TIFF - Trigger

Rating: ***1/2

Originally conceived, apparently, as a sequel to Hard Core Logo, Trigger is not Hard Core Logo. It’s by Bruce McDonald, and it’s about musicians, but that’s about all that these two movies have in common. Seemingly modelled off, or inspired by, My Dinner With Andre, Trigger is a kind of Before Sunset with a lot of walking around and talking and waxing poetic about life, love and art.

The film follows two former rockers named Kat (Molly Parker) and Vic (Tracy Wright), who form the titular band. In the prologue we see a rather nasty fight unfold on stage in silent black and white footage, which was, we assume, the duo’s final show together. Flash forward a decade and the two meet up again for dinner in an upscale Toronto restaurant. Vic seems out of place, while Kat slides right in saying that she knows the chef and orders the quail. See where this is going?

Kate and Voc talk about music, life in L.A. (for Kate), working corporate, their respective substance abuse problems and whether or not they want to swing by this gig recognizing the contributions of women to rock, including Trigger of course. There’s so much to say and so little time, but a lot is shared over the course of the film’s 80 minute running time.

For added poignancy, there’s the fact that Tracy Wright passed away earlier this summer after battling pancreatic cancer. Trigger was rushed into production when Wright was diagnosed, and knowing that I couldn’t help but feel there was an unspoken reference to that in the way that Wright played Vic; whether, like Wright herself, Vic was facing her own mortality. Perhaps, the only reason she’d reconnect with Kate is because she knew it was the last time she’d be able too? There’s something terrible and gracious about that.

But even with such dark thoughts, Trigger is a wonderfully written movie. Parker and Wright also get the chance to rock out in one scene as Trigger reunites on stage for the first time in over 10 years. Weirdly though, the scene at this concert is the only music that sticks out in my mind when thinking about this movie. Perhaps that’s not so weird, it’s been done before. Besides, I don’t think music is the point. Trigger is about the people that matter in our lives and about how infrequently we really share with them the knowledge that they’re that important.

While it was hard not be mesmerized by the actresses and their delivery of a very dialogue heavy script, there seemed like times that the story was trying a bit too hard to create conflict. As well, it seems in the end to run out of steam a little bit, as if everything’s been said and the pen is having trouble finding a way to round everything off. That could be an element of exhaustion though considering that the movie goes from dusk till dawn with Kate and Vic yakking all the way.

Despite that, I found Trigger an enjoyable film; a kind of one act play that’s elegant in its simplicity. The difference being that you’ll either be taken away by the performances or you won’t, though I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t be. The two leading ladies are dynamic and energetic, bringing a genuine feeling of tension and history with the way they interact. There are a number of cameos by recognizable Canadian actors like Sarah Polley, Callum Keith Rennie and Wright’s long-time partner Don McKeller and the film gave me two really great lines, one of whish is “Rock ’n’ roll is an odour.” That’s a delightful bit of criticism that I intend to use the next time I write an album review.

But in all seriousness, Trigger is a great tribute to the life and work of Tracy Wright and I appreciate the talent and dedication brought to bear by the other actor and filmmakers in order to giver her this really great send off. Trigger is a tribute to the artists who think they’re forgotten, but really aren’t. Like the young girls with their own band who recognize Vic in line at the Mod Club, there’s always someone new to meet who you’ve inspired. I’m sure the same will be said for Tracy Wright in years to come.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

Rating: *****

Sometimes the ignorance of the movie-going public is astounding. They’ll line-up for anything remade, animated, or done in 3-D, but a blisteringly original and energetic work of film, let’s skip that to see something that’s supposed to be for 10-year-olds. That may be a little harsh, but it really does flabbergast me about where the mentality of people that go to the cinema is. I could watch SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD again. I could watch right after I watched it. That’s how good this is. At least in my opinion.

Based on the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O’Malley, SCOTT PILGRIM is zany, colourful and most importantly heartfelt. It looks pretty, but it’s got heart, which is what separates this film from the pack. That and its oozing in maple syrup love of Canadiana (or at least Torontoniana) as director Edgar Wright really nails something authentic about his hyperactive, comic book version of Hogtown that comes complete with all sorts of video game sound effects.

At the heart of the story is the boy-meets-girl drama between the titular unemployed slacker (played by Michael Cera) and the hipster, pink-haired love of his life named Ramona V. Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Naturally, the course of true love never does run smooth, and as a result, Scott must battle Ramona’s Seven Evil Exes in order to win her heart. Along the way, Scott must also help his band, The Sex Bob-Ombs, to ascend the Battle of the Bands to win a record contract and “sell out and stuff.”

