In the right hands, with a complete reworking of the overly-convoluted script, this could – and should – have been a stripped-down action film about several late-teen girls coming to terms with an unseen threat, rising to the challenge of overcoming it, and having to grow up in an instant to survive. A disappointing film that completely misses the zeitgeist moment we are currently experiencing – the rise of dynamic young women to the forefront of our society.

…and they’re leaving the boys in the dust.

We’ve only got it at the FBW on a legit Chinatown Blu-ray for now, but when it gets a wider North American release, we should grab a few. It’s interesting to see where we’re all heading because Hong Kong might just be the epicenter of greed and avarice. It’s like gazing into a crystal ball.

Recommended.

We’ve got a few choices here, but the one that strikes me as the most appropriate is to pass on John Carter entirely, on both of its release dates. The Film Buff has always steered clear of DVD sales for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, we’re a rental store serious about maintaining a worthy film catalog and DVD sales have always felt like the commodification of an art form anyways. That said, buying a personal copy of a movie like Harry Potter (or maybe even John Carter) makes perfect sense for all sorts of people. We’ve just never had the room to sell films and big blockbuster titles dot the retail landscape anyways. John Carter is not really our kind of movie either, a point that I’d rather not concede because I am, at heart, a bit of a completest, but we pass on all manner of other direct-to-video productions anyways and perhaps treating this film in the same manner makes perfect sense. Around the retail sale release date we’ll certainly get asked for it, but I think our response should be the truth; Disney has structured the DVD and Blu-ray release dates for this title to force the customer buy it during the first month rather than renting it …and we don’t do sales.

A month later, when the rental sale window opens, I think we pass again. I’ve always wanted to apply a higher threshold to our new release product anyways and perhaps Disney is just forcing our hand to make this move. I can’t think of too many downsides associated with missing a film like John Carter for either us or our customers. It’s a film that will litter the online digital landscape shortly after release and play on every pay-per-view tier and plane flight for months. Maybe we pick up a copy or two from a delete bin 3 months later?  

Thoughts and comments on this one would be appreciated.

Soderbergh has been experimenting in recent years (the low budget, hi-definition improv piece Bubble, casting porn star Sasha Grey in last year’s Girlfriend Experience, to name a couple of his more recent cinematic lab tests) and he’s taken another untested lady in ex-Gladiator star Gina Carano and built an entire movie around her physical presence, which is imposing to say the least. The film opens with a terrific fistfight in an upstate New York roadside diner between Carano’s covert operative Mallory Kane and a fellow agent Aaron (Channing Tatum, who seems to be popping up in everything these days). It doesn’t take long to suss out that Kane can take a punch as well as she can deliver one. She dispatches her ex-partner and then escapes in a car owned by one of the diner’s patrons, filling in her frightened passenger with the plot’s back story, a useful but slightly too convenient tool to tell us the same story. 

The balance of the supporting cast in Haywire is a Hollywood who’s who of 2^nd tier testosterone, the “less-expendables” if you will – actors in place of action stars and it serves to enrich the proceedings. Soderbergh has everyone playing directly on type and it works – Michael Douglas as the shadowy government fixer, Antonio Bandaras as a Latin opportunist, Bill Paxton as Mallory’s ex-marine dad, Michael Fassbender as the suave assassin and a particularly oily Ewan McGregor as the sleazy head of the private military contracting firm that employs Mallory.

Gina Carano is the latest female heroine in a line that can be drawn back to Sigourney Weaver’s take-charge Ripley from the Alien series. There’s been an interesting and welcome uptick in the number of female roles like this one in recent years, a trend I hope will continue. On the heels of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, Winter’s Bone, Colombiana (much better than you’ve been led to believe) and a few others, Soderbergh manages to minimize Carano’s limitations as an actor while at the same time making her the very centre of every scene. Carano has an undeniable screen presence and she mostly holds her own in scenes that shouldn’t work, but do. Soderbergh has made no secret that the film’s main intent was to create amazing fight scenes and Haywire’s modest plot adequately serves this basic purpose. The action sequences are filmed clearly and effectively, without the standard shaky-cam look and endless jump-cuts that mar most cinematic fight scenes these days. Thank you for that Steven.

