Intangible, and just plain odd

Imagine this scenario.

The film you greenlit and is currently in production is coming together. Rough edits of scenes look great. The cast and crew and happy. The film’s moving along without a snag. Principal photography in beautiful rural Iowa wraps.

Post-production begins, and the first-time feature film director soon delivers his first cut of scenes in assembly mode.

Things are looking a little odd, but you can’t judge a film until all scenes have been fine-tuned and the pacing is tightened up. There’s no music score, but rudimentary sound effects impart the overall mood the director and his co-writer described to you during the original pitch meeting, or that pivotal moment where you decided to buy the script and make the film.

But your instincts are telling you something is off, and it’s an unsettling feeling, because even though you know the film’s story – Psycho, without the gore – backwards and forwards, it’s only now that you realize, having seen all the shot footage and every conceivable edit and re-edit, that the film is an intangible.

It’s a thing that will be a marketing nightmare because it’s neither straight horror, hard drama, darkly comedic, or a mystery film.

It’s called Peacock, and as good as the cast may be – Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page, Susan Sarandon - it has no hope in hell of ever getting a theatrical release. There’s no way to sell the film without appearing deceitful, or off by a mile. Conventional ad campaigns wouldn’t capture its essence, because you don’t know what it is beyond ‘odd.’

Cutting a trailer might spoil the plot points, but then the film takes a few right turns anyways, so does it matter? Is it even worth making a trailer for a film you can’t sell?

It is a good film, but you’ve no idea what it is, so what happens next?

Smartly, the film’s eventual release on DVD (Maple in Canada, Lionsgate in the U.S.) comes with a few extras that aren’t pretentious, and although there’s no commentary track, there is a making-of featurette where enough people express why they chose the film, and describe the tangible elements that drew them to the project.

Most orphaned films are mediocre or banal, but Peacock kind of reminds of the odd little films that would sometimes make their way to Pay TV stations, VHS or laserdisc, and get discovered by accident, or were rented simply based on the cast, and a curiosity as to what the hell they were doing in what looked like a strange mess.

Probably my favourite examples of intangible films are those produced by New World Pictures during the 80s and 90s. Roger Corman’s old company was essentially giving new filmmakers the chance to make their odd little film, and in retrospect, most would never have gotten a theatrical release, or perhaps even been greenlit for production today. The best two that come to mind are Bill Condon’s Sister Sister (which did get a theatrical release, even in Canada, back in 1987), and Apprentice to Murder (1988).

Never heard of them? The former did enjoy a DVD release, while the latter is currently lost in oblivion (unless I just happened to trigger a memory cell at someone who owns the New World catalogue).

Most product sent straight to video today follows the usual genre patterns, and the box art further denigrates the film into something familiar. The makers of Peacock may have aspired for a theatrical release, but it had no hope because screen time isn’t allowed for intangibles. Sleeper hits and critical favourites, maybe, but not a thing that can only be described as odd.

It also comes to DVD as a mystery, unaided by any production controversy or reputation as being gory, sick, erotic or weird; it’s none of them, but it does feature an excellent performance by Cillian Murphy, and it’s kind of fascinating to watch the film struggle for an identity when only the filmmakers know where the hell it’s going.

Neither disaster, dud, or weak, it’s its own thing, which makes it a bit of a dare for those wanting to be surprised, or at least willing to subjectively proscribe some firm identity to this very odd little movie.

Check out the review, and maybe the film…

Mark R. Hasan, Editor

KQEK.com

And the 2010 Genie Award Winners are…

Last night the Genie Awards (Genie = Canadian FILM, not music, not TV) were handed out, with Polytechnique earning Best Motion Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, and Achievement in Overall Sound.

One Week nabbed the Best Actor, and Love & Savagery earned a Best Supporting Actress, while Best Adapted Screenplay went to Fifty Dead Men Walking, and Best Score was awarded to The Master Key.

I’ve pasted the complete list at the end (available as a PDF doc at the Genie’s website), but here’s one query that popped into my head when the CBC announced the Best Picture and Actor winners in last night’s news show The National: Was the show ever publicized by the CBC?

The CBC carried the show live via webcast - cable channel IFC was the actual TV host - but the CBC, having more media outlets than the cable station, barely mentioned the imminent awards show during ad breaks this past week.

