Another Midnight Madness Junkie

Over at Movies.com, Christopher Campbell writes of becoming a Midnight Madness junkie, i.e., "one of us":

The Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival has a certain reputation among fans of midnight movies (or “genre films,” or whatever else you call them -- cultish horror and foreign actioners mostly). Basically, it’s considered one of the finest film festival programs of its kind in the world.

Heading into my first experience of TIFF, that reputation meant very little to me, as I’m not exactly of that particular audience. So for me to now wholeheartedly affirm that it is one of the finest film festival programs I’ve ever encountered, and not just of its kind, this should not only preserve the deserved reputation it holds but also hopefully encourage other typical midnight-forgoers to sever the ‘for’ prefix (remove that head like it’s a zombie) and just go.

 Read more here. And next year, if you haven't been to Midnight Madness, just sever that zombie head prefix!

@thesubstream - Midnight Madness '11 Ep. 10: Kill List!

Matt Price of MAMO asks Colin Geddes for his thoughts on this year's very different, very satisfying slate of films. Plus, the gang sees Ben Wheatley's Kill List, which you will either love or hate, as it turns out. We're sad to see you go, TIFF Midnight Madness 2011, but thesubstream.com salutes you - thanks for all the fun!

Cadillac People's Choice Midnight Madness Award Announced

The people have spoken and this year's winner of the Cadillac People's Choice Midnight Madness Award is Gareth Evans' The Raid! Congratulations to Gareth, Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Maya Barack-Evans and the producers, cast and crew of The Raid!

First runner-up is Adam Wingard's You're Next! Congratulations to Adam, Sharni Vinson, AJ Bowen, Joe Swanberg, Simon Barrett and the producers, cast and crew.

Second runner-up is Bobcat Goldthwait's God Bless America! Congratulations to Bobcat, Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr and the producers, cast and crew.

And thanks to everyone who marked a ballot for the Cadillac People's Choice Award for Midnight Madness.

@thesubstream - Midnight Madness Review - SMUGGLER

A mea culpa, to start: me trying in earnest to apply any kind of critical analysis to Katsuhito Ishii's manga adaptation Smuggler would be like me trying to review the national epic of a country I've never heard of. It comes from a filmic/manga comic place that I know next to nothing about, so I'll just get to summarizing the plot.

Kinuta (Satoshi Tsumabuki) is a mild mannered failed actor turned "slacker", who unwittingly finds himself indebted to a gang of goofy Chinese gangsters. To pay it off, he's told to work with Joe (Masatoshi Nagase), the surly leader of a gang of body disposers. After they dispose of a body of a yakuza killed by the supernaturally-gifted "ultra assassin" Vertebrae, Kinuta, Joe and the Yakuza's widow find themselves in the middle of an alternately goofy and horrifyingly bloody gang war.


The joy in the film, for me and I'm going to assume many Western viewers is in watching the effects-laden ass whippings that Vertebrae hands out. He's scarred and tattooed and borderline psychotic, and he's a whiz with a pair of beaten up nunchuks, and Ishii fills his to be honest kind of disturbing fight scenes with more than a helping of pretty broad slapstick humour.

It's pure hubris that lets me think I can you a good movie from a bad one in the first place, but even I am in major balk-mode trying to decide if Smuggler is worth recommending. It's in more than one language I don't understand: Japanese, Mandarin and the completely all-over-the-place tonal language of manga movies. It pairs saccharine-sweet moments of golly-gee-whizzery with some of the most brutally sadistic torture scenes I've ever seen, and it's utterly baffling in a way that renders it simultaneously super enjoyable and kind of tiresome, to my foreign eyes. It's a mash-up that from moment-to-moment seeks to dazzle, to entertain, broadly, to gross you out, to engage you and to repulse you straight out of the movie-watching experience. It works, a lot of the time, insofar as it does all of those things, but is that rollercoaster experience by design or by dint of my being, well, kind of ignorant? Who knows. The good parts are great, and the bad parts are… different, and that's the smartest thing I can say. Sorry.

@thesubstream - Midnight Madness '11 Ep. 09: Smuggler!

Last night's TIFF 2011 Midnight Madness screening of Katsuhito Ishii's Smuggler (a film that guest host Matt Brown of MAMO knew absolutely nothing about) was delayed by an hour due to an unspecified technical glitch! Thankfully, Bobcat Goldthwait, humanitarian and all-round decent human being volunteered to keep the crowds entertained with 15 solid minutes of his hilarious stand-up routine. And Smuggler? It's all over the place, man. thesubstream.com's Midnight Madness coverage continues! ONLY ONE MORE NIGHT - Can you believe it???