This is a simple-yet-effective spy thriller that rises above the fray on the strength of its director’s raw talent, a heroine with an oddly-intriguing and intangible screen presence and a better supporting cast than films in this category tend to get. There’s a great line delivered by Mallory’s ethically-challenged boss Kenneth (McGregor) after Fassbender’s assassin character muses aloud that he’d never killed a woman before.

“Oh, you shouldn’t think of her as a woman. That would be a mistake.”

Bingo.

No, we live and ply our trade in a particularly freakish corner of an increasingly flaky world where all sense seems to have left the building. Strange little iPeople dominate our culture and remain impervious to the beams of hate-energy emanating from the rest of us. The rise of the entitlement class seems an almost inappropriate label anymore. The entitlement gene manifests itself in so many ways and has filtered through so much of society’s strata that the term has almost ceased to mean anything. It is the topic of nearly every private conversation we have and yet it mustn’t be uttered in mixed company except in the most hushed of tones. A half-crazed, 55-plus dude wandered into the FBW last night, stood for a minute scanning the shop, looked at me and then said; “Well, at least the youth haven’t ruined this place yet like they have restaurants, all human interaction, the telephone, child-rearing and the housing market.” I burst out laughing until I realized that this raving lunatic and I shared almost carbon copy world views … and then it didn’t seem quite so humourous.

In keeping with the car-accident theme of the weekend, a technology meltdown transpired on Saturday (why is it always Saturday and never Tuesday?) at the FBW with our second video terminal losing its mind right at the opening bell, necessitating a flurry of swap outs with our backup machine and a trip to the computer shop to have a new brain installed. Of course, given the pall that hung over my very existence these last few days, the backup machine failed two hours later, requiring yet another trip to the computer shop and a furious re-swapping of old PC’s for new ones and vice-versa later that afternoon. Up and running at full computer strength by 6:30 last night, the evening was mercifully light on junior troubadours and a cast of long-time regular customers kept me from downing a full bottle of Drano after close. Other than several people with designs on bringing their dogs into the shop (FYI – you can’t do that because the Toronto Health Unit forbids live animals in places where food is served. It’s a bylaw), things went pretty smoothly.

The joy-drought continued on Sunday however, with Martin Scorsese’s Who’s That Knocking at My Door (1967) snapped in half by the person who rented it with a note inside the case explaining that “it promoted violence against women” and they decided that it needed to be destroyed. I shit you not. Thankfully, this thought-police reject didn’t rent our out-of-print copy of D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, but it further reinforced the nearly-unbelievable rise in people’s proclivity to impose their will, personal views, cell phone conversations and child prodigies on everyone around them. Well, I’ve had enough of bozos like this dude and he won’t be given access to the Film Buff’s collection ever again. Period.

One of the few glimmers of hope (and the absolute high point of the weekend) was the giant white cock spray-painted on one of the FBW front windows sometime during the wee hours of Saturday night or Sunday morning. At least I can get my head around that little bit of teenaged vandalism because the rest of the world certainly confounds me. It was a pretty good likeness too, with balls and everything. 15 minutes with a scouring pad and some acetone and the most interesting recent visual on south Roncesvalles had been relegated to a distant memory. I even hesitated to remove it at first, until I considered what the Scorsese renter would do if he saw our front window festooned with a giant white woman-hating penis. Visions of Who’s That Burning Down My Store came to mind, so Donna and I erased the erection … leaving me to quietly mull over the ironic metaphor this presented for a man who smokes too much and is barely hanging on to the front face of 50.

So I found myself standing on the sidewalk in the glorious Sunday afternoon sun, surrounded by reams of Cherry Bombers milling about with their half-caff yuppucinos, perfect children, SUV strollers, and entitled puppies, staring at a giant white painted cock, proudly erect for all the world to see. I couldn’t help but consider that it was a sign from above put there by unknown forces to gently remind me that, despite my disconnect with the world around me, I needed to continue down the road of life to its natural conclusion (cancer). Through the sunlit Film Buff window, behind the freshly-painted phallic street art, I spied the same bottle of Drano that had called out to me mere hours earlier, smiled and took to furiously rubbing the giant white penis off the window… uneasy metaphors notwithstanding.

