TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM REVIEWS (Part 1) The Last Lovecraft

What’s going on everyone, Pierce ’The Punk’ Derks here taking some time out of my wacky life to bring you a review of my experience at 2010’s Toronto After Dark Film Festival.

‘What’s this after dark thingy you speak of Pierce?’
You’re not alone loyal ThisWeekInGeek.net reader and listener.

Young children and hobos constantly ask me this question on the busy streets of Toronto… along with the typical ‘where’s my mommy’ and ‘can you spare a buck?’..like I have time for that.

So for those of you who are unfortunate not to know of its awesomeness, TAD (Toronto After Dark) is a film fest that features “8 Nights of Horror, SCI-FI, Action & Cult Movies!”

Without further ado, here is my review of the opening gala film…

The Last Lovecraft (USA 2009, Dir Henry Saine)

Last Lovecraft follows the story of Jeff, a typical dude who’s too focused on his pointless cubicle job existence to see his life is going nowhere fast. The only thing positive about Jeff’s life is his best friend Charlie, your typical aspiring comic book writing slacker always trying to get his high strung friend to cut loose.

One day after work everything changes when Jeff learns he is the last descendant of acclaimed writer H.P. Lovecraft…and of course just like all relatives of the visionary author, it’s up to him to save the world from an ancient evil by protecting some relic.

Wait… did I miss something?

The two friends decided they are way over their heads and must team up with Paul, a stereotypical nerd/ Lovecraft aficionado from their high school days.

What follows is a typical buddy-comedy meets road-movie with horror sprinkled throughout  as they rediscover themselves and their friendship as they try to save the world.

This film sells itself off as a Cthulhu comedy, which I must admit, is a unique and much needed addition to the over saturated horror sub genres.

Think it sounds awesome?

I did too…unfortunately this film fails on every conceivable level and never delivers on its monster movie promises.

This leads me to my three main problems with the film, delivered in point form.

1. The Characters

Jeff and Charlie are a cliché of the buddy team up we’ve been seeing in countless films ever since the success of Clerks. They are Dante and Randal, minus original writing and charming actors to bring them to life. What we’re left with are two individuals that you never believe have an ounce of friendship between them.

You end up loathing Jeff as he’s not so much ‘likable misfit’ as much as he comes across as an asshole. There’s not one single redeeming quality about his character, and as such, you don’t care about his story or what happens to him in the long run.

2. The Writing

I knew I was in for a treat when in the film’s first 10 minutes  I was introduced to our main character in his cubicle as he utters the line…

“Is this all my life is?”

…

Dude…are you serious?

Did he actually just say that? Could you possible write a more direct and asinine piece of dialogue to try and explain the character for us?

That’s an internal thought, not something you embarrass the actors and insult the intelligence of the audience by having the character actually go and say.

Dreadful lines like this continue to pour on through the film as we get ideas and exposition blatantly fed to us rather than having it unfold through dialogue or character development.

Along with the terrible exposition and dialogue, we get comedy bits of ‘gold’ that have nothing to do with character, timing, or wit and quickly deteriorate into people yelling, cursing grannies, and homosexual hillbillies.

3. The Style

At this point you probably think ‘C’mon Pierce, it can’t be that bad?’

I will admit there have been many films I’ve enjoyed that suffer dreadfully in latter two categories, but they make up for it with a sense of style.

You know,  a sense of direction, something that separates them from the rest of the cinematic filler out there.

This has none of it.

Even the opening credits come to us from a preset animation in After Affects.

For a horror movie you would expect at least some good gore…right?

Nope.

Instead we get a camera than pans ups up away from all of the action as we see either shoddy CG blood splatter against the wall or just a shadow. Mix this in with flat, lackluster cinematography and slow tedious editing (a character turns in one shot fully and then when it cuts to the next shot he’s still turning…editing fail) and you get the visual equivalent of…of… a stale donut.

The eye candy could have been so delicious and sweet…but instead it’s just bland and crusty.

