NUIT BLANCHE (2010- Toronto Canada)

[Johann]

GRINDBOX!

This film was presented for Nuit Blanche this year, an all-night Art Party, basically- 12 hours of art installations all over T.O., and free. I got to see Daniel Lanois do a soundcheck at about 6pm at Nathan Philips square- Man, can he play electric and slide guitars!! Holy shit was it awesome- and that was just soundcheck!

GRINDBOX! was listed in the Bell Lightbox's program as a 93-minute film, but I checked my watch when the film melted in the projector for the 3rd time during the screening and it was 2 hours and 32 minutes from when I sat down. I'm sure the man who made this (who was in attendance) was not pleased with the melting of his print. He introduced it on stage before it began by saying he found a lot of these trailers from a rep theatre in Austin, Texas.

I got my picture taken near Daniel Lanois which was cool. He just produced Neil Young's newest album and recently collaborated with Robert Plant & Alison Krauss. He is an amazing musician. But anyway...here's what was in the Grindbox for trailers/ads:

[Johann]

Lethal Panther was the best Grindhouse trailer I've ever seen. It's just an absolutely gorgeous Asian bombshell wielding Uzi's and shotguns and knives and swords and all kinds of Lethal weapons. The whole audience was lovin' it. I gotta track it down. 2 other trailers seemed to be from the same Asian production company: Curse and Just Heroes.

Chuck Norris in Invasion U.S.A. (1985)
Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986)
Lifeforce (1985)
James Cameron's Aliens- still awesome, still wicked cool. That trailer is incroyable
Verhoeven's Robocop (1986)
Private Lessons (1981)
Salon Kitty (Tinto Brass- 1976)- looks sexy..
-a radley metzger that I can't remember the name of-
Hot Pants (1976- with Jack Palance)
Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster (1971)
Death Wish- Awesome. 1974 Classic.
Michael Winner's The Mechanic- a 1972 Charles Bronson classic. His mustache alone kicks people's asses!
Mr. No Legs (1979)- the trailer I probably laughed the hardest at. It's just a guy, with no legs. Who beats the shit out of people. He climbs right up on his victims and wails on 'em- ground and pound! Mr. No Legs! ha ha You have to see it to believe it...
BLACKENSTEIN (1973)- another howler. Yes, it's what it sounds like- a black frankenstein monster. With a giant afro. Quite hilarious.
Cannonball Run 2- (1984) Jackie Chan! Dom Deluise! in the same movie!
Orca- Richard Harris 1977 B-movie Masterpiece
Krull (1983)
Warlock
Universal Soldier

ads for FANTA fountain/soft drinks
Hot Dogs! POPCORN!
and a cheesy (very cheesy) advert for 3-D, with a bad actor being bombarded in his theatre seat with stuff "flying off the screen": arrows, fire/flames, birds, etc..
Lame. If anybody laughed, it was only because they felt sorry for that bad actor.

Isaac Hayes is a badass bounty hunter in TRUCK TURNER (1974)- awesome blaxploitation trailer. Some of those are the best grindhouse flicks ever. There was also "THREE THE HARD WAY", with Jim Brown, Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly, all three, kickin ass, takin' names, layin' down the law, my brotha, just sweeeeeeeeet vintage 70's grindhouse.

There was another trailer (that I also conveniently forget the name of) with the line:
WHOEVER KILLS HIM GETS MY BROADS!!!!!, a hilarious line if I ever heard one.
The Green Slime- a Z-grade movie from 1968 that's kinda like "the Blob"

and about 40 others. Yep. It Rocked. I hope it gets a future DVD release. It's a "movie" of movie trailers, of movies that run the gamut.
2 hours and 30 minutes and I never looked away once. Fantastic idea, and fantastically edited together. That's a project I could do...lol

others that come to mind (not bad for not taking notes):

Breakin' (1984)
George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead- a crucial 1978 Grindhouse Horror flick
The Boogeyman- awesome Z-grade 1980 horror film. No one can escape the Boogeyman...
a Lee Marvin/Gene Hackman B-movie called PRIME CUT
The Trip was indeed trippy. LSD inspired film for sure. Loved it. (starring Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda).
Linda Blair is sexy as hell in Savage Streets (1984)
and of course, the 1980 cult classic
He Knows You're Alone

[Johann]

NUIT BLANCHE is a great event in Toronto. I loved it very much. Right up there with Luminato.
However, I missed a 1am screening that really pissed me off and it was because of people. (I'll get to that soon- Toronto has it's share of total fuckin' shitheads)

Here's the sequence of events:

(I'll be adding a more detailed review of the silents I watched (with the Great William O'Meara on Live upright piano again- he was the same man who played piano for the entire series of Feuillade's LES VAMPIRES last year at the ontario cinematheque) and other anecdotes, as it was a 12-hour all nighter).

