Slacker’s take on Freddy Krueger razor sharp
Also on offer, hypnotic 1971 masterpiece by Michael Snow and locally made comedy
Buzzard: In the 24 years since Richard Linklater’s Slacker set the standard, there’s been no shortage of American indie movies about young people with nowhere to go and nothing to do.
Even so, few of these films are as memorably acerbic as Buzzard, the inaugural selection for a monthly comedy series at the Royal launching this month.
Shot on the cheap in Grand Rapids, Mich., it stars Joshua Bruge as Marty, a lowly bank temp and (very) petty scam artist who figures out a new way to cheat his employer. He uses the resulting free time to indulge in his favourite pursuits: playing videogames, eating junk food, annoying his only apparent friend (hilariously portrayed by Joel Potrykus, also Buzzard’s writer-director).
The extent of Marty’s worldly ambition is attempting to fashion his very own Freddy Krueger-style razor-finger glove.
Alas, the good times can’t last forever and the world inevitably exacts some payback on our Every dude protagonist.
A favourite at the SXSW and Locarno film festivals last year, this slacker tale is remarkable for its originality, inventiveness and unabashedly bad attitude. Potrykus’ second feature after the similarly audacious Ape, it makes its Toronto premiere as part of the Royal’s new Last Laugh program Wednesday at 9 p.m. Approaching the Elephant: In addition to co-presenting Buzzard, the team at MDFF introduces local viewers to one of last year’s most distinctive American docs in its ongoing series at Camera with online film zine The Seventh Art.
Approaching the Elephant depicts the sometimes troublesome but always interesting birth pangs of the Teddy McArdle Free School, an unconventional New Jersey educational institution whose students literally get to make the rules thanks to the power of democracy. As you might expect, the huge amount of freedom that these kids are granted yields both outbursts of creativity and moments of conflict.
A portrait of the school’s tumultuous first year, Approaching the Elephant is strong enough to elicit comparisons with Allan King’s Warrendale and Frederick Wiseman’s High School, two other great docs about youngsters and the institutions that mould them. The film plays Sunday at 8 p.m. at Camera with director Amanda Rose Wilder on hand for a Q&A. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Like Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch, Howard Hawks’ exuberant tale of dames on the make offers indeli- ble proof of Marilyn Monroe’s skills as a comedienne. Even so, her dress and her bling attract all the attention in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ iconic production number for “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” A big hit with audiences and critics alike upon its original release, this 1953 classic returns for a big-screen run at the Royal starting today. A Brand New You: A locally made low-budget comedy that picked up some prizes while making the festival rounds, A Brand New You works hard to milk an admirably nutty premise about a young widower who hatches a scheme to clone his deceased wife.
Having already earned some love in Houston, San Francisco and Pine City, Minn., the movie looks to make more new friends at the Carlton on Sunday at 7 p.m. La Region Centrale: TIFF Bell Lightbox’s Michael Snow retrospective continues with one of the Toron- to artist’s most extraordinary works. Shot with a specially constructed mechanism that allowed a mounted camera to shoot in 360 degrees, La Region Centrale ( 1971) invites viewers to scrutinize every single patch of land and sky from the vantage of a mountaintop in Quebec. As daunting as the three-hour running time may seem, the effect is powerfully hypnotic — indeed, the Canadian landscape has rarely seemed so psychedelic. La Region Centrale plays for free Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Out of Print: Kevin Smith, Joe Dante, Patton Oswalt and Edgar Wright are among the luminaries who pay tribute to L.A.’s longest-running revival movie-house in Out of Print. Director Julia Marchese’s love letter to the New Beverly Cinema — which was saved from redevelopers when Quentin Tarantino purchased the building in 2007 — plays the Bloor on Wednesday at 9 p.m. jandersonesque@gmail.com