MONDOmagazine

By Miles Baker

Like most things, I learned about Screen & Racket on Facebook. But, unlike most events on Facebook, I was actually interested in this one. The show is billed as a showcase for four original short films with live performances of accompanying musical scores. It will premiere brand new works from emerging filmmakers Pouyan Jafarizadeh (previous works screened at the Images Festival, TIFF Student Showcase, and Calgary Independent Film Festival), Doug Nayler, Brodie Spaull, and Lesley Chan (previous works screened at Pleasure Dome, the Images Festival, Alucine Toronto Latin Media Festival, as well being featured as a Canadian Spotlight at the 2008 Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival) with dancer Laura Kappel.  Each filmmaker worked in close collaboration with a group of musicians, respectively: Alex Unger, The Weather Station, ­­­Destroy All Humans, and EXERCISERS. I sat down with Doug Nayler (who longtime MONDOreaders will know as our former film editor and as an awesome writer) via the Facebook chat to talk about the show.

MONDO: So, to kick things off, tell me about what we’ll be seeing on Friday.

Doug Nayler: Well, we’ll be seeing four original short film collaborations, projected onto a screen with the scores performed live. Each film was produced by a different team consisting of filmmakers and musicians, and everything is completely new and original for this event.

MONDO: How did these collaborations start?

DN: Well, we started with the idea of the event and then began recruiting whoever was interested. Generally the filmmakers involved sought out musicians it would be interesting to Read the rest of this entry »

Ponyo
Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Walt Disney Pictures, 2009

By Isaac Mills

I saw The Little Mermaid a few times when I was little — and it always terrified me. It’s now among those things in this world that I love to hate. I’m sure if I were to revisit it, I’d like it well enough, but still. The Little Mermaid is scary beyond all reason.

Disturbing amorphous fish blob creature aside, Ponyo is just sweetness incarnate.

Ponyo is the story of a magical fish/girl who discovers new wonders above the restrictive waters of her home, especially the kind boy Sosuke who vows to take care of her.

The acting is fantastic in regards to how Sosuke moves around, everything he does is how a kid does it, be it pulling down on his shirt when he’s nervous, crawling through holes in fences, or just refusing to sit butt down in his cars seat. Read the rest of this entry »

G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra
Directed by Stephen Sommers
Paramount Pictures, 2009

By Sean Kelly

A few weeks ago, I took a look at Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which I thought was highly entertaining despite its flaws. I have the same feelings for this film based on another Hasbro franchise; though I think that there might be a few more flaws in this one.

G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra is directed by Stephen Sommers, who got his start with a couple of Disney movies before making it big remaking Universal’s monster franchises with the first two Mummy movies and Van Helsing. Now, Sommers was presented with the challenge of adapting the “All American Heroes” to the big screen.

The biggest challenge for Sommers was handling the G.I. Joe purists. Like Transformers, many fans of the franchise probably already had an idea of what the film should be like and would be bothered by the smallest change made to this impossible vision. Read the rest of this entry »

Adam
Directed by Max Mayer
Fox Searchlight, 2009

By Sean Kelly

A few weeks ago, Maclean’s ran an article about Asperger’s Syndrome as the new “it” disorder on screen and in fiction — citing numerous examples from current, terrible popular entertainment. For those who don’t know, Asperger’s is an Autism Spectrum Disorder. While exact symptoms vary, it’s typified by a person of normal intelligence who has great difficulty with social interactions. Asperger’s is also a personal subject for me, since I was diagnosed with it last year.

If you do a search, you will find both confirmed and speculative reports of famous people who have or may have the disorder. Some of the most popular speculations say that people like Einstein or Mozart may have been diagnosed if the disorder was identified during their time (a speculation that is even referenced in this film).

Adam is the second film that I can recall that Read the rest of this entry »

By Miles Baker

About 20 years ago, I spent every day thinking about how I could become a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. I thought about running away to live in the sewers, I wondered where I could get some of the good ooze that would turn me into a wacky fighting machine; I settled for buying a turtle at the local pet store and naming him Michelangelo, after my favourite turtle. But, by the time that turtle died a few years later, the phase was over and some other obsession had replaced the Turtles in my heart.

So when I got my hands on this box set of all four feature TMNT films it was an interesting reunion. How would these films — that I once no doubt counted as my favourite movies of all time, well at least the first two — hold up now that my age is in the double digits.

Not bad, really. I mean, these are not great movies, but they are interesting trips down memory lane. I found that the Turtles as characters got Read the rest of this entry »

By Sean Kelly

Sean's # 1: Donnie Darko

A common feature of many movie sites, such as The Internet Movie Database, Yahoo Movies, Flixster, and even Cineplex.com, is the option for users to rate the films they see. Most use the traditional five star system, though IMDb uses ten stars and Yahoo Movies uses letter grading. However, if you are like me, you find that you often give the same rating to multiple films and it can be difficult to decipher which of those films are better than the others. It is that issue that is at the core of Flickchart, a new site (currently in the invite-only beta stage) that allows you to rank, not rate, your favourite movies. I just got into the site and I can tell you that it’s addictive.

