Offscreen Notes

  • Never Lost Premiere

    June 10th, 2011

    Neverlost was an interesting indie Canadian psychological horror film that played at last year’s (2010) Fantasia festival. The cut that showed at Fantasia ended up being altered from an original ending I had seen in a preview screening, against (I thought) the better interests of the film. I am happy to see that the film has been subsequently cut back to its original ending, and this version, with completed sound, will be playing across Canada on a National junket.

    BLACK FAWN FILMS PRESENTS
    Neverlost at Cinema Cineplex Odeon Quartier Latin
    350 Rue Émery, Montreal, Quebec
    Part of the Canada wide Never Lost Tour
    THURSDAY JUNE 16th 2011 – 7:00PM – $10.00

  • Fundraiser for Japan

    May 27th, 2011

    This Sunday, 29 May at Concordia Hall theater
    Academy Award winning Animated short Film screening – Fundraising for relief in Japan
    With the help of the Concordia University Animation club, an animation student from Japan are holding a screening of four Academy Award nominated and Oscar winning animated short films for only 10$.
    The money raised will go to the Red Cross efforts in Japan

    The filmes are;

    -The man who planted trees (Frédéric Back)
    -Atamayama, Mt.Head (Koji Yamamura)
    -Tsumiki no Ie, La Maison en Petits Cubes (Kunio Kato)
    -The Danish Poet (Torill Kove)

    Ticket: 10$ (at the door from 12:30pm)
    first screening 14:00 to 15:30 (for 4 films)
    second screening 17:00 to 18:30 (for 4 films)

  • Sidney Lumet: 1924-2011

    April 9th, 2011

    American luminary Sidney Lumet passed away on April 9th at age 86. Lumet will be remembered not as a great visual stylist (although he showed signs in his 1965 film The Pawnbroker of some expressive touches) but as an actor’s director who coaxed some great performances from some of the biggest and best actors of his generation. In particular Lumet excelled at directing ensemble casts, such as in Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Katherine Hepburn, Jason Robards, Ralph Richardson, Dean Stockwell), Twelve Angry Men (Henry Fonda, Martin Balsam, L.J. Cobb, Jack Klugman, Jack Warden), Network (Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Ned Beatty), and Murder on the Orient Express (Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Martin Balsam, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Richard Widmark, Jacqueline Bisset, Vanessa Redgrave, Rachel Roberts, Anthony Perkins). I will remember him most fondly for getting perhaps the best out of Al Pacino when he was at the very peak of his powers, in Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon.

  • Farley Granger: 1925-2011

    April 2nd, 2011

    Actor Farley Granger passed away on March 27, 2011 at the age of 85. Granger will be best remembered for his wonderful performance as the nervous half of the Nietzschean murdering gay couple in Hitchcock’s fictional account of the Leopold and Loeb case. Outside of his mainly television roles Granger’s best roles came in an Italian period in the early 1970s where he made a series of popular genre films (westerns, crime, horror).

  • Alejandro Jodorowsky

    March 28th, 2011

    L’Université de Foulosophie has organised a major event/screening of the Mexican maestro of surreal and cult art, Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose works helped cement and typify the midnight movie. I can vividly remember going to one of the many Montreal repertory theatres in the 1970s to watch Holy Mountain, El Topo or Santa Sangre. Jodorowsky is in Montreal to take part in conferences covering his film and theatre work (Panic theatre) and screenings.

  • Elizabeth Taylor 1932-2011

    March 27th, 2011

    One of the greatest of the Hollywood stars, Elizabeth Taylor, is dead at the age of 79. Taylor had not made a theatrical feature since 1980 (The Mirror Cracked) but managed to keep herself in the limelight with her ongoing support for various charities, plus her friendship with Michael Jackson. A child star since the 1940s, Taylor worked hard through her career to develop into more than just a stunning face, but an impressive actress and on-screen presence. Her best work can be found in the comedy Father of the Bride, the drama A Place in the Sun, Giant, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Suddenly Last Summer and Ash Wednesday.

  • Michael GoughL 1917-2011

    March 18th, 2011

    Hammer legend Michael Gough has died at the age of 94. Although most people will remember him for his quaint turn as Batman’s butler in Batman, older fans will most likely remember Gough for his sterling work in Hammer horror films, most notably in Fisher’s Dracula, but also other horror pics Konga, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, Skull, Horrors of the Black Museum, Berserk, Curse of the Crimson Altar, and (well, they can’t all be great) Trog. Never a leading man, Gough was the ideal understudy, quiet authority figure, or dependable ally.

  • Digitalarti

    March 5th, 2011

    Your one-stop online source for everything digital art. Portal to events across Canada and Europe, live performances, lectures, and online journal dedicated to digital art. Latest events posted.

  • The Edifice at Les Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois

    February 8th, 2011

    THE EDIFICE reveals the mysterious road-trip of a man and woman set out to find a plot of land. Within an ambience of sacred/profane tension, nonlinear narrative embraces magical realism as a mythic contemplation of the human condition.” (Press Kit)

    Plays at Le Rendez-vous on SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19 ~ 14h 30 (2:30pm)
    Cinémathèque québécoise, salle Fernand Seguin : 335, boul. de Maisonneuve Est

  • Blake Edwards: 1922-2010

    December 22nd, 2010

    The world of comedy keeps getting hit with hard blows. First was the death of Leslie Nielsen on November 28, then Mario Monicelli on the day after, and then on December 15, writer, producer, director Blake Edwards dies at the age of 88. Edwards will be best remembered for his wonderful collaborations with the great comic actor Peter Sellers, which include all of Sellers’ Pink Panther films, plus one of the funniest films of the 1960s, The Party. I remember feeling quite depressed one New Year’s Eve when things conspired to keep me home for the night. I turned on the television and happened across The Party, and ended up laughing myself out of any funk.

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