midnight madness screening are still available at http://www.tiff.net and tickets to individual screenings go on sale September 3rd. If you aren’t convinced that this is a worthy endeavour, then check out the synopses below for the entire program of the madness or better yet check out the amazing trailer for Kill List above…from what I heard it doesn’t even scratch the surface of this gut-wrenching hitman horror!

(Images and synopses (italics) were not created by entertainment maven nor are they the property of entertainment maven)

The Day

In a post-apocalyptic future, an open war against humanity rages. Five survivors wander along rural back-roads, lost, starving and on the run. With dwindling food stocks and ammunition, an attempt at seeking shelter turns into a battleground where they must fight or die.

God Bless America

Loveless, jobless and possibly terminally ill, Frank has had enough of the downward spiral of America. With nothing left to lose, Frank takes his gun and decides to off the stupidest, cruellest and most repellent members of society with an unusual accomplice: 16-year-old Roxy, who shares his sense of rage and disenfranchisement. From stand-up comedian and director Bobcat Goldthwait comes a scathing and hilarious attack on all that is sacred in the United States of America.

The Incident

George, Max and Ricky are in a rock band and waiting for their big breakthrough. Between small gigs and rehearsals they work in the kitchen of a high-security asylum for good pay at minimum risk – they have no physical contact with the inmates. One night just before dinnertime, a big storm shuts down the security system, the doors open and the lunatics break loose. Help is on its way and should soon arrive… they just have to survive until it does.

Kill List

Eight months after a disastrous job in Kiev left him physically and mentally scarred, ex-soldier-turned-contract-killer Jay is pressured by his partner Gal into taking a new assignment. As they track their prey, they descend into a disturbing world that is darker and more depraved than anything they experienced on the battlefield.

Livid

The directors of 2007’s Midnight Madness hit A L’Interieur (Inside) return with a twisted gothic nightmare. A young woman and her friends break into a decrepit mansion looking for treasure, only to unlock a dark secret of unspeakable horror ready to dish out bloody punishment for their greed.

Lovely Molly

When newlywed Molly Reynolds returns to her long-abandoned family home, frightful reminders of a nightmarish childhood begin seeping into her new life. She soon begins an inexorable descent into evil that blurs the lines between psychosis and possession. From the director of The Blair Witch Project.

The Raid

Deep in the heart of Jakarta’s slums lies an impenetrable safe house for the world’s most dangerous killers and gangsters. Until now, the run-down apartment block has been considered untouchable to even the bravest of police. Cloaked under the cover of pre-dawn darkness and silence, an elite swat team is tasked with raiding the safe house in order to take down the notorious drug lord that runs it. But when a chance encounter with a spotter blows their cover and news of their assault reaches the drug lord, the building’s lights are cut and all the exits blocked. Stranded on the sixth floor with no way out, the unit must fight their way through the city’s worst to survive their mission. Starring Indonesian martial arts sensation Iko Uwais.

Sleepless Night

When Vincent, a double-dealing cop, steals a big bag of cocaine from some drug dealers they counter by kidnapping and threatening to kill his son if the bag isn’t returned – fast. The swap is to go down at their headquarters in a big nightclub on the outskirts of Paris, but Vincent gets caught in a spiral of deception and betrayal and must fight his way through packed dance floors and dark corridors of the labyrinth-like club.

Smuggler

After his dreams of becoming an actor go nowhere, 25-year-old Kinuta does nothing but gamble every day. Broke, framed and now neck-deep in debt, he is recruited as a smuggler – an underground mover of everything from dead bodies to illegal goods – but one cargo triggers the rage of a psychotic gangster hellbent on revenge. By acclaimed cult director Katsuhito Ishii of Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl and Funky Forest fame.

You’re Next

From the director-writer team that brought TIFF audiences A Horrible Way To Die in 2010 comes a new experiment in tension. A family comes under a terrifying and sadistic attack during a reunion getaway. Barricaded in their secluded country home, they have to fight off a barrage of axes, crossbows and machetes from both inside and outside the house. Unfortunately for the killers, one of the victims proves to have a talent for fighting back.

