If you want to see something very strange, and incidentally one of my favourite films from the 2009 Toronto After Dark Film Festival, do yourself a favour and check out Heart of Karl. Astron-6, the people who brought you the spoof trailer Lazer Ghosts 2: Return to Laser Cove last year, are back with a better, darker, weirder little movie with some very striking imagery. It had the most memorable visuals of any of the festival’s films so far, short or feature. I’m not sure I could tell you exactly what was going on, but I won’t be forgetting it any time soon. See the full film here.
As I write this, the new horror short film BLT is being edited. I must admit that the titular sandwich has become something of an obsession; its image pervades my thoughts both sleeping and awake, and I find myself wondering if it is, to put it in rather blunt terms, something more than a mere food item.
I’ve done some research into the subject and found a brief mention of the BLT in the introduction of Madame Maria Slavatsky’s spiritualist tome The Unmasking of Osiris (1889), a hefty volume which served as an inspiration to many of the occult and “New Age” books of the 20th century:
Along with the pentagram, the number 666, and the inverted cross, the BLT is perhaps one of the most widely known iconic symbols of evil, crossing political, cultural, and even continental lines to become known worldwide as the “Devil’s Sandwich.” Few dare broach the subject, though, even among aficionados of the strange and occult, as it is laced with such bracing controversy and shuddering innuendo that even seasoned veterans of Satanic lore are often reduced to little more than emasculated, whimpering puddles of flesh at the mere mention of the so-called “Lunch of Lucifer.”
None could argue that the mere mention of the “Sandwich of Satan” is enough to inspire, at the very least, utter and complete revulsion in the minds of the better part of sane and rational people, and wild flights of vile, phantasmagorical fancy in the minds of those who are even the least bit romantically inclined. Many sober and accurate reports from the finest scientific minds of our day allege that prolonged exposure to the so-called “Breakfast of Beelzebub” (an obvious misnomer since the sandwich is normally consumed at lunchtime) itself can cause permanent alteration of both mental and, in some cases, physical characteristics, transforming stalwart men of reason into gibbering, horned, scaly-skinned subhumans in even less than an hour’s exposure.
Missionaries from as far afield as the deepest Amazon have reported whole villages transformed into raving orgies of violent destruction after introduction of the sandwich. In their disregard for the welfare of the blessed heathens, many a fortune hunter has relied upon serving up “Mephistopheles’ Munchies” to strike fear into the hearts of potentially hostile local tribes. But could even the most dangerous of brutes, we among the civilized must ask, truly deserve exposure to something so overpoweringly evil as the BLT? The answer, of course, is a resounding negative.
Powerful words about a dangerous sandwich. It’s not surprising that no horror film has been brave enough to tackle the subject – that is, until now. Soon, the film will be complete; is it mere coincidence that so many prophets and soothsayers predict that the end of the world is nigh? A warning to the public: prepare yourselves, and prepare yourselves well, for soon unleashed upon the world shall be the ultimate horror of BLT. And it has a Facebook page!
Filed under: Miscellany, Screenings | Tags: brood, edgar wright, last night, wright stuff
The last of the Wright Stuff screenings pits David Cronenberg’s The Brood against Don McKellar’s Last Night in a double bill of wrenching angst and terrible ennui from north of the 49th. Full info here.
Filed under: Miscellany, Screenings | Tags: bloor cinema, drunken master 2, legend of drunken master, police story 2
It’s a knuckle-busting double bill of Police Story and Drunken Master II, Sunday April 5th at 7pm at Toronto’s Bloor Cinema.
Here’s the complete schedule (minus one Kung Fu movie, TBA) of The Wright Stuff series running in March at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto, curated of course by Edgar Wright. More info at Bloorcinema.com.
Sat Feb 28
7:00 Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004)
9:30 Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007)
Sun Mar 1
7:00 Shaolin Soccer (Stephen Chow, 2001)
9:30 Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (Ngai Kai Lam, 1991)
Sun Mar 8
7:00 The Wanderers (Philip Kaufman, 1979)
9:30 The Warriors (Walter Hill, 1979)
Sat Mar 14
9:45 Head (Bob Rafelson, 1968)
Sun Mar 15
7:00 Dames (Ray Enright & Busby Berkeley, 1934)
9:00 Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma, 1974)
Sun Mar 22
5:00 Spaced marathon (Edgar Wright, 1999-2001)
Sun Apr 5
7:00 Kung Fu film TBA
9:30: Drunken Master 2 (Chia-Liang Liu, 1994)
Sun Apr 12
7:00 The Brood (David Cronenberg, 1979)
9:00 Last Night (Don McKellar, 1998)
Be sure to check out The Brood, which has been seen by altogether too few people. Oliver Reed plays a psychiatrist whose patients physically manifest their anxieties in the form of hideous deformities (Not sure what the benefit of such a therapy could possibly be - I’d rather be stressed than stressed and ugly). When he has an affair with prize patient Samantha Eggar, things go horribly, disgustingly, Cronenbergally wrong. And if that doesn’t put you in a good mood, you get to watch Don McKellar’s end-of-the-world movie Last Night afterwards!
Filed under: Miscellany, Movies, Screenings | Tags: bloor cinema, wright stuff, you've got red on you
Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the uncut trailer for Don’t play Sat Feb 28 at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto.
They’ll be followed by several weeks of Edgar Wright-hosted screenings of a diverse cinematic smorgasboard including the Bob Rafelson/Jack Nicholson/Monkees collaboration Head, Busby Berkeley choreographed craziness in Dames, Brian DePalma’s rock and roll take on Faust, The Phantom of the Paradise, Cronenberg’s The Brood, Don McKellar’s Last Night, seventies gang The Warriors, sixties gang The Wanderers, and Hong Kong delights Shaolin Soccer and Riki-Oh: The Story of Riki. More info right here, tickets available from The Bloor Cinema.
The ad/mini-movie You’ve got Red on You was the brainchild of Justin Decloux, and features me as a hapless concession stand guy (a job I really used to have! Talk about Altmanesque attention to detail).
Filed under: Miscellany, Movies | Tags: bloor cinema, hot fuzz, shaun of the dead
On February 28 the Bloor Cinema will be rolling out Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, the uncut version of the Don’t trailer (presumably it was cut for Grindhouse?), all with director Edgar Wright in attendance. But that’s not all, says the Bloor site:
On select Sundays between March 1st and April 15th, Edgar Wright will select 11 of his favorite films to play at the Bloor Cinema, along with a special marathon screening of his critically acclaimed television series SPACED. A pass will be available to see the entire series + the Shaun of the Dead / Hot Fuzz double bill for $90. More details will be available the weekend of February 20th.
Tickets for the double bill are currently on sale here.
Filed under: Miscellany | Tags: bloor cinema, hot fuzz, shaun of the dead
Not only will Edgar Wright host a double bill of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz featuring the uncut trailer for Don’t, but he’ll also curating a series of films – Kung Fu and musicals, apparently – during Sundays in March. More at BloorCinema.com.
The James Bond retrospective, including a newly struck 35mm print of From Russia with Love, runs at the Bloor Cinema until the end of January. Details here.
