AHA! Harry here, and we all knew that the seemingly super-powered adrenal-charged Anton Sirius would suddenly and bluntly HIT A BRICK WALL OF PAIN!!! Ya see... it is absolutely impossible to go 4 days of full powered festivaling, without developing some sort of agonizing death funk that will Hotel-ize you into a near coma state, that you justify by shutting eyelids and babbling about something you figure may be entertaining. (GOSH HARRY, SO THAT DOESN'T EXPLAIN WHY YOU ARE ALWAYS THIS WAY?) Yeah, love and kisses to you too baby. Anyway... At least in his weakened state he was able to scurry off to the theater to catch one film for the day.... And it is allegedly a fantasticly fun one called THE ITEM. Mannnn, from the sound of it, I wish I could see it. Here's Anton...
Sunday the 12th
Today was my day of enforced rest- I am sick as a lemur. I forgot how the particular pollution formulation of Toronto's air gets to me- after a couple of days my sinuses fill with a substance of the most remarkable color, and my lungs feel a sudden need to take a walk. It's just as well- I got most of the Matthew Bright interview transcribed (coming soon!), and sorted out my sked for next week. In theory I have 3 interviews tomorrow- Ned Beatty (Spring Forward), Po Chih Leung (Wisdom of Crocodiles) and Natasha Lyonne (Freeway II, But I'm a Cheerleader). Questions, as always, to robbie_dogstar@yahoo.com. I also crashed one of the 'Mavericks' conferences, this one dealing with Charles Burnett's newest the Annihilation of Fish. Charles is one of the last of the Noble Indies, roaming the plains and casting scornful glances on the trinkets and infected blankets Hollywood offers. (You know I'm not feeling well when my metaphors get THAT ornate.) Amusingly enough the discussion devolved into "What's Blair Witch gonna do to the indie scene?" My own personal opinion, for what it's worth: In the short term there will of course be painfully bad knock-offs (check the TalkBack for the Greek chorus of "They can't be any worse than the original!"), but the one thing that BWP did that will have a lasting impact is opened everyone's eyes to how effective alternative marketing strategies are. Generally speaking Hollywood marketing, impossible as it sounds, is even worse than the product it pushes. But BWP's success will not only lead to more sales, it should also lead people to find ways to ignore the traditional studio/distrib set-up altogether.
Magdalena is here, ministering to my poor disease-ravaged self. Whenever I'm in T.O. I wonder my we've never hooked up- then I'm gone and I don't see her for a year, and I figure it out. It's probably best we stay friends, but I'll still have her dark tresses dancing in my dreams all week.
BONUS ITEM: Toronto Film Festival Survival Guide. If you ever make it here for the fest, you will need to know these crucial bits of info.
Essential items- Comfortable shoes. Most of the theaters are within walking distance of each other, but the evil gremlins at Fest HQ usually arrange the sked so that you NEVER have two movies back-to-back in the same theater. They've refined that skill into an art over the years.
Lots of clothes. Not just party wear, but also rain jackets, sweaters, summer wear, whatever you can bring. Toronto's weather can change on a dime in September.
Cel phone. Waiting in line is boring. Harass people you know by phoning them at home and bragging about the movie you're about to see; alternately, you can phone people in another line and compare notes about the films you're each about to see.
Camera. Personally, I find pictures of people gawking far more interesting than the people being gawked at, but then, I'm not from around here.
Essential phrases-
When someone asks you what good movies you've seen, the correct response is "Movies? I'm here for the alcohol!"
When someone asks you where to go for a good meal, the correct response is "Popcorn's right through there, pal."
When someone asks you where the bathroom is, shrug and point to your catheter.
Essential anecdotes- You must be willing to entertain people while being bored in line. Anecdotes are crucial, apocryphal ones even more so. Try to guess which of these really happened-
"Like, last year, some guy phoned up the press office and asked to book an interview with John Cassavettes. Without, like, missing a beat or anything the press guy goes, like, "He's shooting a movie with Orson Welles" and hangs up.
"There was this one time my friend was waiting in the rush line for, like, hours, in the rain, 'cause some hotshot Hollywood types were late for the premier of their own movie which was the one BEFORE the movie my friend wanted to see, right? So the director of the movie my friend was waiting for, who was just like this nobody indie guy, ordered pizza for the whole line. And you know what? The film turned out to be, like, Clerks. KEVIN SMITH ORDERED MY FRIEND PIZZA! Is that cool or what?"
"This one director got, like, really stoned and stuff, and trashed his hotel room, and accidentally trashed the only print of his film! So nobody ever saw it!" Feel free to make up your own on the spot.
The Item (USA 1999, directed by Dan Clark.)
If there is a Six-String Samurai this year at the fest it's the Item- not that Buddy Holly features at all in the film, but it is a raw, savvy B-movie indie bombshell.
Four crooks are hired-at a million bucks apiece- to babysit an 'item' for one night. The item turns out to be an unsettlingly phallic worm-thing which feeds somehow on the darkness inside a person's head. As the worm works its influence over the gang, an already blood-soaked evening gets that much bloodier.
The Item is a true B-movie gem. It starts quick and kicks it into overdrive during the soon-to-be-infamous Massacre of the Drag Queens (performed to an amazing junglish cover of Raymond Scott's Powerhouse.) (What is with the soundtrack to this movie anyway? Do the Chemical Brothers just GIVE their songs away?) And it never, ever loses sight of the fact that sharp, funny dialogue and massive amounts of blood spraying over every available surface are nice, but no movie with a phallic worm-thing is complete without a love scene.
Shot on digital video and transferred to film, the film looks great- it's not Lawrence of Arabia, mind you, but I can think of big-budget Hollywood productions that looked worse. And the way the film was financed is even more of a hoot- Dan Clark moonlights as a children's show guy, having created Brats of the Lost Nebula and acted as creative consultant for the Ninja Turtles. The film is the very definition of indie.
Let's all pray this movie gets some kind of distribution and you all get a chance to see it- unless, y'know, you've got something against a movie where 90% of the cast dies horrible bloody deaths.
