A DIFFERENT VIEW
Monk With a Camera charts a photographer’s unlikely journey to an Indian monastery,
I Put a Hit on You: A Toronto indie that opens for a hometown run a year after its world premiere at Slamdance, I Put a Hit on You proves that only a fool would mess with a woman scorned. The lady in question here is Harper (Sara Canning), who doesn’t react well when her boyfriend Ray (Aaron Ashmore) spurns her marriage proposal.
Sometime during the boozy bender that ensues, she visits an online bartering site and does something she’ll soon regret: hires a hit man to get some payback. Unable to call it off when she sobers up, she can only do her best to keep Ray out of harm’s way. Unfortunately, the many problems in their relationship don’t make that an easy task.
A married filmmaking team whose two halves hopefully enjoy a more harmonious kind of partnership, Dane Clark and Linsey Stewart mounted a crowdfunding campaign to raise the money they needed to make their feature debut. The result makes the most of its modest means thanks to some deft comedic banter and appealing performances by the leads. If only every rom-com had such a dark side.
I Put a Hit on You plays Friday to Wednesday at the Royal. Housebound: A crafty horror-comedy that was the opening-night film for the Toronto After Dark festival last fall, Housebound returns for a theatrical engagement at the Carlton. Furthering a hot streak of superb Antipodean genre flicks like The Babadook and What We Do in the Shadows, this effort by New Zealand’s Gerard Johnstone upends the conventions of the haunted-house thriller with great aplomb.
Morgana O’Reilly stars as Kylie, a young woman whose latest run-in with the law has resulted in a period of house arrest in her childhood home. It’s not long before things get weird enough for Kylie to share her mother’s suspicions about a supernatural presence in the place. Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners is another touchstone for Johnstone’s madcap ghost story, which picked up three special prizes at Toronto After Dark. Housebound is released on DVD by Anchor Bay on Tuesday — the run at the Carlton starts Jan. 16. Monk with a Camera: The grandson of legendary fashion-mag editor Diana Vreeland, Nicholas Vreeland was born into a world of wealth, glamour and sheer fabulousness. Yet as much as he seemed to fit into high society during his younger days, Vreeland was destined to adopt a humbler lifestyle than anyone might’ve expected. A new documentary that begins a run at the Bloor this weekend, Monk with a Camera charts Vreeland’s journey from his upper-crust youth to his work as a promising apprentice to photographer Richard Avedon to his current life as the abbot of a monastery in India.
An admiring profile of one of the most prominent westerners in Tibetan Buddhism, Tina Mascara and Guido Santi’s film runs Friday to Thursday at the Bloor. Innis Town Hall reopens: Innis College’s Free Friday Films series celebrates its newly updated and upgraded digs with a double feature of comedy classics on Friday. Duck Soup and I’m No Angel play a bill that starts at 7 p.m. The new winter season continues next week with a special presentation of Ingrid Venin- ger’s The Animal Project with director and cast members in attendance. The World Made Straight: Based on a novel by Ron Rash, The World Made Straight is a new American indie drama set in a remote Appalachian community still affected by the repercussions of a Civil War-era massacre. Noah Kyle and Haley Joel Osment star in this debut feature by Shane Danielson, which begins a run at the Carlton on Friday. jandersonesque@gmail.com