.<\/span><\/p>\n Canada<\/span>\u2019s Top Ten feature film selections for 2011<\/span> (in alphabetical order, including release dates where applicable)<\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n Caf\u00e9 de flore<\/em><\/strong> \u2014\u00a0Jean-Marc Vall\u00e9e\u00a0(Alliance Films) November 2011<\/p>\n A Dangerous Method<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 David Cronenberg (Entertainment One) January 2012<\/p>\n Edwin Boyd<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 Nathan Morlando\u00a0(Entertainment One)<\/p>\n Hobo With a Shotgun<\/a><\/em><\/strong> \u2014 Jason Eisener (Alliance Films) March 2011<\/p>\n Keyhole<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 Guy Maddin (Entertainment One)<\/p>\n Mar\u00e9cages<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 Guy \u00c9doin (Mongrel\u00a0Media) — to be released on DVD February 28, 2012<\/a><\/p>\n Monsieur Lazhar<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 Philippe Falardeau (Entertainment One) January 2012<\/p>\n Starbuck<\/a><\/em><\/strong> \u2014 Ken Scott\u00a0(Entertainment One) July 2011<\/p>\n Take This Waltz<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 Sarah Polley (Mongrel Media) May 2012<\/p>\n Le Vendeur<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 S\u00e9bastien Pilote (Entertainment One) February 2012<\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n Canada<\/span>\u2019s Top Ten short film selections for 2011 (in alphabetical order):<\/span><\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n Choke<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 Michelle Latimer<\/p>\n Doubles With Slight Pepper <\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u2014\u00a0Ian Harnarine<\/p>\n The Fuse: Or How I Burned Simon Bolivar<\/a><\/em><\/strong> \u2014\u00a0Igor Drljaca<\/p>\n Hope <\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u2014 Pedro Pires (Phi Group)<\/p>\n No Words Came Down<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 Ryan Flowers and Lisa Pham<\/p>\n Ora <\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u2014 Philippe Baylaucq (National Film Board of Canada)<\/p>\n Rhonda’s Party<\/a><\/em><\/strong> \u2014 Ashley McKenzie<\/p>\n La Ronde<\/em><\/strong> \u2014 Sophie Goyette (Locomotion Films)<\/p>\n Trotteur <\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u2014 Arnaud Brisebois and Francis Leclerc (Phi Group and Cirrus Communications)<\/p>\n We Ate the Children Last<\/a><\/em><\/strong> \u2014 Andrew Cividino<\/p>\n Further details on each film and screening dates (starting January 5) are available at the official website<\/a>. Also note there will be a panel discussion Sat. Jan. 7 at 7pm in which directors Guy Maddin (Keyhole), Nathan Morlando (Edwin Boyd), and Jason Eisner (Hobo with a Shotgun) will discuss their efforts to rework the gangster \/ crime genres.<\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n Yup, that's a head doing something normal in a very abnormal place…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n Packaged Goods<\/strong><\/p>\n Also coming soon \u2013 next Wednesday, Dec. 14 \u2013 is the latest installment of Packaged Goods<\/a>, featuring beautiful and wacked-out ads, shorts, and music videos from 2011.<\/p>\n The roughly 70 min. programme features an eclectic mix of material, spanning Nike\u2019s \u201cWrite the Future\u201d where soccer star commercialism is oddly satirized in a lengthy corporate spot; Willem Dafoe\u2019s face is layered onto multiple characters (including a Sumo wrestler) in a crafty Jim Beam ad (\u201cParallels\u201d); and a VW ad, showing a guy driving round and round the block before presenting an engagement ring to his intended, features what may be the most pleasant utterance of VW\u2019s patented \u201cDas Auto\u201d phrase. (Usually the narrator sounds like we interrupted his afternoon beauty sleep.)<\/p>\n The Spanish \u201cBraids\u201d ad involves a dinner where the honored guest notices each family member inexplicably grows a set of lengthy braids; Australia\u2019s Carlton Draught \u201cSlow Mo\u201d beer advert features calamitous beer-spilling set to a popular Three Tenors opera piece with replacement nonsense lyrics (\u201cI want to sing in slo-mo-tion\u201d); the Nokia N8 phone was used for the elaborate animation ad \u201cGulp\u201d by Aardman; and Japan\u2019s NTT Docomo \u201cXylophone\u201d ad showcases the inventive building and execution of a giant xylophone snaking down a forest incline, and a wooden ball rapping out a classical piece.<\/p>\n More serious material is found in Chipotle\u2019s \u201cBack to the Start\u201d with flipping stop-motion animated landscapes; MTV Exit\u2019s \u201cPlanet Better\u201d uses striking stop-motion and layered CGI animation to bring attention towards sexual slavery; and 3-dimensional animation has ADCC\u2019s \u201cLove \/ Hate\u201d campaign show\u2019s how hatred for one\u2019s job is \u2018all a matter of perspective\u2019 (which for some in today\u2019s wonky economy may find rather na\u00efve).<\/p>\n In the realm of music videos, the most striking are Raphael Saadiq\u2019s \u201cGood Man\u201d (featuring booming bass that\u2019s ably exploited by the TBL\u2019s sound system); Foster the People\u2019s \u201cHelena Beat\u201d which riffs post-apocalyptic films \/ parables Lord of the Flies<\/strong>, Mad Max<\/strong>,\u00a0and The Omega Man<\/strong>, with little nods to slasher icons; Bon Iver\u2019s \u201cHolocene\u201d music video features gorgeous, otherworldly Icelandic scenery as a boy grabs a walking stick and goes on a kind of vision quest; Duck Sauce\u2019s \u201cBig Bad Wolf\u201d is brilliant and wrong on so many levels (see above still) with sexual urges and activities played out by heads instead of genitalia; a slow-motion car crash for Manchester Orchestra\u2019s \u201cSimple Math\u201d is a brilliant little exercise in thematic editing and experimental filmmaking; and Battles\u2019 \u201cIce Cream\u201d stitches together trippy old-school film effects (I\u2019ve always loved solarization) and brilliant editing and dissolves. The last two alone are worth examining for their modernist editing styles.<\/p>\n The final short is a film by Spike Jonze and Simon Chan using felt animation, and borrows heavily from old Warner Bros. cartoons where characters from book covers spring to life once the store lights have dimmed for another work day. In \u201cMourir Aupres de Toi,\u201d the story has a skeleton enticing Mina from Bram Stoker\u2019s “Dracula,” an adventure into a whale, and an unusual twist to eternal love.<\/p>\n Packaged Goods is part of the TBL\u2019s The Year\u2019s Best series, and is worth catching in the bass-friendly Cinema 2 next Wednesday Dec. 14. (TIFF\u2019s byzantine website doesn\u2019t offer further screening details, but hopefully the assembled films will get a few repeat screenings before year\u2019s end.)<\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor Details of TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten winners in feature and short film categories, with links to online clips and home video availability, plus a review of the upcoming Packaged Goods series playing next week at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, featuring hand-picked ads, music videos, and a great Spike Jonze animated short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[926,927,4212],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-114","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3910"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/DuckSauce_BigBadWolf_still_m-150x150.gif\" "\\"DuckSauce_BigBadWolf_still_m\\"")
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