The Genies has been a quandary for any network for a good twenty decades: How do you get people interested in films few have seen theatrically? How do you get them excited about an awards show that must fight against public apathy for Cancon, as well as fatigue from the monster that was The Oscars not long ago?

With many of the films widely available on DVD, the first question is moot; the movies are out there to buy online and in shops, as well as rent.

It’s the apathy that’s always been a problem.

I distinctly recall one of the Genie’s last live appearances on the CBC. Not sure of the exact year, but the thinking at the time was to spice things up, go against the traditional awards show format, and cram everyone into a large soundstage setup to resemble a nightclub.

A bar was to one side, the nominees were packed onto tightly arranged deck chairs, and the stage was made of buffed abstract metal.

Someone – the host - would wander back and forth from the bar to the nominees, blabbing factoids or terribly written jokes before the next award was handed out, and (I think) because the show was packed into an hour time slot, the whole thing was rushed, worsened by ad breaks. At the end, the host sung an improve piece (David Cronenberg was mentioned, since he was nearby on a deck chair) and the credits rolled fast so the evening news could begin.

My details might be a bit fuzzy, but I do remember a sense of genuine discomfort among the nominees, with cameras trained on them as they were supposed to laugh at bad jokes and perk up when the show returned from a clump of ads.

That airing was a disaster, and ranks as one of the most ill-conceived awards shows I’ve ever seen. I’d argue that it was the nadir, because the telecast must have prompted the Genies organization to slowly rethink how it should present itself in order to get audiences as well as networks to care.

I lost interest in later shows, and I think other networks tried to make a go of the Genies in later years, with an edited version aired after the fact one year. The 2010 awards are slated for rebroadcast on May 9th, and anyone can access clips of the winners online, all of which is good, but I can’t help asking: Did the CBC do enough?

Even if one presumes the awards were mentioned at regular intervals, there’s the issue of the winners being reduced last night to a mere mention of Polytechnique and One Week. Two names sync’d to film clips, and it was over.

Frankly, that’s not good enough, and while you could blame the CBC’s revamped news format – more ad breaks than ever before – for affecting the length of each news segment, you have to wonder: Was it really so impossible to squeeze in additional details about the winners?

The only other explanation is perhaps IFC had exclusive TV rights, prohibiting the CBC from showing any clips outside of the web realm. In any event, while many of the films are now available on DVD (see hyperlinked titles), it’s unsettling that the winners, if not the awards show, have been pushed to the fringes yet again, albeit with an active online presence.

The 30th Annual Genie Award winners are:

BEST MOTION PICTURE / MEILLEUR FILM
POLYTECHNIQUE - Maxime Rémillard, Don Carmody

---

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE / INTERPRÉTATION
MASCULINE DANS UN PREMIER RÔLE
JOSHUA JACKSON - One Week

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE / INTERPRÉTATION
MASCULINE DANS UN RÔLE DE SOUTIEN
MAXIM GAUDETTE – Polytechnique

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE / INTERPRÉTATION
FÉMININE DANS UN PREMIER RÔLE
KARINE VANASSE - Polytechnique

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE / INTERPRÉTATION FÉMININE DANS
UN RÔLE DE SOUTIEN
MARTHA BURNS - Love & Savagery

---

ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTION / MEILLEURE RÉALISATION
DENIS VILLENEUVE – Polytechnique

---

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY / MEILLEUR SCÉNARIO
JACQUES DAVIDTS – Polytechnique

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY / MEILLEURE ADAPTATION
KARI SKOGLAND - Fifty Dead Men Walking

---

ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY / MEILLEURES IMAGES
PIERRE GILL – Polytechnique

ACHIEVEMENT IN EDITING / MEILLEUR MONTAGE
RICHARD COMEAU – Polytechnique

---

ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC - ORIGINAL SCORE / MEILLEURE MUSIQUE ORIGINALE
NORMAND CORBEIL - Grande ourse: La clé des possibles / The Master Key

ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC - ORIGINAL SONG / MEILLEURE CHANSON ORIGINALE
JOHN WELSMAN, CHERIE CAMP - NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY – “Oh Love”

ACHIEVEMENT IN OVERALL SOUND / MEILLEUR SON D'ENSEMBLE
STÉPHANE BERGERON, PIERRE BLAIN, JO CARON, BENOÎT LEDUC – Polytechnique