Fredric Brown – Master of Mystery (Night of the Jabberwock, The Screaming Mimi and The Far Cry)

Why don’t more people know about Fredric Brown? I think this is one of life’s greatest mysteries. A master of short stories, ingenious plot devices and twist endings, Brown has been all but forgotten in recent years.

For most of his writing career Brown survived by publishing in pulp magazines, inexpensive fiction publications that mainly specialized in genre short fiction throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s. His two areas of focus were science fiction and mystery stories. He proved to be an excellent author in both of these genres, but is probably best known for his mystery work. Oddly enough, he is purported to have strongly disliked writing mysteries and only wrote these short stories and novels to pay the bills. Science fiction, his true love, was not in as high demand as stories starring deadly poison, bloody knives and smoking guns. It can be argued that this difference in demand forged much of his career. Fortunately, Brown’s personal opinion of mystery writing did not negatively affect the quality of his mystery stories. They are fabulous!

It seems like the twist ending has become the standard in the past decade or so and more often than not readers or viewers will feel cheated at the conclusion of a mystery because the twist has not been built up with care or believability. This is not the case with Brown’s work and I find it personally shocking that a writer was so adept with the twist ending in the 40’s and 50’s and has since fallen off the face of the publication world. Some publishers such as NESFA Press and Stewart Masters Publishing, LTD. have tried to keep Brown’s legacy alive, but he is still not a regular staple on book store shelves or websites.

We need more Freddy Brown!

If you’re interested in checking out some of Fredric Brown’s work, Amazon or Abebooks are your best bet, as I have essentially lived in used book stores for the past decade and rarely find a Brown book. I would highly recommend one of the titles depicted above if you can find them, although I should mention that I am partial to Night of the Jabberwock and The Far Cry.

The Far Cry in particular will rock your world. Don’t read the synopsis or skim through the pages, just start at page one and enjoy the ride.

Attack the Block – Aliens are invading at the Maven, and we love it!

Attack the Block Poster — The poster art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the film, Optimum Releasing, the publisher of the film or the graphic artist.

This is what going to the movies is supposed to be like! Think of Attack the Block as a small reward for putting up with the sub-par efforts that have been all too common in North American theatres for the past few years. This film is a wonderfully eclectic combination of sci-fi, horror, comedy and adventure, which never commits too firmly to one specific genre. The result is a film that can be enjoyed by anyone, although I would not call it ‘family friendly’.

I always love going to see genre-mashups, even if the movie isn’t that great, the product still tends to feel fresh. Fortunately, Attack the Block is great and happens to be one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Think The Goonies meets Gremlins, except the kids are a British gang of street toughs and someone has juiced up the gremlins with a boatload of steroids. Trust me Bruv, you’ll love it!

The story starts like this, a gang of younger teens are up to their usual tricks, hanging around the block and robbing people that look like easy targets. When an attempted robbery goes awry, it’s not because of resistance from the victim, nor is it because of police intervention. The robbery goes wrong because a hurtling projectile from outer space nearly kills the thugs and victim alike. This foreign object turns out to be a a small alien monster and shortly after a rather harrowing encounter, the kids find themselves pedaling like mad on their bikes back to the block (their apartments) to save their skins.

For the entire runtime, roughly 90 mins, Attack the Block stays within the limits set by the storyline, budget and young group of actors and demolishes all expectations. The creatures look great and are terrifying. The British slang will be extremely fresh for North American audiences and the laughs are plentiful. The actors that were selected to play the group of troublesome teens do an excellent job, while some fabulous comedic performances are turned in by Luke Treadaway as Brewis, the wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time pothead who just wants to get his fix and deal with the alien invasion another day, and Jumayn Hunter as Hi-Hatz, who takes what it means to be Gangsta to a previously unheard of level.

