Love letter

There's a great moment in Don McKellar's doomtastic Last Night where the main character's friend (played superbly by Callum Keith Rennie) is trying to burn through all his sexual fantasies before time eternal comes to an abrupt and finite halt. When McKellar's character pays him his final visit, he is just in time to see one fantasy leaving and it happens to be the French teacher the pals had in their youth. She addresses him in French and the joke is pure Canadiana as anybody who took French (mandatory in elementary school) and then nearly completely abandoned it would easily recognize the stumbling, uncomfortable nature of his broken reply. But there's an even better and deeper piece of shared experience in the scene as the teacher is played by Geneviève Bujold who would clearly hold the title of fantasy French teacher for any and all the Canadian boys of the era and persuasion of the characters.

Re-watching Entre La Mer et L'eau Douce last night left me understanding this ideal even more than I thought I had before. She is just so sublimely perfect. The ultimate Canadian girlfriend. It's nearly heartbreaking.

Bottoms up!

Tunnels

Fantastic opening sequence from this gritty and misanthropic masterpiece (and feature debut as both star and director) by Allen Baron with concrete voice-over, courtesy of blacklisted narrator, Lionel Stander. A perfect way to set the tone for just a little over an hour's worth of wintry bleakness and mood.

Blast of Silence!

Girl next door

Fantastic (in my opinion) and colourful Japanese B2 poster for Cronenberg's magnificent 1977 effort, Rabid. The American paper was so terminally freaky that it's nice to have a gentler piece of advertising from the film and an especially vibrant one as well. A film worth revisiting if you're restless anytime soon.

the freshen up girls

Thanks to Eric for picking this up for me. And guess what? They still smell. But their aroma ain't so good almost 30 years later...

Maple syrup

I'm always thrilled when I find what I consider to be a legendary piece of Canadian film paper. The main reason is that, in most cases, the films I'm talking about don't have wide releases and one can assume that the screenings were small and precious, just like the number of posters printed up. I scored this one not long ago (and recently saw the film) so I was a very happy poster collector.





Allan King is making his films available to the public by selling them directly from his website. So, that's cool. I want to see Skid Row pretty bad and the one that has the guitarist from Rush as a teenager.

However, not all of the Canadian wonderfulness of movie history is available although great strides are being taken by the N.F.B. and others and they should be celebrated. Criminally unavailable (and I'm not talking about DVD-R) are the films of Janis Cole and Holly Dale. I have never seen P4W but I would nearly kill to do so. Honestly. And this is one of my all-time favourite films from any country and in any style. It's is pure magnificence. And purely Canadian, thankfully. I've had two television screenings in my lifetime but I need more, people.

the Bad Lieutenant franchise? Nic Cage speaks out!!!

Toronto deviant and Fango reporter Chris Alexander gets Nic Cage to spill some beans on Herzog's BAD LIEUTENANT remake, the Rob Zombie Fu Manchu, 8MM and other stuffs!



Meanwhile, Nicolas Cage sits down and has a look at his own performance in THE WICKER MAN remake.

like a pocket full of Canadian five dollar bills

legends in the same place

Found this in a 1983 issue of Cinefantasique with a cover story on Something Wicked This Way Comes. 15 year old Ray Bradbury and Marlene Dietrich outside the Paramount lot in 1935. This post inspired by one of my favourite blogs.

if in America (or at least NYC)

If in the NYC area, buy a ticket to the best indie Viking film you'll ever see.

After a long, mettlesome, and frostbitten journey, SEVERED WAYS: THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA is being released theatrically, opening at the Angelika Film Center on March 13, and then onto other cities across the continent.

MAGNET/MAGNOLIA present A TONY STONE FILM
SEVERED WAYS: THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
soundtrack featuring MORBID ANGEL - BURZUM
POPOL VUH - DIMMU BORGIR - BRIAN ENO
OLD MAN’S CHILD - QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE
and JUDAS PRIEST.
Angelika Film Center March 13-19.
www.severedways.com

when in Winnipeg

Thanks to Darryl Gold for pointing this out. You can also learn more about Mr. Gold here.

"Here is a cartoon that's a parody of those old drive-in movie ads from the sixties and seventies. It's also a tribute to Dave barber, who is the dude who has ran the Winnipeg Cinematheque for the last 25 years. This video was made for their 25th anniversary. If you weren't one of the eight people who saw it at the theatre, you can be one of the ten people who watch it on youtube."



And also filed under Dave Barber and the wonders of Winnipeg is this nugget found on YouTube.

old Harry

Something I found when at the European Film Market. In production (possibly in pre-production, but slated for 2009).

