// Category Archive for: Canadian Content

Blu-Ray Review: Hard Core Logo: All Access Edition

By Melissa Bratcher

There are few movies I love more than Bruce McDonald’s 1996 Hard Core Logo. It’s a rock mockumentary about an obscure Canadian punk band who reunite for one last tour, hoping to recapture what fleeting fame they once had. When it came out in the States, it was advertised as a movie in the vein of This Is Spinal Tap. While it is occasionally hilarious, it has a dark, seamy underbelly. It’s not a feel good movie.

Hard Core Logo’s two stars, Hugh Dillon and Callum Keith Rennie, share an electric chemistry. Their scenes together don’t feel like acting. Dillon hadn’t acted a great deal before Hard Core Logo, and what he doesn’t have in technical “acting” skill, he makes up for in sheer magnetism. His character, Joe Dick, is by turns funny, malevolent, pathetic, and always fascinating. He is a mostly charming manipulator.

One of the finest actors around, Callum Keith Rennie is his icy cool counterpart. Rennie’s Billy Tallent is a gifted guitar player, just about to break through with another band after years of paying his dues slogging with bands like HCL. He reluctantly rejoins his comrades for a last tour, with an eye to the end, where he’ll join with indie sweethearts Jenifur.

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Blu-Ray Review: Lost Girl, Season 2

By Less Lee Moore

As much as I love genre fiction, I’ll admit that most mainstream genre movies and TV shows are fairly sexist. Even if they don’t obviously reinforce stereotypes or display misogynist behavior, the violence enacted against women is often in higher proportion to what their male counterparts must endure. Enter Lost Girl, a Canadian-produced TV show whose title might seem to indicate more of the same, but which is a delightful and welcome entry into the world of genre television.

Lost Girl was created by a woman (Michelle Lovretta) and many of the episodes are written and directed by women. In addition, the gender makeup of the principal cast is half female and half male. The main character, Bo (Anna Silk) is a succubus who is trying to find her way in the world of the Fae (also known as fairy folk) while not committing to either the Light Fae or Dark Fae.

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Assemblog: December 7, 2012

Despite The Gods

New this week on Popshifter: Danny is not very fond of the film 360, out now on home video; Chelsea is over the moon about the new Big Dipper album, Big Dipper Crashes on the Platinum Planet (and shares their new video for “Robert Pollard”); Lisa voices unpopular opinions about It’s A Wonderful Life; Cait raves about the new white vinyl 7″ from Concrete Blonde; I express admiration and frustration for Take This Waltz; and Elizabeth talks about Community, Disney, Netflix & Verizon in a new installment of “TV Is Dead, Long Live TV.”

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DVD Review: Take This Waltz

By Less Lee Moore

Take This Waltz, writer/director Sarah Polley’s latest feature, is lovely to look at, with bright, stimulating visuals and convincing dialogue performed beautifully by the cast. It is also terrifically exasperating. Much of this is due to the central character, Margot, portrayed by Michelle Williams.

Granted, I haven’t seen Michelle Williams in anything but Brokeback Mountain, so it’s difficult for me to tell if she’s incredibly gifted at playing an extremely annoying person or if that’s her acting style, but I will give her the benefit of the doubt. However, it also makes it difficult to decide whether to root for her.

28-year-old Margot meets single Daniel (Luke Kirby) on a business trip and there is instant chemistry, or at least we can understand why she’s attracted to him. He’s handsome, sharp, and witty. Then we discover that not only is Margot married, but also that Daniel lives across the street. As she astutely observes right after than discovery: “Oh shit.” Things get more complicated from there, with Margot and Daniel dancing around each other but never consummating anything physically, on ongoing situation skillfully rendered in the pool scene where the two swim around each other like fighting fish.

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The Black Museum: Echoes From The Sleep Room

By Less Lee Moore

At long last, I finally attended one of The Black Museum‘s “lurid lectures for the morbidly curious.” (Go here to read my Q&A with the curators.) It was Thursday, November 22 and the topic was “Echoes From The Sleep Room,” an examination of the history of medical experimentation in horror cinema. The presentation was wonderful; my only complaint was that I was unable to attend the previous four lectures!

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Assemblog: November 23, 2012

Broken, image from The CillianSite

New this week on Popshifter: I take a look at the excellent Jay Reatard documentary Better Than Something and the upcoming What The Brothers Sang album by Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie “Prince” Billy; Cait provides a beautiful review of Bert Jansch’s recently reissued Heartbreak and encourages music lovers to check out the latest single from the Explorers Club, “No Good To Cry.”

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Toronto After Dark 2012: Wrap-Up & Award Winners

By Less Lee Moore

Toronto After Dark 2012 is over and the award winners have been announced. You can read the full list of winners on the Toronto After Dark website, but I’d like to call special attention to the films I saw and reviewed.

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Toronto After Dark 2012: Wrong Review

By Less Lee Moore

I’m going to completely avoid pun-filled pull quotes like “Wrong Is So Right!” in this review, in part because it would be corny, but also because it would be a sad attempt at competing with the genuine humor found in Quentin Dupieux’s latest film.

The trailer for Wrong conveys all you need to know about the movie itself—man loses dog; man goes on bizarre quest to find dog—but it might help you appreciate it more when you know more about Quentin Dupieux. He’s also known as the weirdo musical entity Mr. Oizo, and if you enjoy his output under that moniker, you’ll definitely like the score for Wrong. Dupieux is also responsible for last year’s bizarre horror “spoof” Rubber, about a killer tire.

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Toronto After Dark 2012: Top Five Picks – Wrong

By Less Lee Moore

What:

Wrong: An absurd crime thriller about a man and the very strange things that happen to him as he tries to track down his kidnapped dog.

Who:

Written and directed by Quentin Dupieux, also known as Mr. Oizo.

Why:

If you remember Rubber, the movie about a serial killing tire, you’ll want to catch Wrong. If you know of Quentin Dupieux from his Mr. Oizo music and videos, you’ll also want to catch Wrong. The film was declared the Most Innovative Feature at Fantasia Fest. For a three-week film festival, this is huge praise.

The trailer is hilarious and the cast is impressive, including Jack Plotnick (who was also in Rubber), William Fichtner (one of the most diverse character actors around), and Steve Little (from Eastbound and Down). If you’re still not convinced, watch the trailer again.

When:

Wrong makes its Toronto premiere on Thursday, October 24 at 9:45PM.

Where:

Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor Street West.

Toronto After Dark 2012: Resolution Review

By Less Lee Moore

Perhaps more than any other movie I’ve seen this year, Resolution will be the hardest to explain or describe. It’s not necessarily for fear of spoilers, because even if I wrote out the entire plot in detail it would probably 1) reduce the movie to some kind of gibberish and 2) not actually ruin anything because the joy of Resolution is all in the experience of watching it.

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