The TIFF Midnight Madness Blog: Canada

Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts

9/11/14

THE EDITOR Premieres Tonight!

The Editor premieres tonight, so pull on your black leather gloves, don your featureless mask and hope that the film can somehow explain your dreams of blood or who that mysterious woman is who you seem to remember but have never met... or so your friends claim...


Does this little girl seem familiar? Is she a Murder Scout?

Is your home filled with mannequins?

Do you dream of strange creatures?

Only The Editor can help you now.

THE EDITOR screening times:
Thu. Sept. 11th, 11:59 PM, RYERSON
Fri. Sept. 12th, 9:15 AM, SCOTIABANK 3
Sat. Sept. 13th, 6:15 PM, SCOTIABANK 4

9/4/14

5 Questions with the Directors of THE EDITOR

Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy lead the charge in the new Astron-6 film The Editor. The two of them impressively split the jobs of producer, director, directors of photography and writer (with Conor Sweeney)… as well as both acting in the film! Just a few of the many hats they wore, actually!

We caught up with them for some insights on their brand new Giallo Comedy flick!

1. What's your favorite giallo movie?

Matthew: I like Suspiria, Tenebre and the first giallo movie that I watched which was Bava's Bay of Blood or 'Twitch of the Death Nerve'. I bought it online because I heard that Friday the 13th 2 stole some deaths from it. I didn't even know it was a giallo at the time or what a giallo was...

Adam: Don't Torture a Duckling

Matthew Kennedy

2. What's your favorite comedy?

Matthew: This is really hard for me to choose but I really like Wet Hot American Summer and most films by David Wain. I'm also a big fan of all of Woody Allen's comedies, particularly Play it Again, Sam.

Adam: Yes such a hard question... Maybe Groundhog Day or Billy Madison or Wanderlust or The Big Lebowski... The 40 Year Old Virgin... This is the End?.... I dunno... Too hard.

3. Giallo-comedy! Where'd that concept come from?

Matthew: We love comedy, we love giallos. Everything we do has a touch of comedy and giallos already come with their own pre-exisiting dash of comedy, I'd say.

Adam: We like to make each other laugh, so there's the comedy element. And as for the giallo element - I think we'd like to make every genre of movie, and now we can check giallo off that list.

4. Can you talk about your experience with Indiegogo for this film?

Matthew: Indiegogo served us well. We would not have been able to shoot the film in 4k without that campaign. We still have to deliver some prizes that we couldn't mail until the film was finished. We were still shooting as recently as June so we haven't had a moment to breathe.

Adam Brooks

5. How has your filmmaking process adapted from the early days of Astron-6 to your work on The Editor?

Matthew: It has only become harder and harder and harder. Every movie we shoot is more work than the last. The early days of Astron-6 were really the glory days. It was just getting together with your friends and making something that made you laugh. We laughed so much back then, and we still do, it just comes between all the awful pain, depression and exhaustion.

Adam: Yea I think I see where you're going with this question and I want to tell you that it's a whole new world now and we sit in director chairs and have people get us coffee. But the truth is nothing has changed except the workload got bigger. We still have to phone the actors, drive them to set, pack all the gear, the props the costumes into our tiny cars, set everything up, buy people food, pay for parking, tear down, and drive people home. Then at home we work on props or set dec for the next shoot, and play around with some editing. So it's really no different. We still shoot mainly without permits and do our own stunts too.

THE EDITOR screening times:

Thu., Sept. 11th, 11:59 PM, RYERSON

Fri., Sept. 12th, 9:15 AM, SCOTIABANK 3
Sat., Sept. 13th, 6:15 PM, SCOTIABANK 4

9/2/14

Kevin Smith Hearts Canada!

Ah, the ol' "Eh-2-Zed," where every self-respecting Canadian does their shopping.

To be completely honest, this post waxing poetic about how much Kevin Smith loves Canada was initially just going to be every episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation that Smith appeared in. Because, as we see it, you've gotta have a huge (and loving, always loving) hard-on for Canada to appear in five episodes and one TV movie of Degrassi: TNG. (What, you've never been on Degrassi before? Hmpf. Must not love Canada that much then...heathen.)

Except, gasp, there aren't even any clips of these episodes online. What sort of travesty is this?! We demand justice! Also, some chocolate bars because demanding justice has made us hungry and lowered our blood sugar! We'll have to settle for this still instead:

"I love Canada more than you, Paige. Deal."

In case you're a little lost: Kevin Smith is not Canadian. He is from New Jersey. But he loves Canada and might as well be a Canadian and why haven't we made that happen yet? Not only has he professed and solidified his love for quality Canadian youth programming, but there's this video on YouTube of him playing hockey (the second greatest Canadian past time, with the first being eating poutine and simultaneously listening to Celine Dion) and he's got at least one annoying "that time Air Canada effed me over" story. (Um, guys, we're pretty sure by now he's more Canadian than most of us.) But it doesn't stop there! Have you seen that time he was on Epic Meal Time?!

Smith has definitely fulfilled the necessary amount of times one must say "beaver" to be considered Canadian. Stephen Harper, put down the kitten and hand that man a Canadian Passport, pronto.

Even more exciting than beaver-talk, Tusk takes place in Bifrost, Manitoba and that's real love right there. As the inspiration for the movie initially came from England, Smith could've picked almost anywhere to set his creeptastic story of a man and his walrus but he chose Canada. Maybe you're all, "Well, Canada IS the last place I would want to die," and we see your point and raise you this, kind sir: If that were the case, why is Canadian Treasure Kevin Smith considering Tusk the first part of his "True North Trilogy," a series of films steeped in Canadian culture and myth?! Boom. Mic drop.

The second film in the series, Yoga Hosers stars his and Johnny Depp's daughters (what! what! dying!) as two yoga-loving girls who work at the Eh-2-Zed convenience store and end up fighting for their lives against an evil force so they can get to a sweet party. That might be the craziest sentence we've ever written on this blog, but it's all true. (Just scroll back up to the header image of this blog post if you're doubting us.)

Okay, okay, we know you're getting overwhelmed with all of this Canada talk, but we'll leave you with one last little tidbit: Another project that Canadian Treasure Kevin Smith is working on right now is a TV comedy, called Prons, about a porn star who retires from the biz to his hometown of Brantford, Ontario and Smith also hopes to film it on location as well.

Bless you, Kevin Smith. Bless you.