The process of the site is very simple. When you log in, you are presented with two random films. Your task is to click the film you like better. When that is done, you are presented with two more films to rank. Read the rest of this entry »

(500) Days of Summer
Directed by Marc Webb
Fox Searchlight, 2009

By Sean Kelly

You can tell that you are in for a treat when a film starts off with the familiar disclaimer about how the following is a work of fiction, right before name-dropping the individual that the film is apparently not about — and then calling her a bitch.

(500) Days of Summer is a quirky romantic comedy that is much better than the run of cliché-reliant rom-coms churned out by the mainstream. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whom most people will probably remember from the sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, though he’s managed to gain some indie-cred in recent years, including a role in the teen noir film Brick, which I consider a recent favourite. He plays Tom, a young man working at greeting card company, who enters a relationship with his co-worker Summer (Zooey Deschanel).

In a format I found a bit reminiscent of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the film goes back and forth along the 500 days of Tom and Summer’s relationship. Read the rest of this entry »

By Rachel West, Caesar Martini, Sean Kelly, and Leo K. Moncel

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the final edition of the Summer Movie MegaCalendar. As Sean said, “It’s a doozy”, and as Rachel said, “I think I’ll use August to get caught up on films I missed in July.” Well, however you pre-assess the final blast of Summer 2009, from the small — Paper Heart, Julie & Julia, to the medium — Cold Souls, Ponyo, The Time Traveller’s Wife, to the large — District 9, G.I. Joe, to that whopper Inglourious Basterds, let’s hope you find something that fits you just right.
Each piece here was written seperately, mine included, and it’s a testament to our shared psychic link that they often read as a dialogue. Read the rest of this entry »

Moon
Directed by Duncan Jones
Sony Pictures Classics, 2009

By Sean Kelly

I’m going out on a limb here, but Moon was probably one of the finest science fiction films I’ve seen in years, and even though we are only halfway through 2009, it’ll probably end up being one of my top films of the year.

While I think it obligatory to mention that director Duncan Jones is David Bowie’s son, I will not waste any time trying to compare the film to Bowie’s song, “Space Oddity”.

In the near future, the moon is used to mine Helium-3, a key element to solving Earth’s energy crisis. The entire operation is overlooked by a single crew member, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), under the guidance of the on-ship computer GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey).

Sam lives a lonely existence, and in between checking the harvesters he goes through a routine of running Read the rest of this entry »

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Directed by Michael Bay
Dreamworks/Paramount Pictures, 2009

Before I break this film down, I am going to go straight to the point. Transformers is in no way perfect. I will admit that even the first film had a better developed story. In addition, Revenge’s two-and-and-half-hour running time had me fighting my bladder towards the end. However, I believe the film succeeded in its goal to be an entertaining summer action film. Critical consensus be damned, the only opinion on films that truly matters to me is my own.

With that out of the way, I will now take out the scalpel (which happens to be the name of one of the Decepticons, BTW) and dissect the film and see what makes it tick. I will apologize in advance for any overuse of Star Wars references (actually there are only two).

As with most sequels, the film features much more action than the first film. Revenge opens with an Autobot vs Decepticon fight in Shanghai. This sequence introduces some new Autobots to the fray with the pink motorcycle Arcee along with two other motorcycle bots and the twins Skids and Mudflap. Sadly, Arcee — a fan favourite from the show — does not get much screen time, though we do see plenty more of the twins (more on that later). Read the rest of this entry »

By Sean Kelly

Reading the recent review for The Cell 2 got me thinking about the industry of making low-budget sequels to (semi-)popular films and releasing them straight to video (or DVD as now is the case). It is pretty obvious that the whole purpose of these films is to leech more profit out of the success of their predecessors, without having to bother with the costs of releasing such a film in theatres.

The first direct-to-video sequel I recall encountering was Disney’s sequel to Aladdin, 1994’s The Return of Jafar. This film began a trend where Disney would release direct-to-video sequels of all their popular animated films — a habit that they just recently ended. Universal would begin doing the same by releasing yearly sequels to their 1988 hit The Land Before Time; by the time they stopped in 2007, the series had reached a whopping thirteen films.

However, it’s not just animated kiddie films that get the direct-to-video sequel treatment. Read the rest of this entry »

A very solid stare from Travolta.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Directed by Tony Scott
Columbia Pictures, 2009

By Brian Last

Hollywood is losing its creative juices — half of the films out there are either based on books or are remakes of older movies. The ones that are “original” are often recycled ideas repackaged a different way. But, in this remake of the 1974 film of the same name, director Tony Scott manages to put his original stamp on the material using his directorial staples: quick and often jarring editing, time lapses, and swift camera movements. The result is an action film of genuine quality amidst today’s crowd of recycled films. Read the rest of this entry »