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING / MEILLEUR MONTAGE SONORE
CLAUDE BEAUGRAND, GUY FRANCOEUR, CAROLE GAGNON, CHRISTIAN RIVEST – Polytechnique

---

ACHIEVEMENT IN ART DIRECTION/PRODUCTION DESIGN / MEILLEURE DIRECTION ARTISTIQUE
EVE STEWART - Fifty Dead Men Walking

ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN / MEILLEURS COSTUMES
ATUAT AKITTIRQ - Before Tomorrow

ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKE-UP / MEILLEURS MAQUILLAGES
DJINA CARON, ANDRÉ DUVAL - Grande ourse: La clé des possibles / The Master Key

---

BEST FEATURE LENGTH DOCUMENTARY / MEILLEUR LONG MÉTRAGE DOCUMENTAIRE
A HARD NAME - Alan Zweig, Kristina McLaughlin, Michael McMahon

BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY / MEILLEUR COURT MÉTRAGE DOCUMENTAIRE
THE DELIAN MODE - Kara Blake, Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT DRAMA / MEILLEUR COURT MÉTRAGE DRAMATIQUE
DANSE MACABRE - Pedro Pires, Catherine Chagnon

BEST ANIMATED SHORT / MEILLEUR COURT MÉTRAGE D'ANIMATION
RUNAWAY / TRAIN EN FOLIE - Cordell Barker, Derek Mazur, Michael Scott

---

SPECIAL AWARDS

ACADEMY SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Mel Hoppenheim

CLAUDE JUTRA AWARD
XAVIER DOLAN – J’ai tué ma mère / I Killed My Mother

GOLDEN REEL AWARD
De père en flic / Father and Guns – Denise Robert, Daniel Louis, (Distributor: Alliance Vivafilm)

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Infidelity Across Oceans

The release of Atom Egoyan’s Chloe (2009) has spawned an interest in Anne Fontaine’s original 2003 drama, Nathalie, which starred Fanny Ardant as the wife who hires a hooker (Emmanuelle Beart) to entice husband Bernard (Gerard Depardieu), so as to ostensibly trap the serial bed-hopper after a recent humiliation.

Whereas Egoyan’s film has been recombined into a mystery-erotic-drama set in Toronto, Nathalie was anchored in Paris. One can see why Egoyan was attracted to the original film: emotionally muted characters, erotic imagery set against staid, sometimes elegantly banal locations, and a simple plot of revenge that creates a number of moral dilemmas for the characters.

Nathalie featured a soft little score by Michael Nyman, with a piano providing a touch of class, eroticism, and tragedy, whereas Mychael Danna’s Chloe music was overtly based around a singular theme that progresses towards fairly dark terrain.

The scores are certainly indicative of each director’s handling of improper behaviour, so I’ve uploaded a review of Danna’s score (released by Silva Screen), and a review of Fontaine’s 2003 film (Koch Lorber / E1), which is really worth hunting down just to watch how much understated, secretive behaviour is allowed to bubble to the surface, and how little graphic sexuality is depicted onscreen.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Nuances within the Cold War Genre

And so goes another Easter weekend, with Toronto getting some absolutely stunning and abby-normal weather. Spring was notable this year for a snow-free March (an all-time record), and I can’t say I miss the evil white stuff, since the birds are back, squirrels are doing rude things to each other in the trees, and the first wild flowers are starting to emerge in neighboring front yards.

I just hope everyone remembers to TRIM BACK! the vegetation so half of the sidewalks aren’t stolen from pedestrians; in the ‘burbs, this is a non-issue, but in downtown T.O., every inch of sidewalk is important.

In any event, the first set of films reviews are up, and the theme today is the Cold War film, which isn’t really a full-fledged genre because it’s comprised of several strands. You’ve probably heard of a few: the Red Menace film. The Cold War drama. The Cold War thriller. The Propaganda film.

It’s easy to apply genre nomenclature with ease, but one has to think about a film’s tone and whatever subtext is at work before slapping it as anti-Commie, Cold War propaganda (or one of each).

