Edgar Wright pulled out all the stops last night at the final evening of The Wright Stuff, with two brilliant movies and two special guests. Unfortunately, my camera epic failed on me by telling me it had more than sufficient battery life to get through both Q&As, then flaking out on me at the last minute. More after the jump.
The Brood
The Brood is a brilliant Canadian movie about how mental illness effects a family. Well, sort of. When we meet the main character, Frank Carveth (played by the wonderful Art Hindle, who was there last night), he is picking up his daughter, Candi, from a psychiatric facility where his wife is being treated. Soon after picking her up from her weekly visit with her mother, Frank discovers that Candi has wounds and bruises all over her back. When Frank attempts to address this with his wife’s psychiatrist, Dr. Raglan (played by the always excellent Oliver Reed), denies that any harm has come to the child. Frank sets out to prove that something is wrong at Raglan’s facility, but when people start dying, murdered by strange, inhuman child-like creatures, Frank begins to fear for the safety of himself and his child.
This was the first time I’d seen this movie and seeing it on a big screen was amazing. It’s creepy, it’s weird and it’s scary. Cronenberg did an excellent job of making his dialogue less strange and awkward than usual, something he’s well known for. As mentioned Art Hindle was on hand for a post-show Q&A, of which I don’t have footage. Shannon the Movie Moxie was there last night and did have her camera with her, so I believe that she got some. When she posts it I’ll make sure to link to it. In a nutshell, however, Hindle discussed that making this movie was just as creepy and depressing as it looks. Right after the screening Edgar declared, ‘Happy Easter!’ and then proceeded to say that he wanted to get on a plane right then and go home, because Toronto is ‘…fucking scary!’ Hindle was extremely jovial and joked his way through the Q&A, telling wonderful stories about the making of the movie, making of other movies and some choice stories about Oliver Reed. With respect to working with the children and such extremely violent, scary subject matter, he said that they made it into a game on the set, ensuring that the children knew that nothing was real. Of the girl who played Candice, his daughter in the movie, he said she is …’fully recovered’. He also made note that when this movie first came out it was considered to be ‘B’ horror and had trouble being distributed, something that explains why it’s so scare and difficult to get a copy, which is a shame. All in all, this is excellent horror, which you should see for sure. Watch out for children in creepy lemon yellow and powder blue jumpers.
Last Night
Now this, for me, was an experience. I first saw this movie when I was in high school at a rep theatre in London, which has long since been turned into a night club. I saw it with some ‘cool’ kids, one of whom I was trying to impress (a boy, of course). It was the first independent movie I ever saw and it completely blew my mind. The level of simplistic complexity and deep emotion that Don McKellar injected into this script, film and performance quickly became one of the reasons why I love the movies so much. You know the feeling. If you love movies, you have one. That one movie where you realize that you are in love with the feeling that film gives you and you just want to seek more. For me, this is that movie. So when Don McKellar came to the screening yesterday to do a Q&A, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
Last Night is a movie about the end of the world, plain and simple. It follows a few select characters through what is the last 6 hours of the planet. Telling you more than that, in my opinion, would ruin it. It is beautiful, haunting and will make you feel such a myriad of emotions that you’ll come out feeling both uplifted and refreshed and completely spent at the same time. Starring Don Mckellar himself (as writer and director as well), Sandra Oh, Genevieve Bujold, Callum Keith Rennie and David Cronenberg, it’s choice Canadian cinema and a movie that is not to be missed.
In the Q&A McKellar explained that this movie was part of a series of 10 movies about the end of the world in preparation for ‘Y2K’. He noted that originally this was to have been an hour long movie for TV, but he decided it needed to be a feature length movie to tell the story he wanted to tell. He said some of his influences were Romero movies, Omega Man and Soylent Green, although those movies are admittedly very different. He didn’t want to date it with Y2K and he didn’t want to have to explain why the world was ending, only that it was. He shot this movie over approximately 23 days in Parkdale and Queen West, but largely on Weston Road because he specifically wanted the movie to have no ‘green’ in it (for a plot point that is very subtle and I don’t want to reveal), and as a result he used an ‘economy of visuals’. When an audience member asked why he waited to direct until he did this movie, he noted that he had simply been waiting for the right script and he felt that this one was the right one. Of all projects this one, he feels, is important and it’s important to him because it is so personal. Watching it now he feels that it was small and cramped, but that he is still very satisfied with the ending. He also noted that he was very proud of this project and very proud to have been included in The Wright Stuff. It was definitely the perfect way to end this screening series.
If you’ve got footage of this Q&A and would be willing to let me post or link to it, please do let me know. Don McKellar is one of Canada’s most valuable artists, with an extremely large body of excellent work, and this Q&A is not to be missed. As soon as I find somewhere to link, I’ll update. Please accept my apologies on behalf of the stupid camera.
A HUGE thank you goes out to Edgar Wright who put together this brilliant series of movies and who is kind, ingratiating to his fans and a big fan himself. It was an honour to have the opportunity to attend this series.
