A Tough Day In Los Angeles

Posted at November 15, 2008 @ 11:03 pm by Ighuaran in Uncategorized

From the moment I step out of my building, I can see something strange is going on in the world.

Perhaps it is because I was playing Fallout 3 - the new painstakingly detailed First Person Shooter for Xbox 360 about the world after a nuclear apocalypse wherein a dictatorship like American government known as The Enclave continues to broadcast euphemisms over any available transmission source long after the holocaust - that I am particularly off-put by the ominous red glow hitting the bottom of the cumulus clouds - at noon on a sunny day.

Los Angeles sunset through volumetric fog from the fires, 2008. Photo by the author.

I comment on this to the cashier at the Lebanese Pizza/hookah lounge, about the color of the clouds and how hot it is and he assures me that where he comes from in the heart of Mexico, this would be considered a cool, moderate climate.  I get my food, and stop in to the Russian deli where I purchase some pelmeni and a jar of pickled mushrooms.

It occurs to me, as I drive down Sunset Blvd. on a very hot mid-November day, that John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie just wouldn’t make any sense were I at my cottage in Northern Ontario, Canada amidst the soft blowing tips of the spruces and the gentle rippling of the lake, but they sure do here;  punctuating the frenetic activity of these Hollywood streets as hundreds of drivers negotiate one another’s hierarchy and whether to let one another in, race past leaving a wake of exhaust and dust, or simply pull over for an iced mochaccino.

I am at a gas station where the price of gas is exactly ten cents less per gallon than the one directly across the street.  I pay the attendant and notice a flashy picture of Barack Obama, newly elected president of the United States, on the cover of TIME magazine flashing a suprisingly smug smile, with a monocle and cane, driving a Rolls - an article about Barack and FDR.  As I exit two gangstas climb out of their polished SUV, shuffle through the parking lot in their unlaced Timberland’s, giving me a once over.  No problems here.  A woman dressed like a gypsy sifts through the garbage at the bus stop.  Across the street people brunch on the sidewalk, discussing their screenplays.

I reseat myself behind the wheel, and the DJ from the radio is talking about how it is a tough day for Los Angeles:  Sylmar, a town just north of the San Fernando Valley (that’s the porn capital of the world to those of you living on Mars) is on fire - six hundred families have lost their homes overnight in a trailer park.  In Montecito, a paradise-like town near Santa Barbara, forty homes have been lost to the fires.  Similar stories in Corono, and Olive View - where patients ran from a UCLA hospital when a wild fire raced down the foothills of Los Angeles, burning nearby office bungalows.  There are several dozen more stories like this today.  I wouldn’t have known had I not turned on the radio.  Mom will probably call at some point to see if I am still alive.

I turn onto Hollywood Blvd. and spot a twelve-year-old kid with headphones like earmuffs jogging, red-faced, down the sidewalk, followed a block later by his chubby, aging father, who struggles to keep up.  I recognize that I am now closer in age to the father than to the son.  I got carded when I purchased cigarettes yesterday.

Jim Dickens plays “Ain’t Nothin’ Like the Blues” - his telecaster snaps back in anger, but he keeps beating it down; mean, and sultry.  It reminds me of a song by a band that used to play at the Whiskey - a racous epic having to do with L.A. women and how her hills are filled with fire.

Given the heat, I decide to close the venetian blinds in my apartment, smoke a cigarette and play Fallout 3 until it cools off outside.

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TIFF’08 - Exploitation Movies, Over-packed Ska shows and Ecstasy- ho!

Posted at September 10, 2008 @ 6:19 am by Ighuaran in 2008, TIFF, Toronto International Film Festival 2008, Uncategorized, cinema, festival, film, horror, rock

Sunday night was all about celebrating blood, boobs and bombs as the Midnight Madness pirates stormed the bastilles, er, whatevs, and we were introduced to Mark Hartley’s self-proclaimed “rockumentary” Not Quite Hollywood - about Ozploitation cinema - that is to say - the non-existent Australian film industry doing whatever it could, back in the late 1960’s and 70’s to get even a modicum piece of the Hollywood pie.

Thinking they were at the edge of a wave of a global revolution that was really only happening on a farm field in Woodstock, the Aussies took to disrobing like it was the job.  Then, when a little horror and post-acid-trip surrealism was the where the registers were clinking, the blood was introduced, in bucketloads.  Add some semi-retired bona fide Hollywood star power to the mix and you had to have a recipe for cinematic world domination, rendering such masterpieces as Turkey Shoot (aka Escape 2000 in the US), Dark Age (really bad alligator horror flick), The Man From Hong Kong, and ultimately Long Weekend and Mad Max.

The beauty of it all of course was that there really were no scruples.  It was - whatever it takes to get the shot, even if it meant firing live ammo at the actors (I guess squib explosives attached to rock-faces were out of the budget range?) or hoisting a guy 70 feet in the air on a cherry-picker without anything to fall back on (um, no pun intended?) since helicopters were definitely out of the question.

