Episode 21

It's been a little while, but the Two Assholes are back with an episode that was recorded some time ago. In this instalment, the Two Assholes visit the inaugural Toronto Wizard World comic convention in order to see the sites, and provide you with an honest opinion as to the convention itself.

We also managed to sit down with a couple of guests, both of whom have been featured previously on the show, and neither of which have yet been assigned Guesthole numbers.

Download Episode 21 - iPod Enhanced Version

Episode 21 (High Quality)

It's been a little while, but the Two Assholes are back with an episode that was recorded some time ago. In this instalment, the Two Assholes visit the inaugural Toronto Wizard World comic convention in order to see the sites, and provide you with an honest opinion as to the convention itself.

We also managed to sit down with a couple of guests, both of whom have been featured previously on the show, and neither of which have yet been assigned Guesthole numbers.

Download Episode 21 (High Quality) - iPod Enhanced Version

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage review

* Full Disclosure: I attended the screening of Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage along with Guesthole Brandon Gardiner due to passes provided by Anthem Entertainment Group. If you follow this site at all, you already know that nice to me or not, if your movie sucks, I will say it sucks and why. Ask the people at Anchor Bay. They send me free dvds every month and a good chunk of them get rip apart. We clear? Good.




I am not the world's biggest Rush fan.

Don't get me wrong, I've always enjoyed Rush but I've always been more of a "greatest hits" Rush fan then a must own every album fan.

But when I saw the trailer for the new documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage from Scott McFayden and Sam Dunn, I knew that it was something I wanted to see.

McFayden and Dunn are the duo behind two of my favorite documentaries over the past few years, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey and Global Metal. I was curious to see their take on a band I had a bit of interest in, their doc on Iron Maiden "Flight 666" was pretty decent and that was a band I had no interest in at all but their skills as film makers brought Maiden into such a light that I enjoyed it beyond my lack of musical interest.

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage is damn near perfect.

The film goes through Rush's career starting from the moment Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson meet in Willowdale, Ontario and right up until their latest tour. As far as I can figure, there is nothing skipped or overlooked in the documentary. McFayden and Dunn even managed to find footage of Rush's very first show. We follow the band from the early days with drummer John Rutsey to when Neil Peart was brought on board. From the ups and downs of record sales, the indifference or down right hatred of critics to the adulation of Rush's hardcore fans and Neil Peart's family tragedies, not many stones are left unturned.

In fact, one of the more interesting portions of the film deals with what is referred to as the "Neil Peart Cold Shoulder". If you've ever been around the Toronto music scene in any sort of long term capacity (played in it, know people who play in it, etc, etc), you've heard about it. I've heard comments from various friends and associates ranging from "shy" to "aloof" to "asshole". Given the overall positive nature of Beyond the Lighted Stage, this might have been a topic the film makers could have shied away from and no one would really blame them. But to their credit, they confront it with Neil himself and by the end of the segment you get it. He's just not particularly comfortable with the whole fame thing.

I also really enjoyed how Beyond the Lighted Stage goes through the various transitions in Rush's sound. It was great to see the different reactions from different people about the changes. It seems that each band member has a different take on which album solidified the "Rush sound" and it was cool to hear that expressed. Along with that I loved hear for the famous fans about which albums they liked and the juxtaposition of having a clip from Tim Commerford (Rage Against The Machine) saying he became less interested in the band when they started heavily using keyboards followed by Trent Reznor talking about when the keyboards came in he got more interested in the band. It's this type of balanced treatment that grabbed my attention in the movie.

The film itself is a wonderful feast of a documentary. Archival film footage, photo montages, video footage, concert footage, candid stuff, driving around the old neighborhood, interviews with the band members, their parents, fans, famous fans (Jack Black, Les Claypool, Trent Reznor and a host of others), Dunn and McFayden use every trick in the book during the film to make it interesting and it works beautifully. Everything is great to watch and despite the fact that all of these different tools are used, it never seems too busy. The timing of the film is very well done. Serious points are dealt with but Sam and Scott seem to know the perfect moment to drop in a piece of humor without making any serious point seem frivolous.

Speaking of which, the guys in Rush are really funny. Who knew?

Usually when I do a review, I tend to point out all of the good points and then point out the bad or what I would change. As you might have picked up, there is no bad in this film (at least from my point of view). It is well paced, interesting, funny and an overall joy to watch.

What would I change, being the backseat filmmaker that I am?

Nothing.

I thought about it good and hard on my way back from the screening and every suggestion I had, I shot down. I would have liked to seen more of Trent Reznor and some of the other interviewees but at the same time that's just a personal bias and wouldn't have fit the film at all so scratch that. The only thing I could come up with, that was in anyway sort of valid is you don't see any real interviews with all three members of Rush. We see a lot of them separately or Geddy and Alex doing interviews and Neil by himself but the trio are very rarely in the interview portions together. But thinking about it, there is a very good chance that it would have interrupted the incredibly smooth flow that Beyond the Lighted Stage posses so let's throw that idea out for a DVD extra.

