Sixty Stories - Anthem Red
(Smallman)

This is the first full-length record from Winnipeg’s Sixty Stories, and it picks up right where their split release with Painted Thin left off. It’s another dose of youthful indie pop-rock with candy coated female vocals, at times reminiscent of The Salteens or The Anniversary, but mixed with the some of the sappiness of The Get Up Kids as well.

They’ve changed bass players but there’s very little noticeable difference in the music. Although they still don’t have a full time keyboard player, they’ve continued to add some catchy synthesizer parts in many of the songs. It’s hard to pinpoint what makes the music so appealing, aside from the obvious sugary pop hooks. Perhaps it is the honest, heartfelt lyrics and the personal feel of the songs. Although the songs do come across as being slightly immature at times, they are also easy for just about anyone to relate to. Anthem Red does indeed have its share of youth anthems on it; after all, who wouldn’t want to sing along with a song that chants, “I’m gonna quit my job, I’m gonna quit it tomorrow”?

With this record, Sixty Stories have proven that they can knock off 12 solid songs (granted, one of them is only 10 seconds long) and the album’s only weakness is a pair of slower tracks on the album that just drag on a little too long. This is definitely something that Vagrant Records fans could get into, although it doesn’t sound as overproduced or clichéd as some of the bands on Vagrant’s roster. If you haven’t already heard them, this is one band that is definitely worth checking out. –- Sean

CQ (DVD)
Written and Directed by: Roman Coppola
Starring: Jeremy Davies, Angela Lindvall, Jason Schwartzman, Billy Zane, Gerard Depardieu

Roman Coppola, being the son of Francis Ford and brother of Sofia, has quite an impressive gene pool to draw from. There is no doubting the fact that his directorial debut CQ had a lot of potential, but I can’t help but feel disappointed by the final product.

Jeremy Davies plays an aspiring filmmaker named Paul who gets a big break directing a 60’s spy film called Codename Dragonfly. He starts to become obsessed with the project, and finds himself slowly drawn into the world of the film itself, where he falls in love with the beautiful superspy named Dragonfly. It certainly sounds like a cool concept, but unfortunately the movie never really seems to go anywhere, and there are a lot of loose ends that never get fully explored.

Coppola spends an excessive amount of time focusing on actual scenes from the Codename Dragonfly movie, which aren’t treated in a humourous or particularly exciting manner, and drag on longer than necessary. (Even with these scenes, the movie seems a little short with a running time of about 88 minutes.) The rest of the movie just seems to have an air of vagueness and pretentiousness about it (although maybe that is partly due to the artsy black-and-white clips of Paul’s personal film project and the French accents of all the characters).

The music, provided by a French band called Mellow, was hit and miss. At times it provided the perfect loungey, contemplative atmosphere, but other times it just sounded like a cheap knockoff of 60’s spy-surf… the Dragonfly theme sounded particularly fake.

There was some cool camera work used in CQ, and lots of beautiful European scenery. I am hard pressed to find fault with the visuals in the movie, but the credit for this should probably go to cinematographer Robert Yeoman. One of the movie’s only redeeming points was an over-the-top performance by Coppola’s cousin Jason Schwartzman as a big shot director.

In the end, I found it frustrating and ironic that Coppola could not follow the advice that his main character Paul is given in the movie: “You need to connect things so that they make us feel something”. As a movie, CQ never really seems to hit its stride. I was expecting a bit more from the Coppola name, but perhaps Roman just has some maturing to do before he can adequately uphold his family’s reputation.

The DVD has a lot of special features that do pick up the slack for the movie however. Extras include 4 behind-the-scenes documentaries by family and friends (including sister Sofia and mother Eleanor), live footage of Mellow performing songs from the movie soundtrack, full scenes from the Codename Dragonfly movie, and an audio commentary with Coppola and Robert Yeoman. — Sean

Hot Hot Heat - Make Up The Breakdown
(Sub Pop)

Hot Hot Heat are, if you’ll excuse the inevitable pun, a hot commodity in the music world right now. They released a 5 song EP on Sub Pop Records earlier this year, which created quite a stir, then within a matter of months they proceeded to record a new full length album for Sub Pop as well. Now apparently they’ve already signed a deal with Warner to release their next record. One thing’s for sure, these guys haven’t let the B.C. weed waste away their ambition. However, if Make Up The Breakdown is any indication of where the band is headed, Warner just might be jumping on the bandwagon a little too late.