That’s why I disliked this film so much, it’s not so bad it’s good, it doesn’t have the visual style to make up for atrocious writing, and it doesn’t have the heart in the story to make up for the poorly designed characters.

It’s just bland and boring throughout.

The only area where this film succeeds is with the monster design. You get to see some gorgeous looking tentacle beasts and other such Lovecraft-ian goodness… I just wish the actual film would have actually been a strong format to show off these lovely works.

Furthermore for an opening Gala event at TAD the fans deserved better! In recent years we’ve received the infectiously fun Black Dynamite and modern day masterpiece Let The Right One In on opening nights. Why drop the ball this year guys?

This thing also received the Silver for ‘Best Independent Film’ in TAD’s Vision Awards. This thing won while a unique film like Rubber was snubbed? Come on After Dark, you know better.

With so many amazing, innovative, and genuine horror comedy hybrids out there in recent years…

This film has no excuse.

Sorry guys, I know you’re passionate about your project, but a cool concept does not make a good movie.

Overall The Last Lovecraft get’s a disappointing 02/10.

Stay tuned for more Toronto After Dark reviews…and don’t worry, they’re not all this bad.

Pierce ‘The Punk’ Derks

The Top Ten Cinematic Disappointments of 2009

Hey Everyone,

Pierce ‘The Punk’ Derks here.

2009 was a year filled with many great achievements in cinema. We had artists that came from nowhere and nocked our socks off along with masters that continued to build upon impressive bodies of work.

However, ’09 was also a year filled with disappointment. From box office bombs, travesties that made critics go home and cry, to some of my own personal gripes.

So here it is, my list of The Top Ten Cinematic Disappointments of 2009.

10. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

I absolutely loved this book as a child. Maurice Sendakit original work was a beautiful representation of what so many of us experienced in the depths of our imagination when we were young. The jaw dropping trailer for Spike Jonez adaptation had this as one of the reasons I was looking forward to 2009. All of these contributing factors led up to what was ultimately a disappointment for me when I sat in a lonesome theater and watched this adaptation unfold. The cinematography is beautiful, the music is outstanding, and Max Records provided a solid performance as the hyperactive and rambunctious (also aptly named) Max.

The main thing I can not wrap my head around with this film though is just how un-gripping it was to me. It has a promising start, but after Max has been on the island for a while I lost interest. Theres only so much of watching in awe and wonder of the imaginative visuals I can take before I want a story in the mix of the fantasy.

This film can be summed up very quickly. Boy acts like a dick, runs away to a boat that takes him to an island, chills on the island for a while, then goes home after he realizes he was being a dick. The end. I really wish we could have seen what Disney and John Lasseter could have done with the property back in the 80’s. It still was a good outing overall, but it could have been so much more.

7 out of 10

9. SHERLOCK HOLMES

It’s Guy Ritchie taking on a literary classic. This either has the possibility of being kick ass or being a cluster fuck. What we get ultimately is a cluster of kick ass and fuck.

Robert Downey Jr. provides a wicked performance along with Jude Law for the original bromance life couple Holmes and Watson. Where the film ultimately fails though is that it can’t make up what it wants to be. It wants to be a stylish gritty manly man’s movie like Snatch and Lock Stock, but then it also tries to be James Bond, a kids movie, a mystery and so on. The possibility was there for it to blend all of these into one cohesive piece, but the final result is far from what i can only imagine was intended.

What we do get however is random Zack Snyder slow motion (which is one of the most annoying trend I can think of in recent Hollywood history) and one of the most ridiculous villains I could possibility think of for a Sherlock Holmes villain. Surely we would get someone with brute strength, or an insanely cunning mind to be Holmes adversary, but no, we get a hokey bad guy who practices the dark arts trying to take over the world.

SPOILER ALERT: but guess what boys and girls!? It’s not dark arts after all, its all science! This fact makes all of the villains actions and motivations throughout the film seem entirely pointless. All of this comes to culmination of an ending that solves nothing and just sets up a pointless sequel.