That’s really kind of the bare minimum in terms of plot description because there’s really so much going on every minute of the film that you could write a 1,500 world plot breakdown. What’s really interesting is that there are a lot of characters in the film, and this can be dangerous because there’s a limited time to tell a story with little time for deviation into a side-character’s wacky antics. Not that the time issue is different with SCOTT PILGRIM, but there are a lot of characters and they’re all very well drawn.

At the centre of it all is Cera, who, while playing the sardonic slacker yet again, finds the material fitting his rather one note delivery. I think this is the fate of Michael Cera, destined to a career of finding the right scripts and right directors to suit his one note tone. Fortunately for him, SCOTT PILGRIM is all aces. As Scott’s soulmate Ramona, Winstead practically dares you not to fall for her, with her candy-coated hair, those eyes that had to have been taken right from the head of a Disney Princess and driest of the dry line deliveries. Winstead is definitely the girl you’d fight seven evil exes for, with a sardonic sass that makes her even more desirable.

Speaking of those evil exes, it’s practically a parade of geek friendly cameos. From future Captain America Chris Evans doing meathead macho right as skater/actor Lucas Lee, to former-Superman Brandon Routh as super-powered vegan Todd Ingram, to the once and future Max Fischer Jason Schwartzman as the Lex Luthor-like organizer of the evil exes, Gideon Graves, these guys are golden. And in an inspired bit of injoke casting, Cera’s ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT girlfriend Mae Whitman (her?) plays the bi-furious Roxy Richter.

If there’s a breakout star – if you can call him that considering that he’s spent all but eight of his 28 years in show business – it’s Kieran Culkin as Scott’s best friend Wallace Wells. Culkin steals a lot of the scenes he’s in, not to mention a lot of the best lines in the movie. I think I would love to see a movie about Wallace’s solo adventures, living his life according to the double standard code of Liberace’s Ghost and not caring who knows it. But honestly, I can’t pick out a bad actor in this thing.

Perhaps what trips up people is SCOTT PILGRIM’S unabashed love of modern pop culture in general and video games in particular. Things like “pee bars” and fighting your enemies until they explode into coins, or fighting the negative version of yourself in order to win the prize (or the girl in this case), should go down well with the current generation, who grew up, like me, on the original 8-bit Nintendo. It surprises me that it hasn’t translated, but I suppose that’s how cult classics are born.

I have little doubt that in the months and years to come, especially when it hits video shelves, SCOTT PILGRIM will find its audience. It’ll find the small and vocal, who will continue to sing its praises until they start fighting over who “discovered it” first. On second thought, that’s pretty much where this movie was always meant to be. SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD is a cult film made with studio money, and that, by me, is alright because I’ll do everything I can to make sure that I get $60 million worth of enjoyment out of it in the years to come.

Hot Docs - A Different Path

Rating: ****

Oddly timed in an act of universal kismet, A Different Path comes hot on the heels of that incident in the Gulf of Mexico that President Barack Obama called “potentially unprecedented environmental disaster.” With scenes of disgusting oil poisoning the pristine ocean front of the U.S. Gulf coast, we should all be looking to a different path (as if all previous incidents involving oil unleashed on a defenceless and delicate eco-system haven’t already driven that point home). To put it bluntly, A Different Path is one of the most anti-car movies I’ve ever seen. Not that it’s an hour and a half of harping on the evils of the personal automobile, but rather an impressive and positive film experience.

Independent filmmaker and musician Monteith McCollum follows several individuals that are trying to make the world a better place by getting people to think about transportation options beyond the single-occupant automobile. Richard Dyksterhuis and his wife Cleta Hughes are part of a small group seniors in a town in Washington State trying to get a sidewalk laid in their rundown neighbourhood. These seniors, including one in a wheelchair, literally risk life and limb trying to draw attention to the issue as discourteous drivers right them off as “senile old people.” On the other side of the continent in Toronto, Michael Louis Johnson leads a group called “Streets are for People” as members try to reclaim downtown parking spaces through games, art instillations and the like.

The trick of this film is that’s a very preach-to-the-choir movie. That’s through no fault of it’s own, of course, it’s just that’s exceptionally hard to get many people to see things from the movie’s point of view: cars are mostly bad, creating a car-centric society is killing us, and we’re eventually going to pay for it because this life is unsustainable. There are places in the GTA where officials explicitly say publicly that if they implemented a public transit system, then they would attract the “wrong kind” of people to their town (ie: the poor and the newly immigrated). As cities grow, spending on transit remains stagnant while fares rise. And still some people look at you like a leaper when you suggest public transit as a viable alternative to getting around. Either that or they say you’re immature for riding a bike to get from point A to point B being over the age of 18.