This record isn’t bad, by any means. It is, however, a definite step down from the Knock Knock Knock EP. For some reason, the magic seems to be wearing off. Perhaps the EP sounded so good because there were only 5 songs on it and no room for filler… but then again, I don’t think there is a single song on Make Up The Breakdown that can stand up to any of the 5 songs from that EP.

It’s unquestionably the same band that recorded Knock Knock Knock (as opposed to the vastly different incarnation of the band responsible for their earliest recordings), but the music sounds watered down, and not quite as exciting. There is still a danceable mod rock feel with 80’s retro/new wave undertones, but suddenly there is an element of 70’s rock in there too. Okay, that doesn’t describe the difference entirely, but for example, just listen to the sound of the keyboards on this album. It isn’t so much quirky synthesized bleeps any more, it is a full blown organ sound, not unlike something you’d hear on a Boston record, or occasionally a piano. The keyboard solo on “Get In Or Get Out” stands out, as it sounds dated and a little cheesy too.

The danceability of their music is still intact, as is the general catchiness, but the energy level and the spastic vocals have been taken down a few notches. Highlights on the album include “No, Not Now”, “Oh, Goddamnit” and “Talk To Me, Dance With Me”, all of which combine driving rhythms with addictive melodies. For the most part, however, the songs make Hot Hot Heat seem a lot less creative and original than they have proven to be in the past. Make Up The Breakdown essentially passes them off as nothing more than trendy lo-fi revivalists. I’m sure that probably helps from a marketing standpoint, but it’s a little disheartening to think that Hot Hot Heat may already have passed the high point of their career. I suppose only time will tell on that front, but this record just isn’t as good as it probably could have been. — Sean

Rules Of Attraction
Directed by: Roger Avary
Written by: Bret Easton Ellis (novel), Roger Avary (screenplay)
Starring: James Van Der Beek, Jessica Biel, Shannyn Sossamon, Ian Somerhalder, Kate Bosworth, Thomas Ian Nicholas

When you hear about a movie starring James Van Der Beek with a name like “Rules of Attraction”, your first instinct is to assume that it is some sort of romantic teen comedy drivel. Ironically, nothing could be farther from the truth.

First off, Rules of Attraction is based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, who also wrote American Psycho, so you know it’s going to be anything but romantic. Secondly, the movie is helmed by Roger Avary, who was Quentin Tarantino’s often overlooked partner in the writing of Pulp Fiction, and who also directed Killing Zoe. With this film, Avary has sewn together a strange, disjointed collection of segments and messes with timelines in a way that is similar to, but much more schizophrenic than, Pulp Fiction. From the frequent use of reverse photography, to an innovative split screen scene illustrating the first meeting of two characters, to a disruptive high-speed 5 minute collage of another character’s trip to Europe, Avary messes with our senses in interesting ways.

Rules of Attraction could conceivably be compared to films such as Requiem For A Dream, Trainspotting, and Vanilla Sky. In the book, Bret Easton Ellis focuses on the college experiences of Sean Bateman (brother of American Psycho’s main character Patrick Bateman) as he and a number of other students live a life of excess — basically partying and getting laid. Aside from Sean, the other two main characters are Paul Denton, a bisexual guy who develops a crush on Sean, and Lauren, a girl who Sean is becoming obsessed with because he suspects she is secretly writing him love letters. There are many more characters who become entangled in this bizarre love triangle, far too many to count.

The story is dark and cynical with a sense of hyper-reality, and Avery showcases the shallow characters with satiric glee. At times it is hilarious and sarcastic, but other times it is depressing and grim. There is lots of sex, lots of drugs, and plenty of, as Van Der Beek himself deadpans repeatedly, “rock and roll”. There are some points, unfortunately, where the movie seems to get a little too artsy and self-indulgent for its own good, which is where Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky is brought to mind. But these moments are not extreme enough to derail the entire flick, as long as you are an open-minded viewer.

This movie will make you wince uncomfortably every now and then, not unlike a Todd Solondz movie. This is due in large part to the gritty content, but perhaps the most uncomfortable thing about Rules Of Attraction is that it shatters the “goody-two shoes” images of so many television teen idols. I’ll certainly never watch Dawson’s Creek, 7th Heaven, or The Wonder Years in the same light again. These young actors deserve credit for taking a risk on a film like this, and most of them do manage to showcase a surprising versatility with their performances. Rules of Attraction is worth seeing just for Fred Savage’s appearance alone — his small role as a heroin junkie is just too funny and downright strange to miss.