SMUGGLER Premieres Tonight!

Tonight's the premiere of Smuggler, the latest film from Midnight Madness favorite, Katsuhito Ishii, whose previous films include Funky Forest; Party 7; Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl; and the animated segment in Kill Bill vol. 1.

The film also features Midnight Madness alumnus, Masanobu Ando, who played the vengeful thief in Wuershan's  The Butcher, The Chef and the Swordsman (2009) and Yoichi (Nasu no Yoichi) in Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django (2007). Both Midnight Madness selections. Ando also played Detective Wakamiya in Shinya Tsukamoto's Nightmare Detective (2007) and Kazuo Kiriyama in Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale (2000).

SMUGGLER screening times:

Fri., Sept 16th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Sat., Sept. 17th, 6:45PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4

Sun., Sept. 18th, 12:00PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4

@thesubstream - Midnight Madness '11 Ep. 08: The Day!

What would you do if the apocalypse came tomorrow? Do you have your machete ready? We asked this question of some die-hard Midnight Madness fans in line for last night's screening of The Day, a dreary post-apocalyptic yarn starring Dominic Monaghan, Shawn Ashmore and Ashley Bell. It was the first real red-carpet affair of this year's Midnight Madness program which got Rajo pretty excited, let me tell you. Or, hell - why not just watch for yourself? thesubstream.com's coverage of TIFF 2011 Midnight Madness continues!

Midnight Madness' Colin Geddes Interviewed by Blogtastic Voyage!

The good folks over at Blogtastic Voyage talked with our own Midnight Maddened leader, Colin Geddes about the Midnight Madness programme this year.

Colin mentions the 3 films he recommends "if you're in it for the blood and violence" as well as the movies he found funniest this year. And they discuss Kill List, which premieres Saturday night.

Kill List is by a British filmmaker Ken Wheatly, who did the very dry, darkly comic gangster film Down Terrace. How would you compare Kill List to it?

It's a lot like Down Terrace; he really has a knack for capturing these kitchen sink-style dramas. At times you feel like you're watching a documentary because he has a very loose, easy feel with his actors. But then he gets dark and bloody. The audience is not going to know where they are when they walk out of the theatre. It's really, really grim and it gets uncomfortably violent.

Read more, here.

Kill List screening times:

Sat., Sept. 17th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Sun., Sept. 18th, 3:15PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4

There are also still screenings of many of the films they discuss in the article including: God Bless America, You're Next, The Incident, Sleepless Night, Lovely Molly, The Day, and Smuggler

THE DAY Premieres at Midnight Madness Tonight!

 

Tonight is the world premiere of Douglas Aarniokoski's The Day, shot in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Ottawa!

THE DAY screening times:

Thurs., Sept. 15th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Fri., Sept. 16th, 3:00PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 2

Sat., Sept. 17th, 9:45PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 11

@thesubstream - Midnight Madness '11 Ep. 07: Lovely Molly!

Tonight's Midnight Madness film Lovely Molly is directed by one half of the team responsible for The Blair Witch Project. Maybe you've heard of it... it's one of the most groundbreaking horror films ever made and with regards to the collective output over this past decade: one of the most influential. Where were you when you first saw it? Tonight's guest-host Kurt Halfyard asks this question to die-hard fans, including Producer Robin Cowie who kindly helps Kurt ward off any evil spirits. thesubstream.com's coverage of TIFF 2011 Midnight Madness continues!

Pics from Monday's Screening of THE INCIDENT!

Two people passed out and many more were shocked into submission at the premiere of Alexandre Cortes' debut feature, The Incident. The hardest-working shutterbug in the business, Ian Goring, was there to document the whole evening, in all its crazed, finger-amputating glory!

Funny story: The idea for The Incident - escaped mental patients - was inspired by this very photo!

If you'd like to see a higher-res version of this picture, check the Wikipedia entry for "BADASS"

Robert Mitchell interviews Alexandre Courtes as the paparazzi documents every minute. Every *sexy* minute.

Funny, no one ever passes out while watching a White Stripes music video...

Courtes hitches a ride in the ambulance to get back to his hotel at the end of the night.