Not long ago I reviewed Berlin Express (1946), which loosely dealt with western suspicions of Soviet reserve and chilly demeanor under the guise of an anti-Nazi thriller set in postwar Berlin. The film was more pro-Soviet bridge-building propaganda than Cold War thriller, if not a message picture telling everyone to swallow political differences and work towards rebuilding a Germany that can symbolize a restored functional democracy for future conflicts.

My Son John (1952), Leo McCarey’s drama about a mother who suspects her son is a Commie spy is part of the Red Menace genre that was overtly anti-Soviet. In a Red Menace film, Communism is a disease that infected war-ravaged nations from the democratic west, and now its spies are infiltrating upper-tier levels of western governments. It’s no wonder that the fear of conquest and loss of humanism and free thinking were absorbed into the sci-fi genre, and Commie agents were reconfigured as bug-eyed alien monsters out to smite the human race (represented by America, Britain, and colonial/Commonwealth peoples.

(Funnily, Canada never really figured in any of these dramas except for one film, Fox’ 1948 production of The Iron Curtain, based on the Igor Gouzenko case where a Soviet file clerk uncovered espionage plans against the west. If the 1948 Gouzenko Affair was pivotal to igniting a broad fear of Soviet spying, then 1948 can also been seen as a watershed when Hollywood started to exploit distrust, loathing, and vilification of anything Soviet during the late forties thru the early sixties.)

So what exactly are the nuances that differentiate the sub-genres from each other? And why are these differences important?

The examples I’m picking are two films that had a young Janet Leigh, and illustrate the tonal shift between the lets-work-together message of Berlin Express, and the vilification of Communism in My Son John.

Red Danube (1949) marks the stage where American filmmakers started to reconfigure Soviets as villains, but only after evidence made its way to the United Nations via persecuted German-Russians being sent back from Vienna to the USSR for repatriation, and life in a gulag.

At the center of this social and humanitarian dilemma is a dancer named Olga (Leigh), whop falls in love with a British officer. The Soviets are no longer comprised of a few staunch soldiers with the potential for humanism, as dramatized in the finale of Berlin Express. In 1949, Soviets were a cold, scheming mass exploiting the fair play rules of Allied power-sharing agreements, packing refugees into cramped cattle trains that, in the film, evoke the Nazis’ deportation of Jews to the death camps – unsubtle visuals director George Sidney played out with stark photography.

In Red Danube, Leigh was a starlet, and as the film review details, she wasn’t exactly the best choice, and Sidney (and MGM) seemed to recognize her weaknesses called for some careful film editing and direction.

A year later, Leigh landed the role of another Olga in Jet Pilot (1950/1957), Howard Hughes’ weird kludge of air force actioner, romance, and comedy with a comic book anti-Commie tone. Those familiar with Hughes’ tenure at studio RKO know Jet Pilot was a problem-plagued production that took several years to complete, and wasn’t released until 1957 when RKO was dead.

John Wayne is assigned to learn Olga’s flying tricks and verify if her desire to defect is earnest, but love and some duplicitous behaviour has the couple making a run for Soviet Russia in the film’s final third. If one ignores the odd comedic moments, the bizarre romance-by-jet plane, and director Joseph von Sternberg’s gorgeous Technicolor compositions, Jet Pilot’s message is like a ‘last call’ for latent/secret capitalist Russians to join the free world before the Cold War settles in.

The spying elements are feeble, and Olga is never in any real position to endanger the U.S. Air Force because Wayne’s superiors have kept her carefully monitored, with Wayne always close by. There’s no upset of the general social order because she’s not allowed to mingle (and actually doesn’t care to mingle) with average Americans in Palm Springs. Arabian jammies excepted (see picture above), Olga just wants to pick Wayne’s brain for military secrets, and head back home. Moreover, everyone knows she’s a Communist, so there’s no secrecy besides whether she really loves Wayne for real.

Both films were prestige production to the extent of being major studio releases headed by major stars. MGM undoubtedly treated Red Danube like a high, hot-button drama, whereas Hughes sold Jet Pilot as a high-octane tale of two flyers finding love in the air; the key art for Danube showcased conflicted heads surrounding a potential hussy (Leigh), whereas the recurring motif of the Pilot campaign art has Olga inches away from removing her T-shirt, and presenting a WTF-visaged Wayne her pointy, militaristic pontoons.

