This site is updated Thursday afternoon with a new article about an artistic pursuit generally considered to be beneath consideration. James Schellenberg probes science-fiction, Carol Borden draws out the best in comics, Chris Szego dallies with romance and Ian Driscoll stares deeply into the screen. Click here for their bios and individual takes on the gutter.
While the writers have considerable enthusiasm for their subjects, they don't let it numb their critical faculties. Tossing away the shield of journalistic objectivity and refusing the shovel of fannish boosterism, they write in the hopes of starting honest and intelligent discussions about these oft-enjoyed but rarely examined artforms. Contact us here.
Recent Features
Alan Moore Knows The Score
“It's nice to hear all the old songs,
isn't it?” --the Devil, The Black Rider
I was surprised to hear the old songs
in Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen Century: 1910 (Top
Shelf, 2009). I probably shouldn't have been. The chapter title, “What Keeps Mankind Alive”
distracted me, but I kept
reading my water-damaged copy and ran smack into, “Mack
the Knife.” Like the chapter title, it's a song from Bertolt
Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera.
Breaking into the Business by Being Really, Really Disturbing
Disturbing as hell, an elegantly constructed first-person plunge into the mind of a maniac, a teenager who murdered kids when he was a kid (and got away with it), and now has elaborate rituals that mostly involve killing small mammals. As a first novel, that's one way to make a splash - The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks is a debut from 1984, famous for its controversial events and intense narration. I'm always a little suspicious of controversy though - is the book worth anything outside of the scandal associated with its "shocking" content?
Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan occupy some interesting real estate in the romance world; a previously untenanted corner of Innernet and
Romancelandia. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is a different sort of headspace when it comes to a website about Romance novels. It's frank, forthright, and not above fart jokes.
Wendell and Tan don't just review novels, they also subject them to analysis, and praise or pan them as the situation requires. They demonstrate an unquenchable and
exuberant love for the entire genre, while acknowledging - and even celebrating - its most ridiculous excesses. They've amassed an interesting and intelligent readership who tune in for the commentary and stay for fun. They even popularized the ever-useful phrase ‘man-titty’ as a descriptive aid in the discussion of cover art. And now the original Smart Bitches have written a book of their own: Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels
Interviewed about the legacy of Canadian tax shelter films
in Cinema Canada in 1985, Mordecai
Richler said,
"I think they squandered a
grand opportunity and it's largely the fault of producers who were shameless
and greedy, people of dismal taste, who were more interested in making deals
than films and who made a lot of money for themselves. And so Canadian films do
not enjoy a larger reputation anywhere and it's a pity... a lot of damage has been
done."
Well, Mordecai, I couldn’t disagree more.
In this era of Bill C-10 (which may be gone, but which
leaves behind its ideological sediment), and $44.8-million in cuts to
arts-and-culture programs (this in spite of a Conference Board of Canada report
attesting to the economic benefits of investing in Canadian culture), I think
it’s more important than ever to remember and celebrate the genre exercises
upon which our film industry - and the careers of some of its brightest stars -
were built. My Canada includes sleazy movies.
But first, a little primer on the tax shelter years:
Although the late 70s are regarded as the heyday of tax shelter films, a 60%
tax write-off for investment in Canadian films was available from 1954 on. In
1975, Minister of Finance John Turner announced a new income tax regulation
allowing “investors to deduct in one year, against income from all sources,
100% [!] of their investment in certified feature films.” Moreover, it was
retroactive, and included any film productions begun after Nov. 18, 1974. 100%
tax-shelter financing more or less continued until 1982, when it fell prey to
the vicious beast known as distribution. (The preceding is a gross
oversimplification, but for the complete story on what was and could have been,
read Wyndham Wise’s excellent and exhaustive article, Canadian
cinema from boom to bust: the tax-shelter years, from which I’ve cribbed
liberally.)
But by that point, the damage was done. We already had Black
Christmas. Meatballs. Fast Company. Ilsa, Tigress of Siberia.
The Pyx. Russian
Roulette. Strange Shadows in an
Empty Room. And a host of others. Some have
gone on to prestigious DVD releases or undeservedly painful remakes, but most
moulder in VHS bins.
Recently (the day before Canada Day, as a matter of fact), I
had the opportunity to see a trio of these hidden zirconia, and I have never
felt such as swell of patriotism in my life.
The evening started with a screening of The Silent
Partner, in which bank teller Elliott Gould preempts Christopher Plummer's scheme to rob his bank. Several double
crosses and corpses later, Gould comes out on top, and along the way, we’re
treated to an early semi-dramatic turn by John Candy and the
you-can’t-unsee-it-once-you’ve-seen-it sight of Christopher Plummer not only in
a mesh t-shirt, but also in drag. Written by Curtis Hanson and produced by Garth
Drabinsky, The Silent Partner is
easily one of the more entertaining crime dramas of the 70s, which is saying
something.