The Incident screens:

Friday September 16 Scotiabank Theatre 3 3:15pm

Sunday September 18 Scotiabank Theatre 2 9:45pm

Some Favorite Cinematic Demons

So a Lovely Molly clip has been released, teasingly titled, "The Return of Baphomet," just in time for tonight's premiere. As you academic geeks--and cultists--probably already know, Baphomet is the name of a demon the Knights Templar were accused of worshipping. He looked like this.

And he's been in movies before. Christopher Lee battled him in  The Devil Rides Out.



And all this Baphomet has led me to look at some other favorite cinematic devils and demons.

"Hey, everybody, remember me?"

Pazuzu has pizzazz, that's why he's moved beyond the Exorcist franchise and afflicting Linda Blair to afflicting people throughout pop culture. Nice gig for an ancient wind god. He even had a giant statue in London.

Next up is a slightly more mod gentleman, "George Spiggot" in Bedazzled.

Peter Cook is a deeply engaging Devil, tempting and tormenting his comedy partner, Dudley Moore. Sympathetic and just plain rotten at the same time.



Then there's Peter Stormare's creepily perfect Lucifer in Constantine. I love his muck-covered bare feet.

He's not touching you with his mucky feet...

I kind of love the British suitmation demon in Curse of the Demon/Night of the Demon:



And finally, prepare yourself for the soul-freezing, Baphomet-y horror of Jonathan Corbin in The Devil's Rain



So what are some of your guys' favorites?

LOVELY MOLLY screening times:

Wed., Sept. 14th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Thurs., Sept. 15th, 5:15PM, AMC 2

Sat., Sept. 17th, 4:00PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4

@thesubstream - Midnight Madness '11 Ep. 06: Sleepless Night!

Matthew Price from the MAMO podcast talks to a few hardcore Midnight Madness fans about some of their favourite genres. He also talks to a few MM newbies, including actor Tomer Sisley (Largo Winch) who stars in tonight's film, Sleepless Night - an action-packed French thriller that takes place in a Parisian nightclub (where teenagers can be found line-dancing to Queen). thesubstream.com's coverage of Midnight Madness at TIFF 2011 continues!

@thesubstream - Midnight Madness Review - THE INCIDENT

The Incident probably shouldn't work as well as it does. It's music video director Alexandre Courtes' first feature film, and he's a Frenchman who was directing English actors playing American dirtbags in 1989, shooting in Belgium. The film bears the little scars of all these unlikelihoods - accents wander all over the place, there are a handful of pointless scenes, it's got a pat last 10 minutes - but Courtes, cinematographer Laurent Tangy and production designer Paul Rouschop's collective visual chops hoist The Incident right up out of its little trouble areas. Mostly.



Set in a bunker-looking asylum for the criminally insane, The Incident begins with tension among the shaggy-dog rock-band-cum-kitchen-crew that are responsible for feeding the inmates. The guitarist is questioning the drummer's reliability, others feel the singer might bail on the whole thing to just be with his chick, man. Their squabbles are amplified by the bizarre, threatening behaviour of the inmates who receive their meals from the boys through a small slit in a large pane of glass. Things get much worse - and much bloodier - when the power is knocked out with all of the inmates out of their cells.

The Incident is a mixed bag, fortunately with more good nuts than bad. It looks spectacular, with a level of polish in its set and costume design, photography and bloody effects work that's better than what you get with most major-release horror films. The performances are fairly good, as well (ignoring if possible the accent issues), and that's as much to do with the actors as it is to do with a script that in its first two-thirds works quite well.

Tension is ratcheted up quite slowly, and while the Jérôme Fansten's script doesn't do much to differentiate the three leads or the various lurking crazy people character-wise, it does root them in enough shorthand period detail that they seem known to us quite quickly.

Where the film falls apart, a bit, is in its disappointing, way too arbitrary last few minutes. The film climaxes with a scene so grisly, and so goofily horrifying that it literally knocked out a couple of people at the screening I was at, but that triumphant moment is then immediately bundled up into a weird change in direction that's supposed to be shocking or meaningful but is actually closer to pointless. If you're still smiling, as I was, from the film's numerous legitimate pleasures, the film's conclusion won't sting you too much, but if you're a stickler, Courtes' high-wire act of a first feature eventually, inevitably stumbles.

Beyond The Madness: PAUL WILLIAMS IS STILL ALIVE!

There was a time in the 1970s and early 1980s that actor, singer and composer Paul Williams was inescapable. He was on the radio. He was in movies. It seemed like he was on nearly every tv show. He was a superstar and then, suddenly, he wasn't. Stephen Kessler tracks down Williams in his documentary, Paul Williams Is Still Alive, programmed by Midnight Madness' own, Colin Geddes.