Make no mistake, Rules Of Attraction is not a movie for everyone, and for the most part it is not a movie for the kinds of people it is likely to attract based on its cast. It’s dark, it’s weird, and it’s very unique. It does not present a straightforward story tied up in a neat little package, and in the end you may find yourself hard pressed to deduce the point of it all, but still, I highly recommend it for anyone who is up to the challenge (and of course anyone who is a fan of Bret Easton Ellis). — Sean

Red Dragon
Directed by: Bret Ratner
Written by: Thomas Harris (novel), Ted Tally (screenplay)
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman

Movie remakes are almost always bad news. If it’s not a case of Americanizing a foreign film, then it’s a usually a case of modernizing a classic, all in the name of making a quick buck. And although Red Dragon is not exactly a remake of Michael Mann’s 1984 film Manhunter, they are both based on the same Thomas Harris novel, and there just doesn’t seem to be a valid justification for telling the story a second time.

The argument they would give you, I guess, is that Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Hannibal Lecter is the most widely recognized and well liked (as opposed to Brian Cox, who plays Lecter in Manhunter), so they wanted to complete the trilogy with Hopkins lending his own take on the story. But that is a pretty silly argument, because Red Dragon isn’t really about Hannibal Lecter as much as you might think.

Red Dragon is a prequel to the events that took place in Silence of the Lambs. The opening moments of the film depict Hannibal Lecter’s capture at the hands of Detective Will Graham (Ed Norton), and they both very nearly kill each other in the struggle. Years later, Graham is off the police force, but he is called back into action because he has a knack for getting into a serial killer’s head that no one else has. They are after a serial killer nicknamed “The Tooth Fairy”, and of course, Graham finds himself requiring the assistance of Dr. Lecter to solve the case. But as the story progresses, it becomes a showdown between the Tooth Fairy and Will Graham more than anything else.

Although they did assemble a fine array of acting talent for Red Dragon, it was pretty obvious that it was a shameless attempt to cash in on the box office success of Silence Of The Lambs and Hannibal. So I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that in the end what we got was just a mediocre and essentially forgettable movie.

Initially, one of the most discouraging things about Red Dragon is that it was directed by Brett Ratner, who is best known for doing the Rush Hour movies and Family Man. None of his past work would indicate he had the level of sophistication or finesse needed to direct a “psychological thriller” such as this. Still, I suppose he does an adequate job with Red Dragon; that is to say, he managed to avoid making a mockery of it. But there’s nothing spectacular about the images he put together on screen either. The main problem with Ratner’s direction in this movie seems to boil down to this: he doesn’t know how to create atmosphere. He doesn’t seem to realize that yellow lighting does not automatically make a scene spooky. Even Danny Elfman’s music score, which is up to par with some of his most sinister compositions, is underused.

This may also explain why there wasn’t much suspense or fear evoked during this movie. I blame that partially on the story as well though. How can we be frightened when the movie doesn’t even really have a dangerous villain? Hannibal is certainly not a threat during this movie, as he spends 95% of it behind bars. Also, this being Anthony Hopkins’ third time playing the role of Hannibal, there’s no longer any intensity there. You can tell he’s just in it for the paycheck, and his performance has become a caricature of itself.

The Tooth Fairy on the other hand, appears menacing when we first see him lifting weights and talking back to the voices in his head, but as soon as we see him in his daily life as a shy, lonely guy with a slightly disfigured face, and we learn that he was abused as a child, we just end up taking pity on him. Maybe it would have helped if we saw him actually killing people… as it is, the most disturbing thing he did on screen for the majority of the film was eat an oil painting. The idea of being possessed by the Red Dragon made for a few creepy moments, but this fell by the wayside once we were shown just how insane the Tooth Fairy really was. Humanizing the serial killer effectively eliminated the sense of danger and urgency that the story should have had.

Even though this was the first story that Thomas Harris wrote, knowing what we know now, it seems inferior to Silence Of The Lambs and Hannibal and it does not feel like a prequel. We have no choice but to judge it in comparison with the two movies that follow it, and this amplifies some of the movie’s shortcomings.

For one, we’ve already seen an FBI agent consult with Lecter before. Not only has it been done before, but with Clarice Starling it seemed more believable. Hannibal has a soft spot for Clarice Starling, so he is motivated to help her out and toy with her — there is a strange chemistry between the two. But it doesn’t seem likely that Hannibal would have the same motivation to help out the very officer who put him behind bars. Also, it makes the FBI seem inept when they repeatedly go to Hannibal for help. Don’t they have their own behavioural psychologists?