A few minutes later as we were heading home to the quiet sanctity of Segredos, I ran into Mark Askwith, one of the most interesting, accomplished and engaging residents in the entire neighbourhood (and a long-time patron of the store), and we chatted for almost 45 minutes about things near and far. My impromptu conversation with him marked the second sign from above in as many hours as to why we do what we do and it further served as the elixir I needed to get over the shite weekend I’d experienced. Another friend of mine had emailed me on Friday with a link to Christopher Hume’s recent Star column about Toronto’s many failings and I couldn’t manage to muster up much a defense for old Hogtown’s increasingly-limited merits (opting instead for the obvious suburban slag “Well, at least I don’t have to live in Burlington”), but with a few extra days to consider a more appropriate response, I would now counter with “giant white cock graffiti” and “Mark Askwith” and consider the argument won.

Blow me Calgary. T.O. is still the centre of the known universe.

TYRANNOSAUR (WS/ENG/CC) (DVD)

04/17/2012

LAST RITES OF JOE MAY (ENG) (DVD)

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE GHOST PROTOCOL (DVD & B/R)

SHAME (2011) (DVD & B/R)

04/24/2012

CONTRABAND (DVD & B/R)

IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY (DVD & B/R)

LET THE BULLETS FLY (DVD & B/R)

REQUIEM POUR UNE TUEUSE (DVD)

STELLA DAYS (DVD)

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY 1980 BBC SERIES (B/R)

WICKER TREE (DVD)

05/01/2012

GREAT EXPECTATIONS (2012) (DVD & B/R)

HAYWIRE (2011) (DVD & B/R)

INNKEEPERS (ENG) (DVD)

JOYFUL NOISE (DVD)

NEW YEARS EVE (DVD & B/R)

ODDS (DVD)

TOMORROW WHEN THE WAR BEGAN (DVD & B/R)

05/08/2012

MOTHERS DAY (DVD)

NATIONAL PARKS PROJECT (DVD & B/R)

TIM AND ERICS BILLION DOL (DVD)

UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING (DVD & B/R & 3D B/R)

VOW (2012) (DVD)

05/15/2012

ALBERT NOBBS (DVD & B/R)

CHRONICLE (DVD & B/R)

DEVIL INSIDE (DVD & B/R)

MISS BALA (DVD)

NORWEGIAN WOOD (DVD)

RAMPART (DVD & B/R)

05/22/2012

THE GREY (2012) (DVD AND B/R)

RED TAILS (DVD & B/R)

WOMAN IN BLACK (DVD & B/R)

05/29/2012

GOON (DVD & B/R)

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (DVD & B/R)

SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY (DVD & B/R)

It’s taken us more than a decade of trial and error to find a working balance between the broad appeal of mainstream movies and the art house exclusivity of independent, foreign, historical and niche filmmaking. Our monthly orders are further complicated by finding the right balance of DVD and Blu-ray product and by the need to recognize the slight difference in customer taste that exists in the 60 city blocks that separate the Film Buff East from the Film Buff West.

I would never have guessed, for example, how the passing of some long-forgotten actor or director sparks a nearly instant demand for their films… for exactly 4 days. A Marx Brother’s film retrospective playing at the Lincoln Center, a Sunday New York Times article about Budd Boetticher, or a TIFF/Cinemateque/Lightbox screening all ripple through our shops in a spell of renewed/temporary interest in movies from cinema’s giant dustbin. Martin Scorsese’s recent Hugo drew people to the early works of the silent era and Spielberg’s Adventures of Tintin to the animated French series from the ’90s. As you might expect, sequels tend to revive interest in the originals that can last for weeks, if not months. The awards season ignites interests in the earlier works of the nominees. Staying on top of all these audience triggers is a bit of a challenge and I find myself reacting to them more than I’d care to admit.