This movie could have been wicked if it focused more on a straightforward buddy flick, as the chemistry between Law and Downey Jr. is superb. Music’s awesome, and theres a great cast hidden in this mess…but its not enough to save what could have been the buddy action adventure audiences have been craving for.

6.5 out of 10

8. 9

Where do I even begin. This is the sign that fan boys of Tim Burton will buy whatever emo shit he shoves down their throat.

To sum it up quickly and cohesively: nothing happened in this film.

The original stop motion piece from Shane Acker looked so damned cool and had the potential to be a dark a moody tale with jaw dropping visuals!! However we get a CG shit storm devoid of life along with the stop motion aesthetic the short had left me craving for.

Want an awesome animated movie thats dark and adventure filled? See Selick’s Coraline: it’s actually good.

5 stars out of 10

7. PUBLIC ENEMIES

Depp.

Bale.

Two of the biggest stars we have today, both of whom have amazing bodies of work. With Michael Mann (the director of one of the greatest critically acclaimed dramas, Heat) helming the project we should have gotten so much more than a drawn out period piece that looks like it was shot on your mom’s HD family video cam.

The cinematography is single handily the worst HD film making I’ve ever seen from a feature. There are student films shot on 5,000$ cameras that look better than this. The story is alright, the acting is pretty good, but pacing and the shoddy dirt cheap look of this film killed any chance it had for me.

6 out of 10

6. AVATAR

Yes, send your hate mail, send it all.

I can not comprehend why people have the guts or balls to compare this to the original Star Wars. The only comparison i can find is how ‘revolutionary’ the effects are.

Speaking of which i was promised to have my eyeballs raped by Cameron’s revolutionary 3D technology…so did I? I saw this in Toronto in Imax, with one of the most top notch systems around. My eyes did dazzle at how pretty it was from time to time…but my god it was nowhere near the visual revolution that the critics have been soiling their pants over. What we do get is a film that looks cool but is devoid of any genuine heartfelt emotion or natural action.

It feels like this was the product of a super computer that had only one purpose: create a movie that will make as much money as possible and appeal to every demographic. A forced love story with a plot that is, not just rips off, but is Fern Gully and Dances With Wolves with the last 30 minutes blended with Aliens action.

So listen up Kids, if you want to make a movie that grosses over a billion dollars in less than a month take Fern Gully, set it in space with blue Thundercats, and voile, you have Avatar.

6.5 out of 10

5. WATCHMEN

OK, this is easily the greatest graphic novel of all time. Watchmen, the graphic novel, is an intense and perfectly crafted look into the frailties and insecurities of humanity through a group of fading super heroes at the edge of societies destruction. How Zack Snyder interprets this is through slow motion fight sequences (not to mention hair flips) and brutalized violence that adds nothing to the respected scenes.

The cinematography is cold and lifeless throughout most of the film from being too damn clean. I know they took the framing for a lot of those shots directly from the novel, but this is a dark and gritty story that deserved to be treated as a drama, not a glossy super hero film.

The soundtrack could have been perfect if they embraced the period of the 80s, but instead we get an original score that sounds like it was from the b-sides of The Matrix. It’s quite sad when the score from the Motion Comic is better than the multi million dollar feature.

The two things this film does right, and insanely well, are Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and the opening credits with Dylan’s ‘Times They Are A Changing’. Those two elements alone make the film worth seeing, but for Christs sake do yourself and your brain a favor and read the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ novel first.

6.5 out of 10

4. X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE

I wanted this to be good. Hell, not even good, I would have been fine with it being OK. Hugh Jackman has so much passion for his character that I wanted to support this film and support his future involvement with the franchise.

I’m sorry Hugh, I just couldn’t…you marvelous singing bastard you.

This film is a classic example of when too many producers get involved with a project and see it as a chance to sell action figures, not a story.