But as Quentin Tarantino, who claims the lion’s share of the commentary in this doc states - Aussies can shoot car chases without equal.  Their cars look nicer than American cars, their chase scenes are way more fucking crazy, and the shots are without equal.

Brian Trenchard-Smith signs an autograph at Midnight Madness

Anyway, it was a good romp, director Brian Trenchard-Smith was in attendance and the audience applauded at the suggestion that a revival festival should be erected at Cinematheque (as opposed to grindhouses) for this pioneering ouevre.

The Rock-U’s visual effects were terrific, the pace was good, we laughed, we cried, we missed Russ Meyers.

My only question is - 8am screenings - what?

Remaining Screenings:

Friday September 12    |  06:15PM     |  VARSITY 2

~~~

Monday night - the Ecstasy Films Inc. party at Empire in Yorkville was bloody crowded.  That’s about all I can say about it, except for the free drink ticket and Bedouin Soundclash who sounded amazing despite the fact that we ultimately had to enjoy their set from outside in the rain because literally, not a deflated blow-up doll could fit in that room.

Bedouin Soundclash at Empire in Yorkville

As I mentioned previously, Ecstasy, adapted from the book by Irvine Welsh (who wrote Trainspotting, in case you are just on a short stay to planet Earth) is a film about to go into production directed by Rob Heydon and set to star Richard E. Grant (yes he of Withnail and I), Billy Boyd (of hobbit fame) and Erica Durance (of Maxim cover fame).

~~

In non-TIFF film news - the very long awaited sequel to Boondock Saints that will star the original cast and be directed by Troy Duffy himself is gearing up for production.  Holy f$%in s%$^!!!




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TIFF’08 - How To Get Tickets You Want - in layman’s terms

Posted at August 31, 2008 @ 6:44 am by Ighuaran in 2008, TIFF, Toronto International Film Festival 2008, Uncategorized, cinema, festival, film

Actor Aimee Lynn Chadwick works TIFF at Dundas Square. Photo by the author.
Even a TIFF veteran tends to find the process of getting tickets to the screenings they want daunting, and the cryptic instructions provided by the festival itself are of little help, that is, when you can find them.  This year I wanted to make sure I spared myself wiling away some of my fading years standing in rush lines and decided to buy a 10-movie-pass bundle.

In other years I have either done the rush line thing, that is, standing in line an hour before a screening hoping that there are enough no-shows that ten minutes before the precious screening starts a few of us get hail-mary’d in.  Usually works but it’s a lot of work and a lot of snacks; sure it’s fun meeting people, but sometimes it isn’t and sometimes it rains and sometimes you just don’t get in.

Still other times, I have had the benefit of a media pass for reasons I won’t get into, and so was able to forego all of the other stuff and just walk into whatever I damn well pleased.

But this year, I have neither patience, desire to leave things to chance, or a golden ticket so I had to do things just like anyone else with an unhealthy passion for cinema might.

Here’s what you need to know.  If you want to be 90% sure that you will get into the movies you actually want you will likely buy a 10 or 25 ticket set.  The 10 ticket, which is what I purchased, set me back about CDN $165.  Then I researched whatever I could, went on some hunches, looked for things that seemed rare, underground or unlikely to get wide release, and created an early list.  See earlier entries in this blog for my pre-print-mags-lists - short list.

Then I went to the new box office location for the festival on the 2nd floor of the AMC theaters building on the northeast corner of Dundas and Yonge St. opposite Dundas square, and handed them the ticket voucher they had sent me in the mail.  They gave me a booklet with all the movies, each with a pair of boxes labeled 1 and 2.  1 = first choice.  2 = second choice.

I then find my movies, my preferred screening times and mark the number of tickets I want (up to 4 per screening) with a yellow highlighter in box 1 and the same for my alternate choices in box 2 with a green highlighter, up to the number of passes I have, which is, in my case, ten.

The festival then goes through all such booklets and assigns tickets from all the screenings to these early pass-holders, starting at one, moving up to sixty, and if a screening still isn’t full, going back to one and going through the booklets again until any given show is sold out and then you get a crack at the next available screening.

Today I was emailed what I managed to get.  Not all first choices, but most.  So the cool thing is, now I can just go to the movie 15 minutes before (any later and you risk giving up your precious seat to someone in the rush line) and I am guaranteed a viewing.

The second stage of all this, is that on September 3rd, single show tickets go on sale online.  That is when the bumrush happens and shows sell out uber-fast.

Failing that, it’s time to stack up on trail mix, bottles of Fiji water (or tap-water if you are a true Torontonian) and get to the back of the line.  If this is you, bring some business cards and/or your screenplay synopsis, you’d be surprised who you will meet at TIFF standing out in the rain.


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