The latest spike in interest in a specific title – one that I missed completely and shouldn’t have – is James Cameron’s risible Titanic – sparked, of course, by its theatrical re-release in 3D this weekend. Years ago, I wrote how proud I was that our lone VHS copy of Titanic hadn’t left the store in over a year, but as the memory of just how awful a film it is fades with the passing of time, I should have seen a rekindled demand for it on home video coming. I didn’t (or maybe didn’t want to) and as a result we have exactly 1 copy of it on DVD to share between the stores. The DVD was yanked from distribution last fall (the studios do this to drive herds of humans into the theatres, and it works) and, as a result, our collective response to the nearly endless inquires to rent it over the past couple of days has been

 “… sorry, it’s rented”, or worse yet, over at the FBE the response is “… no, we don’t have that one”

 Had I been on my game, I’d have picked up a few extra copies last fall, before it went out-of-print, but I didn’t. It didn’t dawn on me that beneath the part of Titantic that you can see… is a massive, pent-up demand lurking just below the surface, and just like the Captain Edward John Smith, I didn’t react quickly enough to steer the HMS Film Buff into safe waters. The consequences are admittedly minor in our little skiff, but I can’t be missing these icebergs all the time, or we will go down.

And, according to some arcane bit of Cinematic Law, apparently I have to go down with the ship.

On the upside, next weekend something else will be all the rage and Titanic will rest, once more, at the very bottom of the interest ocean. 

Immediately after MR 73, Marchal moved to French television writing and directing the series Braquo, the first season of which arrives on Region 1 DVD on Tuesday. True to form, Marchal has produced another masterstroke in this similarly dark and bruising cop drama. Braquo follows the exploits of a group of Parisian cops who regularly cross the line and are often just as brutal as the criminals they are aligned against. If you’re looking for a drama brimming with the milk of human kindness, stay as far away from this one as you can. If you like your Gallic policiers served blood-red however, they don’t get any better (or meaner) than this. The opening scene of the first episode is all you need to see. If you’re not hooked by the end of it, shut it off and bring it back to the shop because it only gets grimmer from there.

This is the best thing I’ve seen thus far in 2012 and it’s been a pretty decent year. Joe, order one for the FBE. It’s definitely worth having.

Nearly everything about The Darkest Hour is an abject disaster – the script, the score, the direction, the cast, the effects, the invisible aliens, the awkward pacing, the awful attempts at humour, Emile Hirsch, endless gaping holes in continuity and logic, the ending (which horrifyingly eludes to a possible sequel), the cinematography, the lighting, the wasted Moscow setting and the utter, overriding stupidity of the entire enterprise…. and Emile Hirsch.

There is but a single reason to waste any time whatsoever on this film and that’s to watch world class mathlete Max Minghella scurry about. He runs like a girl crossed with a crab, his gait a weird mix of Lou Chaney Sr.’s sideways horror shuffle coupled with a Martin Short/Ed Grimley prance…. and it’s quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve seen in film this year. While clearly unintentional, this is the highlight of an otherwise miserable film experience. Even the poster has Minghella (on the left, above, yellow arrow) looking like he’s about to fall over. John Cleese would be proud. Minghella makes Woody Allen look like Dolph Lundgren by comparison.  

Avoid this one if at all possible, unless you’re intrigued by the bizarre Minghella interpretive-dance  running style and want to see it for yourself. It’s almost worth the price of admission.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Who’s Minding the Store? - I’d hoped it might have a sort-of innocent mid-century charm and I’ll admit to finding a several sequences, if not funny, at least endearing. In the final analysis however, there’s a reason Lewis’s reign at the top was so short-lived. Quite frankly, the fact that it occurred at all remains a complete mystery to me. The humour reminded me of the dull, aching kind that pervades the likes of This Hour Has 22 Minutes and almost every Adam Sandler picture I’ve had to suffer through. It’s broad, slapstick comedy in the vaudevillian tradition and it simply doesn’t translate forward. If you can imagine a feature length Gilligan’s Island movie, you’d be getting close. What Who’s Minding the Store is closest in spirit to is a Steve Erkel-era TV sit-com. Yes, it’s really that bad.  Watching vintage Lewis all these years later is about 90% painful and 10% fascinating. There’s a undeniable charm to the simplicity of the setups and a bizarre lack of mean-spiritedness in his self-deprecating brand of humour, but it just isn’t funny anymore.

Ok, so lesson learned…. the Olive Film Blu-ray did look great though. Agnes Moorehead, Jill St. John and a particularly good Ray Walston co-star.

 Skip it unless you’re a fan.