At best, Jet Pilot is a Cold War romance-actioner, but the only drama probably lay off-screen, in von Sternberg’s effort to deliver a tonally balanced fine cut to RKO before Hughes ordered reshoots spanning two years.

The irony is that whereas the earnest message of Danube should’ve given it some longevity as a classic, it’s just a clunky dated melodrama torpedoed by some heavy-handed elements, and a terrible central performance. Pilot became a cult film because it was released years after principal photography, and when it emerged in theatres, the actors looked way younger. Then the film disappeared, and became a kitsch favourite during the eighties.

Part of the fun in examining these films is seeing what works, where the filmmaker stumbles, and in the case of Pilot, is the film the godawful disaster that cheeky pundits claimed it to be.

The Red Danube recently aired on TCM, and it’s doubtful it’ll make its way to DVD, except perhaps as a Warner Archive title (which means U.S. only). Jet Pilot has appeared on DVD via Goodtimes Home Video and MCA’s John Wayne: An American Icon Collection set, but only KOCH Germany took the bull by the horns and released the film on DVD in a new 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. Do check out the reviews for more details.

- MRH

Shirley Walker's Flashes of Brilliance

Just uploaded is a review of The Flash, La-La land’s latest limited edition release (3000 copies) that gathers over 2.5 hours of music from the 1990-1991 TV series onto 2 CDs.

The theme was written by Danny Elfman during his ‘comic book’ period, when studios courted the hot composer to score their own latest comic book films or TV series after the massive success of Batman in 1989.

What’s amusing is that prior to that meteoric career success, Elfman was initially kept in the background during the publicity campaign. Prince’s songs and the song LP were released prior to the original score LP so that Prince was regarded as the musical auteur of the film. Several interminable months later, a score platter emerged on record shelves, and later CD, which featured more music than the vinyl edition (something that was common during the early years of the CD, and affected other early releases such as The Fly, Pirates, and The Big Blue).

Two important things happened because of Elfman’s career boost: he had less and less time to write grand orchestral scores within a short time-frame, and by writing just the theme and delegating scoring chores to one of his orchestrators, Shirley Walker finally emerged into the limelight she deserved.

Walker was one of the best action writers around, and The Flash – still an early solo work for the composer of the Batman animated series and the Final Destination franchise – undoubtedly served as a primo professional calling card.

The music budget for The Flash was big enough that it allowed for a sizeable orchestra, and Walker mined every instrument to create an expansive sound palette for a show that lasted a year before being axed by CBS.

My memories were of a rather juvenile series, but then I could never get into the drama because of persistent news alerts that interrupted, pre-empted, or kicked episodes off the air. One reviewer stated the bugger was the Gulf War coverage, but I have no memory of what news was mucking up the show. I just recall being increasingly fed up with a big square that appeared in the lower corner, where news footage feed distracted from the show’s drama.

(The early nineties were filled with nascent technological abuses: networks had text scrawls at the picture’s bottom, or they superimposed ‘coming next’ text during the last 10 minutes of a show. The logo watermark was also born around then, so a lot of the distracting crap we see now – as well as cutting mid-scene for an ad break and splicing a show’s last 2 minutes with the abbreviated End Credits - stemmed from that decade.)

The Flash died of network neglect, but many fans remember the beauty of the music, so it’s a thrill to not only rediscover a rich sound from nearly 20 years ago, but realize Walker’s brilliance, and what was lost when she died in 2006.

For a review of La-La Land’s CD set, click HERE, and afterwards I’d suggest heading over to the French site UnderScores, where the label’s co-founder, Michael V. Gerhard, is interviewed (in English) about how the company has evolved into a major player in the soundtrack market, releasing material from the Paramount vaults, and whether the life of physical media may be dependent on collectors nostalgic for a disc, a booklet, and a shelf to house their library. (I’m actually good with analogue and digital media, but further blather regarding my tastes and habits will be reserved for a later blog.)

If I can wish for the work of one Paramount-heavy composer to make its way to CD, it’s Leith Stevens, particularly his classic Paramount sci-fi films War of the Worlds and When Worlds Collide. The masters exist, the scores are brilliant, and be they in mono or stereo, it would certainly allow me to scratch a Holy Grail or two from my own wish list (that incidentally, and if anyone cares, is topped by Carmen Dragon’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers).

- MRH