IATSECamera Reviews

Weirdsville (2007)

A perceptive review from Emma J Lennox

[10/10 · 24 August 2007]

From Jaws as a lady, to a Canadian romp of Satanists, gangsters and fighting midgets, Weirdsville certainly lives up to its title. Allan Moyle, the director of 1990's Pump Up the Volume, directs another tale of disaffected youth featuring a pair of junkies as an entertaining double act, Royce and Dexter (Wes Bentley and Scott Speedman). Trying to steal money to pay back their thumb threatening local gangster, the plot includes over doses and slap dash midnight burials in reference to 90s film-cool, Shallow Grave and Pulp Fiction. But Moyle adds enough of his own visual exuberance to defy unflattering comparisons and his hallucinogenic effects lend extra scope to the irreverent caper humour. Music video quality moments are depicted in beautiful shots of drug fuelled euphoria including Dexter skating bare foot through the snow sprinkled streets of an Ontarian cityscape.

Occasionally the visual tricks jar in a Family Guy style but the interjections are smoothed over by our fortunately endearing duo and their dumb but smart dialog. Most enjoyably Weirdsville doesn't take itself too seriously and the ludicrous storyline is filled with bizarre non sequiturs; stopping to note a single green leaf that remains on an ice covered tree, for instance, is quite touching especially as they're on route to rob a millionaire's mansion. The nonstop pace and assortment of comic characters ensures that no minute drags on longer than it should, and the climax is appropriately gung ho. By turns genuinely engaging and laugh out loud funny, Weirdsville is daft but brilliant.

Lady in the Water (2006)

baby's on the half tip!

[10/10 · 22 March 2007]

I really like all of M. Night's films. This was no exception. A very original, unique, and well-crafted tale. Granted, the story doesn't make a lot of 'sense', but it has its own internal logic. There's so much charm and playfulness on display that whatever shortcomings the film has are easy to ignore. The story unfolds a lot like a real bedtime story. Anyone who has kids will know what I mean. When the kids ask you to tell them a story, you make something up, filling in details and bringing in new ideas as you go. Bedtime stories are unedited, raw; sure there's loose ends and things that don't add up. But what makes a truly great bedtime story (and I'm talking about the kind you tell on the fly, improvising as you go) is that what counts is heart. This film has heart in spades. I love it. M. Night is slowly but surely building a body of work. In ten or twenty years, he'll be up there with Hitchcock. Mark my words.