1819 - Ferocious

I'm just on a Canadian film rampage this week.  Huzzah for that!  I always find it a celebration when my friend's features get a theatrical release.  Last night I was lucky enough to check out this film while it's in its theatrical run.  Ferocious is the story of a small town girl who left and made a name for herself as a tv star, but has come back to tie up some loose ends.  It, largely, takes place in all one location and while I'm sure that was a budgetary consideration it never once feels like it.  They make an amazing use of their prime location and it feels like a world unto itself.  Kim Coates does what he does best and comes off as a dirty creepy son-of-a-bitch, and my buddy Katie Boland plays a fantastic comic relief (in a good way).  This film charmed me quite a bit, and it's easy to recommend it.  It's got a great vibe to it.  There are a few tropes that you just have to buy into with this sort of tale, but you do so easily and are able to just dive in and enjoy the ride.  If I had to give a complaint, I suppose I just wasn't all that invested into Amanda Crew's character - everyone else popped in a really great way, but her character was slightly under-developed for my liking - which sadly is easy to have happen when your character is meant to shoulder a film like this.  Over all, good stuff Robert Cuffley!

1692 - Growing Op

This has been on my list of films to watch on Netflix for a while and so I finally got to it last night.  I forgot that my lovely friend Katie Boland co-stars in a very charming role. 
It's the story of a family of pot dealers in the suburbs just trying to be good parents and do right by their kids and keep them from adding to the conformity of the rest of society.  A film like this could really easily fall on cliche but it doesn't.  It's smart and charming and fun.  It's exactly the kind of film that our country needs to do more of.  It's on netflix so no excuse to not check it out (except if you don't have netflix, and if you don't, you really should). 

Fool For Love

 

I need to start by saying that I'm not a regular theatre goer by any means.  I like theatre and I do have background in theatre... kind of... it was always my own stuff though, so maybe that doesn't count.  Anyway, I say this just to let you know that I am by no means any kind of qualified critic when it comes to theatrical productions.  That being said...

I knew nothing of this play walking into it - and that's really nice these days when it's hard to be surprised by something, especially a story.  Without giving anything away, it's a story of star-crossed lovers, set in a motel room, right at the moment where they need to make a hard decision.  I went to see this because my new friend Ms. Katie Boland was starring in it, and because the darling Ms. Christine Horne was willing to go with me.  This is an Ezra Atlantic Co-op production, which is a group whose mandate is to make theatre more accessible and attractive to the youth.  Staging the play in an art gallery where you're literally in the same space as the actors is a nice touch.  The set has everything it needs, and I really liked the simplicity of it.  It worked well.  All of the technical aspects of the show were really quite nicely done, in particular the sound design.  It really added this nice little layer of naturalistic score to the entire piece.  The other nice thing about a venue like this is because it's so close to the street and not insulated properly that (with the right play) it really adds to the soundscape.  There was a lovely moment in the play's second half where I was literally transported.  I was sitting in a motel room.  I forgot I was watching a play, which was a really lovely and unexpected thing to have happened.  

This play if full of really lovely performances.  Boland and Blais have a pretty kick-ass chemistry as the two would-be lovers.  You really aren't quite sure what they're going to do next, and in a play like this - that's a lovely thing.  David Christo was a lovely surprise as Martin, and his hayseed slackness was a nice breath of fresh air at a point where the intensity was rising and we needed the emotional break.  Rounding out the cast is a very enjoyable Barry Flatman.

And then there's the star of any good play, the script.  I'm not very familiar with Sam Shepard's work.  I think with any drama there's a real danger of the work easily slipping into melodrama, and I think that this production avoided that as much as possible.  The play moved with a great pace, and the story unfolded in a natural way.  It had a really lovely balance to the whole thing.  There are a number of really delightful moments both in dialogue and sometimes the lack there-of.  It's a very nice piece of writing.  

The show is a limited engagement at the Meta Gallery and I believe that it's only on until this weekend, and it may or may not already be sold out.  Email foolforlovetoronto@gmail.com to reserve seats.  

If you like independent theatre and have a free evening this week get on it!

Three 2 Five Questions: Katie Boland

I have to say that I quite enjoy doing these little segments. Here we have the lovely Katie Boland, a young Canadian actress whom I met in the summer through mutual interest. She recently participated in a reading we did for what, hopefully, will be my next film. You'll probably recognize her from Atom Egoyan's Adoration, or The Zack Files, or Terminal City, or the upcoming Daydream Nation which premiered at TIFF this year. In addition to all of this Katie is a pretty talented writer in her own right, which is featured in her blog is on my list to the side, but you can also there there by clicking this link.
I hope you dig the interview - again, the audio is as-is, I tend to do these things in coffee shops which are generally busy and a bit loud - hopefully it doesn't take away from it too much. Enjoy!

1401 - Daydream Nation

This film is in the Canada First program at TIFF, which is the program we would have been in had we been selected. So I was excited to see this for several reasons - the first being that it's Canadian, the second because my new friend Katie Boland is in it, and third because I fucking LOVE Kat Dennings.
Kat is great in this, she builds on a lot of the great stuff we've seen her doing in films, but at the same time really has a chance to shine within the material that she's given. Jon Joffin's cinematography was fantastic and the music selection added a really nice emotional touch to the film. Katie is pretty damn awesome in her scenes as well and manages to steal a few great moments. I look forward to working with her at some point (that goes for you as well, Ms. Dennings!)
If I have to give criticism to the film it's this - it's very ambitious in that it wants to be a lot of different things, and I think that the film suffers a bit because of it. Films often use the 'coming-of-age' blanket to justify a passive protagonist that doesn't really have a goal or agenda, but just drifts through. It helps a lot when that protagonist is Kat Dennings though. There is a lot to like and enjoy about this film and I really hope that it gets an audience inside and out of Canada. I think that the writer/director, Mike Goldbach, is someone we're going to see time and again, and if you're reading this Mike, I'd love to buy you a beer sometime and talk shop.