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Uptown Magazine - Winnipeg's Online Source for Arts, Entertainment & News

August 14, 2008


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2008-08-14

'What the...?'

Transgressive Visions From?Canada features some of the more screwed-up and strange short films you'll ever see

(Transgressive Visions From Canada, Aug. 20, 9 p.m., Cinematheque)

B+

"We propose that all film schools be blown up and all boring films never be made again."

Those words are torn from New York filmmaker Nick Zedd's Cinema of Transgression Manifesto, penned in the early 1980s. In context, Zedd was reacting in large part to the stagnated state of avant-garde cinema in America, ultimately proposing "transformation through transgression - to convert, transfigure and transmute into a higher plane of existence in order to approach freedom in a world full of unknowing slaves."

And so was born (eloquently articulated, at least) 'transgressive cinema,' a focus of the short film program, Transgressive Visions From Canada, curated by Montreal's master of the macabre, Mitch Davis - the driving force behind the city's annual FanTasia Festival, North America's premier genre festival which takes place every July. (I've been, and the lines for tickets stretch for city blocks.)

Now, gore is easy. But making it equally suspenseful, entertaining and even funny is the challenge at hand for the cream of transgressive crop featured in Davis' program.

Among the more sleekly handled films in the program is The Demonology of Desire, a horro-reverie by Rodrigo Gudino, the founder of Rue Morgue Magazine. In it, a female protagonist dressed in fanboy-approved private-school kilt, shirt and tie, physically torments a young male crush after she is first seen praying to God for a man that loves her so much he'd rape her until she'd bleed. Did I mention this program might not be for kids? The situations and plot development are, if unbelievable, well-paced even if the dialogue borders on cheesy.

Those considerations aside, after watching this and more of Davis' selections, it becomes clear that the royal jelly of Transgressive Cinema shall go to he who most entertainingly weaves together the grossest, strangest shit. It's the creative organization and deroulement of the plot that makes remarkable these otherwise ADD cinematic medications; special effects are of secondary importance.

Another case in point is Christopher R. Nash's Day of John, a narrative strategy involving the protagonist and an omniscient God-like narrator who comments on the three pivotal traumatic events in lead character John's life. With rapid chronological jumps and a demon monster that is both jokey and dramatically central, Nash's work reiterates the importance of storytelling in transgressive cinema.

But if you watch only one of the program's shorts before exiting the theatre and barfing, make sure it's Montreal comic artist Rick Tramble's Goopy Spasms Live Cartoon Show - an autobiographical compendium of fetish from anal blackheads to fond remembrances of sexual discovery.
— Walter Forsberg

It's like Star Wars - only not as good

Animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars doesn't pack the same punch as its live-action counterparts

(Star Wars: The Clone Wars, opens Friday)

B-

The glaring lack of audience cheering at the cursory Lucasfilm logo - the first thing to appear onscreen - clued me into the fact that this new Star Wars movie didn't quite have the excitement surrounding its release that the three previous prequels of the early 2000s did.

Unfortunately, the lowered collective enthusiasm was justified.

For this story instalment, which, chronologically, takes place between Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, creator George Lucas decided to kick-start the upcoming 3D animated television series with a feature film. (The forthcoming tube version is reputed to approach 100 episodes.)

Lucas' most financially lucrative cinematic/franchising venture is marking the debut of blockbuster machinima - which means that Star Wars: The Clone Wars, at least to this reviewer's humble knowledge, is the first time we get to watch a feature-length video-game movie from Hollywood. And, I think, understanding the new Star Wars flick as an extended video game-playing sesh is probably the best catch-all-synopsis, only the experience has the unique benefit of a predetermined (or, is that just The Force?) happy ending for everyone's best-loved characters; even Jabba the Hutt is treated to a semi-touching/semi-corny father-son reunion.

As such, the film suffers from a lack of overwhelming excitement - traditionally brought on in other live-action Star Wars movies through two or three garish action climaxes. The thrusts of the four that take place in The Clone Wars peter out quickly, predictably and with little of the awe-inspiring ka-booms that dazzled so in the original live-action films (particularly the 20th century incarnations).

The principal characters (Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jabba) are all live-action relics and nostalgia plays no small role in enabling viewers to endure their somewhat expressionless, Thunderbirds-like fixed facial movements and inevitable triumphs.

In a scaled-back 'case of the Jar-Jar Binkses' (aka, in another era, as a 'case of the Ewoks') Lucas has introduced a new character, young female Jedi apprentice Ashoko, to appeal to youth and provide some kind of grrrl-power role model. Like her predecessors, Binks and the Ewoks, she proves a corny crutch.

The film's main plot, Skywalker and Kenobi's mission to safely return the kidnapped progeny of Jabba, is further weakened when young Hutt Rotta is revealed to be little more than an infant, sperm-like, whining green turd.

Still, if you really like Star Wars, this generally technically accomplished and animation-pioneering stop-gap near-clone will be worth the price of admission.
— Walter Forsberg

A few subjects short of a documentary

We Are Wizards is meant to document people with serious Harry Potter obsessions, but doesn't dig deep enough

(We Are Wizards, Aug. 15-17 & 22-24, Cinematheque)

C+

Some people really like Harry Potter. Several of them, including Potter-themed touring musicians and other coattail parasites whose careers in the professional realm literally came about due to their Potter preoccupations, are the subjects of a new doc by Josh Koury called We Are Wizards.

Naturally, many of the film's subjects speak with hilarious reverence for the popular Potter franchise, with one even going so far as to qualify the contemporary Potter phenomenon as "a great moment in literary history." But Koury's weakly executed portrait does little to justify the statement.

Among the subjects we meet are the Massachusetts-based Harry and the Potters - a brother duo that dresses up in striped ties, circular specs and grey V-neck sweaters while performing songs involving Potter universe names and concepts. Musically, the brothers really suck and hearing them nerdily talk about all the underage female groupies is more lecherous than enlightening. Not surprisingly, there exists also a band named Draco and The Malfoys which composes songs from the point of view of the evil bully of the same name. (They also suck.)

The main problem with Koury's doc is that the subject thread is not convincing enough for the feature length it's been stretched to. One recurring pace-motif involves nature shots of trees, branches, landscapes, a common documentary technique often meant to provide time for contemplation and reflection. But in Koury's film, there seems little that's interesting to contemplate about Potter nerds. If anything, one's conviction is that these people's obsession is kind of pathetic.

We Are Wizards' only saving grace is the interview moments with animator Brad Neely, who freely credits his current Adult Swim animated web series to the success he first gained creating an irreverent alternative soundtrack and dialogue CD to the Potter films. Neely is aware of the dire capitalistic greed involved in the franchising of J.K. Rowling's kids books, particularly by Warner Bros., but Koury is never able to go anywhere contemplatively notable with Neely's insights.
— Walter Forsberg

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