Even if you aren’t the biggest horror or sci-fi fan, Attack the Block deserves your attention. It is fairly tame in the violence department, by today’s standards, and doesn’t delve into sci-fi techno-babble. It was made with care and passion, and it shows.

Allow it bruv, you won’t regret it!

The Definition of Entertainment – HD television

If you don’t have HD TV by now, you must really be trying hard to hang on to the ‘good ole days’. The days before rap music, video games and colour vision came along to ruin perfectly good Friday nights spent at the Old American Barn Dance:

Oh man….when that old guy came on, I just had to stop watching. The mentally deranged roamed free in those days. At any rate, HD TV.

I’m not going to kid myself, the jump from standard definition to high definition probably doesn’t even come close to the change from black and white to colour broadcasts, but the change is still a significant one. With HD you get a more aesthetically pleasing aspect ratio, an elongated rectangle instead of a square or artificially stretched image. If you disagree, please be my guest and find me a ‘beautiful’ Polaroid picture. You also get a wider range of colours, which really make artistic cinematographic efforts breathtaking to witness; the planet earth series for example. If you want a rather startling demonstration of HD vs. SD, then check out Jon in the video below:

I don’t think that anyone will actually put up an argument that SD is better or the same as HD, we’re past that. However, there are still a large group of people that refuse to treat themselves to this extra viewing pleasure because of the price. Let me break it down.

For around $10-$20 dollars more a month (at least in Canada), you can watch movies in anamorphic widescreen, instead of a grainy square box. You will actually see what happens in sports and put and end to those embarrassing moments when you accidentally cheer for the other team, because not enough photons are hitting your retina to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. Finally, you can start entertaining guests at your house again and people will actually show up!

For those that are still not on board, I have a suggestion. Just cancel your cable and subscribe to your favourite shows for online transcripts after the broadcast. That way you can read your shows and not be bothered with any bills at all! Some examples follow:

Sports:

Announcer: The guys got the ball. He’s gonna try to score it…and he does!

Fans appear to enjoy this

Announcer: You had to see it to believe it! You gotta love sports!

Multiple men in uniforms celebrate, while the men in the other uniforms appear to be upset

Nature channel:

Animals abound

A man is speaking but he is not on camera

The Forest flourishes

The Biggest Loser:

A big man is doing pushups

A bigger woman is running on a treadmill

A man that is the size of the big man plus the bigger woman is watching them and reconsidering if cannibalism can truly be abhorent in EVERY situation

Come on…make the change. You deserve it.

Kronenbourg 1664 Blanc – Essential drinking

If you haven’t had a Kronenbourg Blanc yet, then chances are you have been living in a cave, sustaining yourself on stone soup and tongue-of-old-worn-out-boot sandwiches. Also, you have personally offended me and I will expect your apology in the comments section.

Seriously though, you can work up a fairly daunting bar tab while drinking Blanc and having good conversation with friends. The stuff goes down like ice cold water on a hot day and yet still has plenty of flavour, unlike other beers that go down easy (Corona, Coors light, etc.).

The specific flavours are a little difficult to nail down. I definitely get a lemon flavour and a bit of corriander, however the beer may be more complex than that. Whatever the combination of flavours, it is sublime and has to be the best beer to order on a hot summer day.

Kronenbourg Blanc is available around the world, however some areas are having a hard time getting a regular dose of the nectar. I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada where the government regulates the sale of alcohol through The Beer Store and the LCBO. If you live in Toronto and want to try Blanc, your best bet is to hit up a bar that carries it (RealSports Bar for example). It does appear now and then in the LCBO, but in such pathetically small quantities, especially considering that it is far superior to many of the products taking up space on the shelves.

If you want to apply some pressure to the LCBO to start carrying Blanc regularly, give them a call or check out the ‘Kronenbourg Blanc Appreciation’ Facebook page!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2316199485&v=wall

Cheers