The people have spoken and this year's winner of the Cadillac People's Choice Midnight Madness Award is Gareth Evans' The Raid! Congratulations to Gareth, Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Maya Barack-Evans and the producers, cast and crew of The Raid!
First runner-up is Adam Wingard's You're Next! Congratulations to Adam, Sharni Vinson, AJ Bowen, Joe Swanberg, Simon Barrett and the producers, cast and crew.
Second runner-up is Bobcat Goldthwait's God Bless America! Congratulations to Bobcat, Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr and the producers, cast and crew.
And thanks to everyone who marked a ballot for the Cadillac People's Choice Award for Midnight Madness.
Saturday night may well have been the creepiest, most unsettling Midnight Madness screenings in a while and it wasn't even entirely from the film (which, to be fair, was pretty friggin' creepy and unsettling). You're Next brought the crazies out in force even more than usual, many clad in the uber-bizarre animal masks worn by the killers in the film. Looking out into an audience of lambs and tigers staring back at you may be the weirdest thing you'll see all year. Here's Ian Goring's menagerie of pictures from the screening that turned the Ryerson into a literal zoo.
Aw, they think they're people!
Three of these ladies won't make it throughvthis movie alive. In a way, it's a lot like The Bachelor - with 20% more blenders to the brain.
Before...
AHHHHHHH(fter)
The whole You're Next crew was momentarily distracted by a squirrel and a passing mailman.
In hindsight, we never should've left all those chew toys on the seats.
Robert Mitchell interviews the almost implausibly lovely Sharni Vinson
These guys wouldn't stop hanging around the entrance to the theatre, so we threw a ball of yarn across the street and they dispersed. WHO'S A GOOD KITTY! YOU ARE!
Midnight Madness Programmer Colin Geddes, Adam Wingard, and Simon Barrett discuss the influences for the script , which included Scream and Home Alone (really!)
Writer Simon Barrett and Director Adam Wingard's next project will be a mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the remainder of star Sharni Vinson's skirt.
The whole twisted crew behind You're Next. They're a pretty bunch, no?
What sort of axe-wielding maniacal bastard would want to extinguish that smile?
You're Next screens twice more this week - make sure that you check it out, unless of course you want an axe to the skull.
There is nothing like the excitement of a world premiere of film by a highly anticipated emerging director. Such was the case at the Ryerson theater Saturday night when Adam Wingard's latest film, You're Next, was about to screen.
I had the opportunity to talk to Adam, writer Simon Barrett and stars Sharni Vinson and the legendary Barbara Crampton looking amazing lovely as usual. Here is Sheleigh and my red carpet video:
Saturday Sept., 10th marked the World Premiere of Adam Wingard's and Simon Barrett's latest collaboration, You're Next. Hot of the heels of their breakout film,A Horrible Way To Die, which screened in TIFF's Vanguard programme, there was a lot of anticipation for this follow-up film.
Ryerson theater had all the energy of a world premiere at midnight on the first Saturday of the festival. It also helped that the masks prominently featured in the film were being handed out to the die hard fans waiting in the lineup and that Banksy-inspired street was popping up all around the theater.
You're Next premieres tonight at Midnight Madness and looks to be an amazing entry into the annals of masked villainy, creatively-masked villainy that is. One that sets a villain apart from a mere criminal is that sense of pananche.
Sterling Hayden had it with his creepy clown mask in Stanley Kubrick's ice cold 1956 heist movie, The Killing.
And say, that mask does look familiar...
Who me reference Kubrick?
The Town's heavies brought in a heavily armed elderly nun look.
Ave Maria, Motherfuckers.
Kathryn Bigelow's 1991 Point Break set a new standard in rubber masks, with bank robbers who even took the time to choose appropriate suits for each president.
Ex-Presidents often really come into their own after their term is over.
Andy Lau's Tok was clearly a fan in Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai's Fulltime Killer (2001)
And speaking of presidents, these aren't masks in Albert Hughes' Dead Presidents (1995), but the face paint is eerily striking.
The gentlemen executing the heist in Joseph Sargent's The Taking of Pelham One Two Three rely on the fake moustache, what old timey detective fiction called, "false whiskers." And dressing as men no one would ever notice is surprisingly effective in confusing investigators and victims alike. And they might even be stylish for 1974.
The last time Adam Wingard had a movie at TIFF he inspired Bobcat Goldthwait to make God Bless America. What kind of madness will his new flick You're Next inspire? There's really only one way to find out and that is to be at the Ryerson tonight at midnight.
Adam also has a great five questions interview up over at filmmakermagazine.com. Here are a few highlights:
On twists in You're Next: ...we decided to make ours more of a fun ride, one that doesn’t punish its audience or take itself too seriously.
On directing directors Ti West and Joe Swanberg: It’s great; they both know what a pain in the ass making a movie can be so I felt a lot of empathy from them when the scenes were getting rough.
If you want to know more ask him yourself tonight at midnight!
Excited for Midnight Madness yet? If, for some reason, you haven't made your picks for this year's lineup yet, BlogTO has posted their five top picks to see in our little late-night fiesta of fists and phantoms!
First up is Midnight Madness opening film The Raid, which screens tomorrow night:
"I ALSO declare a thumb war!"
Sometimes the best ingredients for a film at Midnight Madness is fast-paced frenetic action film with a little bit of martial arts and perhaps some disposable criminals to punish. The opening night film Midnight Madness film, The Raid provides all of the above.
Next is, uh...You're Next. No, not you - the film! It screens this Saturday the 10th:
Brenda would stop at nothing to win Dinner Party Wars.