You know how when you saw X-2 and Wolverine talked and hinted about his dark horrible past, how he was a brutal killing machine? How he’s been alive for so many years and has been through so many wars? You think that would make for a wicked movie. To see everything that made him so jaded and tragic would have made an amazing tale. Instead we get Logan acting like a noble gentleman with the heart of gold, always preaching on how killing is bad! How about that horrible tragic event that he would never want to remember?

SPOILER ALERT: Oh its that his love gets ‘killed’, vows revenge, found out it was a set up to get him to become a part of the Weapon X program and that the girl is still alive, in exchange rendering everything we had begun to care and feel for the character a waste of our time and emotion…not to mention we’re supposed to still like her character because she’s alive and was only doing all those bad things to save her sister.

Instead of getting the deep study of one of Marvels greatest creations, we get a cluster fuck of pointless characters thrown in for the sake of ‘pleasing the fans’ and of course making more action figures. On top of that we get random action sequences thrown in every 15 minutes to make it exciting for the kids, and god damn helicopters because Richard Donner was producing. I swear that man has a hard on for helicopters, check his IMDB and look at all the crap he’s made and count how many of those films have the action staple of the skies.

For a real look into Logan/Wolverine’s past, read some of Marvel’s graphic novels and play the Uncaged edition of the film’s video game. Thats right, the video game is better than the movie…figure that one out.

4.5 out of 10

3. JENNIFER’S BODY

I love horror. I loved Juno. What could be more perfect than the writer of Juno taking on an 80’s style slasher flick? Dear sweet baby Jesus was I wrong.

From Diablo Cody, the Academy Award winning writer of Juno, comes Jennifer’s Body. I could not wait for this film when I first heard about it. I’m not a fan of Megan Fox… I will get that out of the way. Instead of boobs, I was much more interested in a witty yet meaningful story blended with comedy and horror. It is possible people, just watch Shaun of the Dead.

This film is anything but those wonderful things. The moment I got to the bar fire scene I think my jaw actually dropped in a ‘WTF is this shit’ fashion. Awkwardness takes reign after this point with cheap scares, poor dialogue, demon rock bands, and horrific pacing wrapping it all up like a nice big bow. I don’t want to know what went wrong with this project. Maybe Ms. Cody put all of her talent into Juno that year when she wrote the script. Maybe the Director, Karyn Kusama, just botched it all to hell. After all, her stellar resume includes Aeon Flux. Who knows what happened. I just want to forget.

Want to see Jennifer’s Body? Don’t. Just look up pictures of Megan Fox online instead.

3 out of 10

2. TERMINATOR SALVATION

McG. Who the hell would give this guy the role of Director????
He calls himself something even Flavor Flav would find ridiculous…not to mention he’s 41 years old, as white as my ass, and just as talented.

Terminator 1 & 2 are Sci-Fi/ Action classics brought to us from Jame Cameron’s glory days as a film maker. Terminator 3 was a film most fans shunned, but all in all it wasn’t that much a disgrace to the property.

Terminator Salvation is a beast on its own. When I heard they were making a Terminator film focusing on John Conner being a bad ass in the future wars we heard so much about in T1 & 2, I signed right up. When I heard that freaking Batman was playing Connor I signed up again!

Then I heard it was PG-13 & directed by McG. Doubts began immediately. Then the now infamous Christian Bale rant was released online and I knew shit had to be going down behind the scenes.

Finally the film came out. I saw what my fears and doubts had been preparing me for. Believe you me, that asshat McG did not disappoint in the field of disappointment.

John Connor was turned into a guy who does nothing but yell, say his name over and over again like a goddamn Pokemon, and magically forgets that he was best buddies with a robot in T2. The plot holes are big enough that an orgy of obese elephants could squeeze on through while having a comfortable mile wide clearance on each side.

Pointless characters stacked upon pointless scenes add nothing to a story that eventually ends with showing us how one dude got a scar.

Tempted that maybe the director’s cut will add something worthwhile? Don’t bother, theres a side shot of Moon Bloodgood’s boob..and even then it doesn’t make this mix of technology and bad acting worthwhile.