And here's a little Midnight Madness retrospective:

PAUL WILLIAMS STILL ALIVE screening times:

Wed., Sept. 14th, 5:30PM, JACKMAN HALL

Sun., Sept. 18th, 4:00PM, AMC 7

@thesubstream - Midnight Madness '11 Ep. 05: The Incident!

Mike and guest host rowthree.com's Kurt Halfyard seemed to be a bit at odds with their impressions of Alexandre Courtes' The Incident which screened last night at TIFF as part of Midnight Madness. One thing's for sure, the film proved to be too much for two audience members who passed out and required medical attention - the first casualties of this year's Midnight Madness! Not too shabby for the 'quiet night' of this year's program. thesubstream.com's coverage of the best block of films at this year's festival continues!

SLEEPLESS NIGHT at Midnight Madness Tonight!

Get ready for Sleepless Night at the Ryerson tonight.  It's already getting good reviews on the internet and looks to be a fine mix of action and thriller, hearkening back to the genre films of Jean-Pierre Mélvìlle and through him, back to film noir. But it's pedigree isn't important, what is important is it looks amazing and its hero, played by Tomer Sisley, will need all his sangfroid, to make it through the night..

If you missed the trailer yesterday, here it is again.

SLEEPLESS NIGHT screening times:

Tues., Sept. 13th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Wed., Sept. 14th, 3:00PM, AMC 1

Fri., Sept. 16th, 9:45PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 11

Trailer for Frederic Jardin's SLEEPLESS NIGHT

From the trailer above, Frederic Jardin's Sleepless Night looks to be the equivalent of six cans of Red Bull. Or your preferred energy drink of choice.

Get your buzz on with the Midnight Madness crowd when Sleepless Night premieres Tuesday night!

SLEEPLESS NIGHT

Tues., Sept. 13th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Wed., Sept. 14th, 3:00PM, AMC 1

Fri., Sept. 16th, 9:45PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 11

Beyond the Madness: LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE

While Midnight Madness is clearly the focal point of the whole festival, there are some films fans might be interested in from outside the program. Tonight, Midnight Madness Alumnus Johnnie To brings his new drama, Life Without Principle, to TIFF. It stars Denise Ho with Midnight Madness alumni, Lau Ching-Wan and Ritchie Yen, who co-starred with Leon Lai in last year's MM pick, Fire of Conscience.

Life Without Principle screening times:
Monday Sept. 12, VISA Screening Room (The Elgin), 9pm
Wednesday, Sept. 14, TIFF Bell Lightbox 1, 3:30pm
Saturday, Sept. 17, Scotiabank Theatre 3, 8:30pm

Craploads of Animal Masks - Ian Goring's Pics from YOU'RE NEXT!

Saturday night may well have been the creepiest, most unsettling Midnight Madness screenings in a while and it wasn't even entirely from the film (which, to be fair, was pretty friggin' creepy and unsettling).  You're Next brought the crazies out in force even more than usual, many clad in the uber-bizarre animal masks worn by the killers in the film.  Looking out into an audience of lambs and tigers staring back at you may be the weirdest thing you'll see all year.  Here's Ian Goring's menagerie of pictures from the screening that turned the Ryerson into a literal zoo.

Aw, they think they're people!

Three of these ladies won't make it throughvthis movie alive.  In a way, it's a lot like The Bachelor - with 20% more blenders to the brain.

Before...

AHHHHHHH(fter)

The whole You're Next crew was momentarily distracted by a squirrel and a passing mailman.

In hindsight, we never should've left all those chew toys on the seats.

Robert Mitchell interviews the almost implausibly lovely Sharni Vinson

These guys wouldn't stop hanging around the entrance to the theatre, so we threw a ball of yarn across the street and they dispersed.  WHO'S A GOOD KITTY! YOU ARE!

Midnight Madness Programmer Colin Geddes, Adam Wingard, and Simon Barrett discuss the influences for the script , which included Scream and Home Alone (really!)

Writer Simon Barrett and Director Adam Wingard's next project will be a mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the remainder of star Sharni Vinson's skirt.  

The whole twisted crew behind You're Next.  They're a pretty bunch, no?

What sort of axe-wielding maniacal bastard would want to extinguish that smile?

You're Next screens twice more this week - make sure that you check it out, unless of course you want an axe to the skull.

You're Next screens:

Monday September 12 6:30pm AMC 7

Friday September 16 4:00pm TIFF Bell Lightbox 2