Unlike the two films that follow Red Dragon chronologically, this movie is not really about Hannibal Lecter. It seems like he’s just in it as a novelty, and there’s no real reason for him to be there other than to spout off his witty dialogue and cryptic clues for Detective Graham. We want more of Lecter, but at the same time we can’t help but feel there’s already too much of him in the movie. Unfortunately when the focus shifts away from Hannibal, things becomes somewhat uninteresting. That is not to say that Ralph Fiennes’ portrayal of the Tooth Fairy isn’t good, but somewhere along the way we lose sight of the fact that he is a serial killer, and his romance with a blind girl summons bad memories of Fiennes’ performance in The English Patient. It’s so sappy and awkward it made me squirm even more than seeing dead bodies with shards of mirrors wedged into their eyes.

In the end it seems that even top notch acting couldn’t save Red Dragon. In some ways, having big name actors in this type of movie was a drawback as it took away from the realism and made it less frightening. Philip Seymour Hoffman deserves mention for his role as a sleazy journalist, but the rest of the cast failed to make an impression. I didn’t feel for Ed Norton’s character much at all. I thought Norton’s character was able to get inside the killer’s heads? Why was this concept never expanded upon?

It’s far too often that people decide to remake movies without having a good reason. I can understand the interest in seeing two interpretations of the same story, but most of the time remakes just ruins the integrity of the original. Such would seem to be the case with Red Dragon. I’ve never seen Manhunter, but the general consensus is that it is a better movie (although the ending does stray from the plot of the novel). So why even bother?

Red Dragon was entertaining, but at the same time, kind of predictable, and not as shocking or spine-tingling as the Hannibal movies should be. It is the weakest of them all, and only waters down the legacy. I would suggest going to rent Manhunter rather than seeing this film. It’s on the top of my to-do list as well. — Sean

Drawing Flies (DVD)
Written and Directed by: Matthew Gissing and Malcolm Ingram
Starring: Jason Lee, Jason Mewes, Joey Lauren Adams, Renee Humphrey, Carmen Lee

Drawing Flies has been dubbed “the lost View Askew film”, but now that it has been found, I almost think it would have been better off staying lost. I guess that’s not completely fair to say though. Drawing Flies isn’t bad for a low-budget 16mm black and white indie film directed by 2 guys who (as far as I know) have no experience or education in directing a movie. It just so happens that the movie was produced by Kevin Smith, and stars some big name View Askew actors like Jason Lee and Jason Mewes, which has blown it up to appear much larger than it really is.

Essentially, this is a story of 5 slacker friends who have just been cut off from welfare. So what do they decide to do? Avoid the real world by going off on a camping trip. Not much really happens on their trip… for the most part they just stroll around the wilderness talking. However, the guy who suggested the trip, Donner (played by Jason Lee), has an ulterior motive for bringing the gang out into the woods. He is obsessed with finding Bigfoot.

Many View Askew fans will be severely disappointed by this movie, as it definitely not in the same league as Kevin Smith’s own films. It has some humour in it, but the timing is off and it doesn’t have the Kevin Smith’s snappy dialogue behind it. On the other hand, View Askew fans are probably the most likely of anyone to enjoy this movie, as it is a chance to see familiar faces in a different environment. You get to see Jason Mewes in another role other than “Jay” (not that his character in this film is much of a departure), Jason Lee slowly spiral into insanity, and Scott Mosier wearing a giant diaper. The movie also stars Jason Lee’s wife Carmen Lee, and View Askew mainstay Renee Humphrey.

Overall, the video and sound quality are sub-par, and the movie itself is pretty dull. The DVD is packed with special features, but if you are hoping for audio commentary tracks as amusing as some of Kevin Smith’s own movies, again you will be let down. The cast and crew commentary track (featuring Smith himself, among others) is pretty chaotic and poorly recorded… the only amusing part was the endless harassment of an actor who apparently continually developed erections during his love scenes. There is a second commentary track with the directors by themselves, which is more technical in nature, and not as interesting. In addition, there are some deleted scenes and outtakes, which are difficult to sit through — some introductions or commentaries here would have helped a great deal.

The “special introduction” by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier is amusing at first, but kind of drags on. The ironic part is that some of the jabs they take at the film are true. They know as well as we do that the only reason this movie has seen the light of day on DVD is because their name will sell it. In the end, all I can say is that it’s not a horrible movie, but you might want to think twice before buying or renting Drawing Flies. -– Sean