I was early for Nuit Blanche- I wanted to get the whole experience because I missed it completely last year.
So I walked west on Queen street, until I got to Nathan Philips square, where I heard cool music coming from the stage that was being assembled/tweaked. I went over there, and DANIEL LANOIS is just standing there, talking to a couple people. Just standing there.
I don't think anybody recognized him. What's wrong with people!?! So I asked a kid near me to take my photo with him. I was going to ask him for a picture right after he was finished chatting but he walked away directly to the rehearsal pit as soon as he was done (and he stayed there for the rest of my time at NP square). So the best I could do is get a pic of me at the edge of the stage with the Man in the frame as he did soundcheck- with a gorgeous black Gibson SG! He also jammed with a young blonde girl in a parka who bashed the drums like a pro...was that his daughter???

I hung around for another 20 minutes or so and then decided to go to the Bell Lightbox because I knew that Daniel's art installation (called "At The Drive-In") would be on for the next 12 hours. I wanted to get as many screenings in as I could.

I get to the Bell Lightbox and I go into the Essential Cinema exhibition again (10th time I went in there!!).
I got a really good look at the artifacts. I'm very happy/grateful to have had enough time to really get a good look at everything thay have in this exhibition.
They have a display case with a black velvet covering on it with the vintage "RESTRICTED" cat symbol embroidered on it and if you lifted it up, you got to see original negatives from Pasolini's SALO- the most shocking scenes. Can you believe that Salo was chosen as one of the Essential 100? That's pretty cool to me.

After that I went up to the second floor, to see Atom Egoyan's "8 AND A HALF SCREENS", a "deconstruction" of a theatre space, a tribute to the idea of "WATCHING", and it was incredible. Truly incredible. I could almost feel the presence of Fellini himself.
I went into the theatre (which was totally dark except for the projections/loops) and was told by an usher to walk down the aisle and take a seat on the stage. There was no one else in the theatre, which made it especially moving to me. It seemed very timeless and surreal to sit next to that Orcon projector (anybody ever heard of ORCON?) with 35mm strips of film threading and flying through it like a conveyor belt.
Egoyan strategically placed 8 and one-half pure white sheets (all of differing sizes/shapes on thin wires) in the theatre seat spaces and projected spliced and looped scenes directly on them. The effect was astounding. If you don't believe that Atom Egoyan is a Genius, then I'm here to tell you that he is. His passion for cinema and Art and his talents are staggering. I can't even really convey in words what I felt watching that for 5 straight minutes. With no one else. Sublime? Yes. Poetic? Yes. Timeless? Definitely. It was really special to me.
Atom Egoyan may be Canada's greatest film figure... (apologies to Bob & Doug)

Much much more to say. Hang tight.

[Johann]

Found my press materials for Nuit Blanche..here's the write-ups from them on Egoyan, Grindbox!, Singin' in the Dark, Girl and a Camera and E-100:


Atom Egoyan's 8 1/2 Screens

Atom Egoyan's discomfort and fascination with the relationship of viewer and viewed finds a perfect match in the famous projection room sequence in Federico Fellini's 8 1/2. Egoyan reverses the relationship between projector, audience and screen in this bravado deconstruction of TIFF Bell Lightbox's Cinema 4 space




Grindbox! (curated by Colin Geddes, Programmer of TIFF's Midnight Madness)

A tribute to the unique North American institution of the "grindhouse"- this presentation of coming attraction trailers for horror, sci-fi, action and exploitation films from around the world is a cinematic celebration of the weird and the wonderful, balanced on the border between art and trash.- continuous projection, Mature Audiences.


Singin' in the Dark (Programmed by Shane Smith- director of programs, TIFF)

Join our host, stand-up ginger Shawn Hitchens for a riotous sing-along featuring hit tunes from great movies

***- this was indeed riotous. A cross between comedy and karaoke, I saw this one three times in a row (each sing-a-long is 20 minutes)
I sang along to "Day-O" from Beetlejuice when the microphone was thrust in my face by the host. A good time.
Songs were from Grease, The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz, Rocky Horror (TIME WARP, obviously), The Muppet Movie, The Blues Brothers and Footloose. Funny to see people dancing to the time warp. Pelvic thrust drives you insane...

Girl and a Camera

Embark on a mythopoetic voyage to cinema's pagan beginnings with (female) cinema pioneer Alice guy Blache- 11 silent films, varying in length from 1 minute to 9 minutes. Sweet, funny, all were great and charming. Alice trained Louis Feuillade. So yeah, she's kinda important.
She made over 1000 silents, and only about 130 remain.


E-100

In Cinema 5: E-100 re-contextualizes cinematic sounds from the Essential 100 list- fragments of dialogue, instrumental samples and environmental sounds- according to their musical properties, creating an encyplopedic sonic collage. A non-visual experience of cinema's most significant moments

***- a great experience. You go into the theatre and the lights are up the whole time. You just LISTEN to cinema history, snippets of dialogue from Clockwork Orange ("ARE YOU REFERING TO THE BACKGROUND SCORE?") and 2001 ("Daisy...") and Star Wars (lightsabres, etc.)
Really cool. Your mind is forced to envision the scenes.