Next up was Rituals
(check the trailer),
starring Hal Holbrook as one of five doctors who go on a fishing vacation deep
in the Canadian wilderness only to discover that a crazed ex-patient is
tracking them with murderous intent. The plot borrows heavily from Deliverance, but if anything, Rituals looks like it was far more hellish to make - for
most of its running time, the actors trudge through forests and swamps, wet and
filthy, surrounded by hordes of black flies that ain’t CGI. If you can find a
print where you can actually see the action (the one I saw was murky to say the
least), give it watch. You won’t be disappointed.
We rounded out the evening with Death Weekend (trailer!).
A Canadian Straw Dogs, Death
Weekend is one of Ivan Reitman’s earliest
productions, and centres on the tribulations of couple who are attacked by a
group of ruffians at their cottage. If you’ve seen Straw Dogs, you can figure out how it ends. It’s not as
shattering as Peckinpah’s film, but it’s satisfying, and smarter than expected.
But where are the midnight Canuxploitation screenings of
tomorrow going to come from when funding for anything even remotely artsy is on
the chopping block? Especially when there’s no reasoning with the people
holding the axe? As Tom McSorley, Executive Director of the Canadian Film
Institute, recently observed, what lies behind the current government’s arts
funding cuts is “ideological adamant rock… I don't think they listen with any
degree of interest to the fact that the economic impact of the arts is
demonstrably positive.”
Time has been kind to the tax shelter films. The opportunity
wasn’t as squandered as Mordecai Richler would have us believe. A lot of
genuine entertainment, expression and - yes, I’ll say it - art squeezed
out between the lines of the producers’ ledgers, and we’re all richer for it.
It would be great if today’s filmmakers got the same chance. But in the current
political climate, that’s a big if.
I like to think that if Mordecai Richler were being
interviewed today, he might use that descriptor - “shameless and greedy people
of dismal taste” - to describe a group other than the producers of those dingy
celluloid dreams.
I know I would.
Command+s.
Ian Driscoll knows he ran a bit long this month, and doesn’t think this article is going to change
any minds, but he wrote it anyway.
As someone who is part of an organization that is a 'victim' of the recent funding cuts, I applaud you for taking the time to write this article. Sure, it won't change the minds (and I use that term loosely) of the current government, but it's nice to know there are people out there championing the cause.
Kudos, Mr. Driscoll. Kudos.
—Jennifer
Is a sad fact that now, more than a century after the Lumiere brothers gave birth to cinema, the release of a Canadian film made for more than $10 million is immediately worthy of celebrity status. Very few films produced in this country have carried such a large price tag
Is a sad fact that now, more than a century after the Lumiere brothers gave birth to cinema, the release of a Canadian film made for more than $10 million is immediately worthy of celebrity status. Very few films produced in this country have carried such a large price tag
"Geisha is Robot." Geisha fight samurai, giant temples and lady tengu. Geisha also transform.
~
Mladen Sekulovich, aka Karl Malden, has died at 96. He was in many, many entertainments, including Meteor, the legendary 1970s cop show The Streets of San Francisco, some veryrespectablefilms and many, many Westerns like How The West Was Won, Nevada Smith and One-Eyed Jacks. Obituaries here, here and here.
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In support of my latest Screen article, there's nothing disappointing about these re-imagined posters by Olly Moss. Or x-factor-e's De Niro stream. Or the endlessly entertaining Film the blanks (Sudoku for film geeks).
~
Champion Mojo storyteller Joe Lansdale talks about what makes him a champion: a crazy number of upcoming stories, a Jonah Hex animated short and his mighty understanding of the publishing industry.(Thanks, Chuck!)
~
"If the post-"Crouching Tiger" boom in Asian cinema was an irrational,
Dutch-tulip-style bubble, then the virtual disappearance of Asian films
from American screens is an equally irrational overcorrection." Andrew O'Herir interviews Grady Hendrix (NYAFF and formerly Kaiju Shakedown), Keith Allison (Teleport City) and Todd Stadtman (4DK) about corrections, industry incompetence and piracy.
~
View all Notes here. Seen something shiny? Gutter-talk worth hearing? Let us know!
“It's nice to hear all the old songs,
isn't it?”
Disturbing as hell, an elegantly constructed first-person plunge into the mind of a maniac, a teenager who murdered kids when he was a kid (and got away with it), and now has elaborate rituals that mostly involve killing small mammals. As a first novel, that's one way to make a splash - The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks is a debut from 1984, famous for its controversial events and intense narration. I'm always a little suspicious of controversy though - is the book worth anything outside of the scandal associated with its "shocking" content?
Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan occupy some interesting real estate in the romance world; a previously untenanted corner of Innernet and
Romancelandia. 
Interviewed about the legacy of Canadian tax shelter films
in Cinema Canada