This year director and writer Adam Wingard returns with You're Next a locked-house horror film about a family reunion gone completely awry. Remember that feeling, which only arises at family functions, of wanting to commit matricide or patricide to get your parents to stop talking? How would you react if somebody else tried to beat you to the punch? You're Next attempts to find that out, as a dinner with the family turns deadly when a group of armed invaders attack and send the familial unit on the defense as they try to band together against their assailants.
Third up is the film I'm most looking forward to, that gruesome French fairy tale, Livid which screens this Sunday the 11th:
"Well dammit, now you owe me a new bedsheet, ya jackwagon! You are SO never sleeping over again."
The directors who presented the unapologetically gory and disturbing film Inside to horrified audiences at Midnight Madness in 2007 return this year with Livid, a dark, dream-like horror film about going where you don't truly belong...Rumoured to be the goriest film at Midnight Madness this year, Livid promises to be a terrifying fairy tale of horror that you won't soon forget.
Fourth is the dark post-apocalyptic road movie with a stellar cast and a distinctly bleak outlook, The Day, screening next Thursday the 15th:
"This commute is really starting to get to us."
The story sounds similar to other zombie-related apocalypse films, but The Day seems like it might have a more ambiguous edge to it that will propel the story further than your average survival flick. With an interesting ensemble cast with lesser known but respectable names such as Dominic Monaghan (LOTR), Shannyn Sossamon (The Rules of Attraction) and Shawn Ashmore (X-Men Franchise), there seems to be something a bit different here, while absolutely bleak at the same time.
Finally, the funniest Japanese flick you'll see at TIFF this year, Smuggler, providing you a necessary break from the high tension (see what I did there?) of the rest of the lineup next Friday the 16th:
"Dye job? WHAT DYE JOB??"
While there aren't too many laughs to be found on the programme this year, Smuggler makes up for that in spades as a ridiculous black comedy about Kinuta, a man indebted to the Yakuza and burdened with the unfortunate task of disposing of their dead. When a major Yakuza boss is murdered, Kinuta and his associates are imperiled when his minions plot revenge on anybody they believe may have had a part in his death. And let me assure you, stuff is only about to get stranger.
Don't forget that if you're still undecided, no one would fault you for foregoing sleep all week like your intrepid blog team will be doing, and coming out to all the screenings! Whoever said that sleep was integral to a healthy lifestyle (other than most health professionals)?!
Still on the fence about getting those Midnight Madness tickets? You
won't be after watching the clip below where TIFF Programmer Colin
Geddes talks about Midnight Madness Selections God Bless America, You're Next, Sleepless Night, and The Day.
GOD BLESS AMERICA screening times
Fri., Sept. 9th, 11:59PM, RYERSON
Sun., Sept. 1tth, 1:30PM, AMC 6
Fri., Sept. 16th, 6:30PM, AMC 7
"He is the Kurt Russell of our generation"--A director on A.J. Bowen
Last year I met director Adam Wingard and the lead cast of his film A Horrible Way To Die, which premiered at TIFF 2010. Among the actors I talked to was A.J. Bowen who I had seen the day previous on the silver screen playing serial killer Garrick Turrell. As my camera operator was getting prepared the cast and I all shook hands and I noticed the camaraderie of Wingard, Bowen and fellow actors Amy Seimetz and Joe Swanberg. As I tested out the sound of the microphone with the standard "check, check," I could not help but also laugh into the microphone at Bowen's great sense of humor it was far removed from the character I had seen him playing the day before--a person on the far extreme of the human condition--a vicious killer--and it is at these kind moments when you get to see the real person aside from a character they have played, you see a great actor who takes their craft seriously.
A Horrible Way To Die is a true showcase for Bowen's acting talents. Even though he is a serial killer he loves his ex-girlfriend Sarah (Amy Seimetz) and is on a journey to try and reconnect with her. While it's the genre moments which involve Garrick killing his victims that generate an immediate reaction, it is the scenes and images of Garrick Turrell driving long stretches of the freeway and those quiet moments of introspection that have resonated and stayed with me. Which reminds me of a Micheal Chekhov quote, "An actor must burn inside with an outer ease."
One thing I have noticed with A.J. as an actor is this his characters immediately draw you in with a disarming charm and when his opposite lets their guard down bad things happen, very bad things. There is also this great sense of unease whenever the camera focuses on him, one is never really safe in his presence; yet at the same time he has this vulnerability. Take a look at Lewis Denton, his character in The Signal. Though crazed from the signal, covered in blood, he is a man adrift, looking for his wife he no longer recognizes. As I mentioned before with the character Garrick Turrell in A Horrible Way To Die, here is a man struggling with his need to kill people and his need to receive love from his ex-girlfriend the great love of his life, a man torn. Another great trait of Bowen's acting talent is his ability to say more with his eyes then five pages of dialogue can.
I first took notice of Bowen in the 2007 film The Signal. In a movie that is an ensemble piece he is one of the actors to truly stand out. Directors leading a new wave of American genre films have also taken notice, Bowen has worked with Ti West, Adam Green and is currently shooting with genre darling Danielle Harris in her second film as a director, Among Friends.
This year will mark Bowen's first appearance on the Midnight Madness screen in Wingard's latest, You're Next. This marks the third collaboration of Wingard & Bowen, as well as Amy Seimetz and Joe Swanberg. Here is my interview with them from last year.
A.J. is truly a great actor who helps lift genre films into art. I look forward to seeing his latest performance in You're Next but before forewarned, don't be drawn in with that disarming smile and that twinkle in his eyes.....