Electronic Pinocchio

What could be better than hearing stories about Menahem Golan and John Ford as told by Lee Marvin?

Hausu!!!

What? Still not at all interested?



If I had seen this in 1977 I would have been scarred for life.

The Medusa Touch

a year ago the fires raged

Roughly, a year ago, Toronto lost the Queen Street West location of Suspect Video, along with several other businesses. Hard to believe it was a year. Nothings happened with the space. Just rubble and memories.

Here is the post about the original tragedy.

Inside the pink cinema

No, I don't mean that kind of pink cinema, I mean this kind of pink cinema. Pal of Sticky Floors, Jason Gray posted about his experience going to one of the remaining pink cinemas in Tokyo over at his blog. You can also see some of the buildings in their surroundings in this post of his.

V is for...

return of the puffy monsters

I promised Deadilicious that I would post pics of the kooky illustrated board that the monster stickers were stapled to (see earlier post). Here it is in all its glory.

Survivor

we got Dardos!

Wow! We'd like to take a bow for the recognition of being presented with The Dardos Award twice, first by those swell French pastry chefs over at Deadilicious, and then by Samuel at MONDO 70: A Wild World of Cinema! Wow! What an honour!

"The Dardos Award is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web."

Like a chain letter awards, we must pass the award over to five other blogs that we like. We put our heads together, had to pull some short straws, but came up with these WINNERS!

The Undead Film Critic - Sadly, what since the time that me and the lads picked our winners, one of them is no more. While there is no set order to the awards, we would very much like to single out The Undead Film Critic, whose time with us was far too brief. I checked it daily and his flurry and variety of visual posts was a source of constant delight. I was away from regular internet access earlier this month and when I sat down to catch up on what UFC had been up to, I found that Blogger had pulled the plug on his blog which upset me to no end. We have heard from him since and he promises this:

"It might be awhile but I shall return. Zombies don't die, but we sure are slow as hell."

Please stay tuned at the end of this blog for some photos of UFC in happier days. The Scandy Factory posted an obit here.

Rad Dudes
The title says it all...
The only non-film blog here. You need a break sometimes.

The Shoot Actors Don't They
A bunch of Toronto nerdlingers stand on a soapbox and spout off on what they like and love about movies. The Finnish love them.

Cinebeats: Confessions of a Cinephile
" One woman's love affair with '60s & '70s era cinema."
It's been awhile since she posted, but when she does, we snap to it and read it!

If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger,
There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats

I compare this blog to a desk day calendar that regularly inspires me from others endeavours and greatness. Simple, no frills and that's all you need. (It also has Cinebeats' Kimberly Lindbergs as a contributor.

The Dardos Award Rules are:
1) Accept the award by posting it on your blog along with the name of the person that has granted the award and a link to his/her blog.
2) Pass the award to another five blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgement, remembering to contact each of them to let them know they have been selected for this award.

And now some memories of UFC.
(Lights dim and fade in "We've Only Just Begun" by The Carpenters)

R.I.P. Shirley Jean Rickert

One time Little Rascal and then, later, burlesque queen, Shirley Jean Rickert passed away last week just a month before her 83rd birthday.

She wasn't a star or regular in the Our Gang shorts but you may recall her, as I did, as that little blonde girl with the distinctive curls. Good hair!





I'm not too pained to bring you this news since I really don't know much about her and wouldn't have at all if not for the help of a hip poster seller from California (it's rumoured he used to date Mary Woronov!) who I arranged a trade with and my end included this beast of a 40" X 60' poster affixed to heavy cardboard and showing obvious signs of loving use and stamps indicating that it was property of the Sonney Amusements family of roadshow film exhibitors. Great history for people like me!

Anyway, here she is in all her fancy-dancing glory on the bottom right hand corner of the poster...





If you visit me, you can look at her more closely (but not one-on-one) as you remove your shoes.

And here's a window card for the same film. These pieces are no longer created for contemporary movies but they used to be quite popular at one time. 14" x 22" with a space for the theatre to write in the specifics on show dates and times. They'd be posted about small towns and such in storefront/diner windows or community boards...that type of thing.

Shirley was known, on stage, as Gilda.



Comely, to say the least.

One man's sexy...

Kilka dobrych polskich filmow plakaty

Some of my favourites...

Solaris

Blade Runner

Missing

Yesterday's Enemy

El Topo

Something Wild

What recession?

Took this the other night when walking in the snowy streets. Toronto's last adult cinema got a new coat of paint and a change of colour. Red! Now that says class!