We love The Patterns Trilogy. If we had more parties at our apartment, we’d have it running on our television or projected onto a wall, looping endlessly. Well, if we could be sure it wouldn’t hypnotize our guests (and ourselves) into a sublime stupefaction. Therefore, Trilogy of Trilogies, one of tonight’s Worldwide Short Film Festival programmes (playing at 7:15 p.m. at the Cumberland), which features The Patterns Trilogy along with The Saskatchewan Trilogy, is our specially designated hot ticket of the week. It’s a ticket so hot, if you put it in your trouser pocket, it would set your trousers on fire and you’d get really bad burns on your legs.
Of course, there’s plenty of other great stuff on at the Worldwide Short Film Festival, which ends this weekend—perhaps you saw our festival review earlier in the week? Take another look if you didn’t. Also worth mentioning again is Saturday afternoon’s Sci-Fi: Out There programme, featuring Wookie at Work.
Moving onwards, the Reelhart International Film Festival begins on Monday, and has a showing of The Clinton 12 on Tuesday at 2 p.m. Reviewed by Andrew Dowler at NOW, he says, “There’s nothing here to suggest bias or distortion, and the filmmakers leave their pro-social message for the end.”
There’s also the Speak Up! Student Short Film and Video Fest at Mississauga Central Library this weekend, if you, um, happen to find yourself in Mississauga (you poor thing).
But wait! We’ve forgotten to talk about the most important film of the week! No, not Sweet Mud, The Golden Door or Il Caimano, which are also out this week and we’re going to gloss over with that quick mention there, but Nancy Drew!
So, like, what’s with the “OMG 50s-style Nancy Drew in the present day somehow anachronisms LOL” concept, eh? Are movie executives so desperate that they think children’s brains are defective to the point where, seeing a film set in the past, they would scream, “I don’t understand how she doesn’t have a mobile phone! This film is stupid and I hate it,” or something?
Well, whatever. We think the story behind Nancy Drew is more interesting, anyway. Who do you think the ‘real’ author of Nancy Drew is, readers? We think it was all Mildred Wirt Benson, really, and that Harriet S. Adams was no good at all.
Another classic character done injustice this week is the Silver Surfer, to be seen in The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. As Monster Magnet’s front man Dave Wyndorf so skillfully sang, “I was thinking how the world should have cried, on the day Jack Kirby died.”
Because that dude’s probably spinning pretty hard in his grave right now. They don’t even use his version of Galactus in the film. He’s just, like, a stupid dust cloud or something.
If only we still had men like Albert Pierrepoint around, eh? He’d be able to work out the quickest way to off each movie executive we could get our hands on just by looking at them. At, ooh, six seconds or so per drop, we could be rid of most of them within about half an hour (and all only for the cost of the length of rope!). Ah, well, perhaps similarly minded readers will have to satisfy themselves by watching the highly-acclaimed film about Britain’s last hangman, Pierrepoint, this week.
However, if your dreams are stranger (and nicer) than the thought of murdering movie executives in cold blood (we understand that it’s not the done thing) there’s always Paprika, Satoshi Kon’s latest anime. His previous, Tokyo Godfathers, was absolutely superb (and probably one of the best Christmas films we can think of, oddly.) The Globe and Mail‘s Liam Lacey calls it “a creatively dizzying and visually dazzling allegory about alternative realities.”
Finally, don’t forget our Almódovar contest! [“Which is now closed, sadly.” – Ed.]
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