Anton Yelchin is kick ass in it however, and we got a sweet techno dance song out of Bales antics…aside from that McG can die in a fire until one night he is visited by the ‘3 Ghost of Stop Making Shitty Movies’.

3 out of 10

1. TRANSFORMERS 2

It is rare that I am actually appalled by a film from how little it thinks of its audience. This ‘thing’ (it’s hard for me to call it a film) disrespects the intelligence of every single individual who was suckered into Mike Bay’s sick joke. I actually liked Transformers 1. It was a fun mindless action romance romp with some, albeit cookie cutter, characters that I enjoyed following for approximately 90 minutes.

I was pumped for Transformers 2 when I saw the trailer. It looked like a darker, more intense action piece, focusing in on and building upon the introduction of the characters from the first film. Megatron was going to come back and kick ass…in Imax.

The following is a rant that I wrote over the summer. Like a fine wine, my hatred for this sack of shit has only grown stronger with age.

“WHY I HATE TRANSFORMERS 2″

1. The Humor…there are some moments of fun goofy screwball comedy reminiscent of the first film that work perfectly to lighten the tension and amuse the kids.

But then the film is plagued, and I do mean plagued with over the top raunchy humor that seems like it was ripped straight out of an Austin Powers/Scary Movie film. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not one to shun away at something and go ‘oh my that’s too offensive’ But did we really need the dogs humping, robots calling each other pussies, an immigrant with over the top hideous teeth, John Turturro’s balls, and Devastator’s too?

These moments didn’t bring you into the picture. It was more as if Bay zipped down his pants and decided to slap you with a certain piece of genitalia every time you were trying to get attached to the already ridiculous characters and plot.

2. Mudflap and Skids…

Why, why god why. It’s as if Bay studied what everyone hated about TF 1, film, and culture in general and decided to throw in two ghetto hillbilly ‘bust a cap in yo ass’ buck toothed robots that don’t know how to read and spend most of their time swearing.

This is the biggest side kick mistake since Jar Jar Binks..Jar Jar at least added something to the plot. His character had a purpose, no matter how much you hated the Gungan bastard he still was needed to progress the ’story’ forward.

What purpose do Mudflap and Skids serve to the story? Bumble Bee gets pissed off at them for being so fucking annoying and throws them against a wall revealing something Sam has been looking for…That’s it. Seriously that’s it.

They attack Devastator…but do they bring him down? NO! It looks like they go in for a head shot and then next scene hes climbing the ol’ pyramid like nothing happened.

Mudflap and Skids could have easily been replaced with any one of the characters we actually gave a shit about from the first film and would have proved as a much better sidekick.

Anyone who thinks these two characters are genuinely funny should seriously think twice about having children…as you obviously have a hidden genetic defect or repressed retardation.

3. This is a kid’s movie?!?!

Yes, its PG-13. Parents are supposed to know there may be ’some’ inappropriate content. But lets face it, this film is marketed towards kids. Burger King, Walmart and Toys R Us are stacked to the ceiling with Transformers stuff aimed at lil’ Johnny whose 9. TF 1 was a kids movie…this is not and I am surprised it got away with being called one.

4. The plot…what plot?

Robot heaven, Megan Fox running in slow motion, and Robot Pharaohs.

BOTTOM LINE

Bay has always been a kid at heart, but it seems with TF 2 he’s now in that asshole state of puberty that everyone hates. He has become the 13-16 year old douche bags that society has wanted to destroy for eons.

It’s clearly evident too when you’re in the theater and everyone you see around you laughing at the shit are just that…13-16 year old douche bags who wont shut up throughout the entire movie about how hot Megan Fox is.

TF 2 is truly marketed towards them. Not to adults, not to kids, but to the 13-16 douchebag crowd.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Fuck this movie and fuck everyone who supported it.

2 out of 10

Now you’ve sat through the films that let me down the most, stay tuned for the list of my Top Ten Films of 2009!!!!

Cheers everyone, heres to another upcoming year of greatness and cinematic disappointments.

Pierce Derks

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