Fortunately, the movie itself is not as angry as the last paragraph. As well, these are not your typical activists profiled. Take the case of David Hughes, a former New Yorker that lived in Manhattan, but had to commute to an office in New Jersey everyday. Literally being able to see his office building across the river from his apartment window, Hughes did something unusual: he decided to kayak across the Hudson to work everyday. The result was that he cut his commute to a third; 30 minutes by kayak as opposed to an hour and half with the bridge and tunnel crowd. That kind of blew my mind a little, but it also punctuated the film’s real point. This is a movie about thinking outside the box. This is a movie about finding original solutions. This is a movie meant to get one thinking about one’s own space and what they can do to improve. It’s transportation policy D-I-Y.

But I don’t think A Different Path would be half as inspiring without its artistic flourish. Certain scenes and stories are punctuated with stop-motion slides and illustrations, which combined the phone interview soundbites and the POV shots of Johnson riding his bike around Toronto, give the film an ethereal, dream-like quality. It’s like John Lennon’s “Imagine” re-imagined as being about a world where car culture no longer holds its sway. This is daring work. As in it dares you to be as forward, and as imaginative, and as positive thinking as its protagonist. If you don’t walk away with from this film smiling, then you’ve got no soul.

TIFF Review-Chloe

Rating: ****

After a kind of so-so entry with Adoration, Atom Egoyen returns to form with Chloe and that’s despite the fact that this is perhaps his most mainstream and most Hollywood that the Canadian filmmaker has gotten. For an added level of paradox, it’s also a film where Toronto gets to play Toronto complete with frequent drive bys of TTC street cars and the appearance of the ubiquitous orange and green of Beck Taxi. The film itself, based on a French film called Nathalie by Anne Fontaine, is a mix of family drama and erotic thriller that deals with attraction, infidelity, commitment and naturally sex. Egoyen keeps you guessing as to who’s zooming who, and excellent performances lead the way.

Julianne Moore and Liam Neason play married professionals living in Toronto; David is a professor and Catherine is a gynaecologist. They live a comfortable life in a nice home with their teenage son Michael (Max Thieriot), but the romantic tension between the two seems long gone and has since been replaced with the comfort of routine. Catherine begins to suspect that David is having dalliances, and decides to test her theory after a chance meeting with Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), a high end call girl who she hires to tempt her husband. In the process of tempting David with a mistress though, Catherine finds herself drawn to Chloe in what ends up being one of the most incestuous extra marital in the annals of fiction.

But Egoyen takes his time getting there and he doesn’t make it as clear as you might think. I had never seen Nathalie so I had no idea where the story was going. When Catherine gives in to Chloe’s temptation, any and all expectations as to where the story is going are thrown off track. The story is almost a sexual whodunit you realize by the tiem that the film reaches its end, who did what to whom and why? None of the three characters are what they seem, and actions in the earlier parts of the movie can be re-seen in new light on a second viewing. Trust, suspicion, paranoia and lies are all popular themes in Egoyen’s work and he expertly plays with all these things again in Chloe.

The three leads are wonderful, but it’s hard to say who had the biggest chores on this movie. Neeson had to play innocent and make you question whether or not he was. He’s kind of cool to his wife, and he senses their distance, but outside the immediate marriage he is rather warm and charming. Moore has to play against cliché as the (potentially) scorned wife, and she projects a great strength in her character as she tries to reclaim the marital high ground, only to get caught surprised by her desires and even more so by her willingness to reciprocate. But perhaps Seyfried has the toughest job of all: trying to find that middle area between raw, human emotion and Fatal Attraction. She does pretty well, but one could see the bunnies boiling in the film’s climax.

Overall, Chloe is compelling, even if the ending seems a little too pat despite the emotional entanglements throughout the rest of the film. Does the family find a good equilibrium in the end that allows them to find peace and love amongst each other again, or is there something in the smiles that says that maybe this is all a show? This will depend on the interpretation of the viewer of course, but what is undeniable is the filmmaker’s skill in weaving deep-seeded questions of personality and motivation into something that could have easily become Movie-of-the-Week melodrama. And for pure titillation, I know that Megan Fox’s make-out session with Seyfried in Jennifer’s Body is getting a lot of buzz for its gratuitous sexiness, but it can’t compare to the electricity between Seyfield and Moore during their love scene in Chloe. Out sexying Megan Fox? Now that’s the Atom Egoyen we all sing about around the water cooler.