Final Verdict:

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage is a terrific documentary and surpasses what Dunn and McFayden have done before in both technical and thematic senses. I went in as someone who wasn't a huge Rush fan and left as someone who wants to listen to everything Rush has ever done. More importantly, I left wanting to see the film again. And take my Dad. And my friends. And my neighbors.

It was that good.

To put it another way, I got in to this screening for free. I will gladly pay money to see it again whether that be in theaters or on DVD.

And to Scott and Sam (on the off chance they read this), at the Q&A session after the movie, you mentioned that you might be knocking on AC/DC's door for your next film project... If I give you fourteen bucks now, can you guarantee me a ticket for the first screening? I know it might not be for a few years but after watching this, I'm pretty sure it'll be worth the wait. (and if AC/DC blows you off, Nine Inch Nails please!)

For screening news on Beyond the Lighted Stage, check out Banger Films official blog . It seems to be the most up to date resource for release dates.

Special Thanks goes out to our good friend Jeff Woods of Legends of Classic Rock fame who went above and beyond the call of duty (listen to his show! I mean it! I have a shovel and a large trunk and I'm not afraid to use either of them!) and Anthem Entertainment Group.

Episode 20

It's been a little while since the last episode, but the wait is over, and was entirely worth it. As is the TATANS tradition, being a fifth episode, we've put together a video episode for your enjoyment.

This time around the Two Assholes got together with Guestholes 2 and 3 (Alex Krueger and Sean May) to do a little comparison between Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64, and the HD re-release on Xbox Live Arcade. In short, we sat down and played video games for an hour or so, and talked about it all.

Be prepared to be filled with feelings of nostalgia, and be further willing to shell out the Microsoft Points to go buy the XBLA Perfect Dark, as you may have the inclination to do so once you watch us go through it.

Download Episode 20 - iPod Enhanced Version

Episode 20 (High Quality)

It's been a little while since the last episode, but the wait is over, and was entirely worth it. As is the TATANS tradition, being a fifth episode, we've put together a video episode for your enjoyment.

This time around the Two Assholes got together with Guestholes 2 and 3 (Alex Krueger and Sean May) to do a little comparison between Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64, and the HD re-release on Xbox Live Arcade. In short, we sat down and played video games for an hour or so, and talked about it all.

Be prepared to be filled with feelings of nostalgia, and be further willing to shell out the Microsoft Points to go buy the XBLA Perfect Dark, as you may have the inclination to do so once you watch us go through it.

Download Episode 20 (High Quality) - iPod Enhanced Version

The Philadelphia Experiment

The Philadelphia Experiment is one of those movies a sort of remember from my youth. I remember it starred the dude from Eddie and the Cruisers and a navy ship that disappears but that was about it.



So I was happy to see it appear in my latest bundle of dvd's from Anchor Bay Entertainment as part of the Alternate Realities line.



The movie is based around the legend of the USS Eldridge, a navel ship that supposedly was used for experiments to cloak it from radar. These experiments went awry and people were fused to the ship, missing, etc etc.



No, it didn't really happen, there is a ton of evidence to contradict this story.



But it got turned into an awesomely cheesy sci-fi movie.



David Herdeg (played by Michael Pare the aforementioned Eddie and the Cruisers guy) and Jim Parker are sailors assigned to the Eldridge during the Philadelphia Experiment. The ship not only goes invisible to radar but disappears, needless to say the sailors on the ship itself go a little nuts. Jim and David think the ship is going to explode and jump off, straight into a time tunnel!



They reappear in the future, a helicopter chases them straight towards an electric fence, which Jimmy grabs on to, gets electrocuted and in something that makes no sense, an electric bolt shoots from the fence and blows up the helicopter.



We then go through typical time travel shtick; they find a German beer bottle and wonder if they lost WW2, find a Coke can and marvel at the lightness of the can.



In the meantime, a whole town in the present has disappeared.



Are they connected?



Are you high? Of course it is!



The Philadelphia Experiment is one of those 80's sci-fi movies that's very 80's but still somewhat enjoyable. The DVD presentation has a crisp picture and sound to it that kind of surprised me. Clean picture and 5.1 surround. There are virtually no extras on this disk and it should be noted that re-issue of the disk from a few years back with different packaging.



If you've never seen it before and like a bit of 80's cheese with your time travel, definitely worth a rent or a buy.



The Philadelphia Experiment is available on DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment

GravyTrain review

FULL DISCLOSURE

It should be noted that we (Brent and Adam) attended the gala premier of GravyTrain with tickets provided by the film-makers. April and Tim have been nice to us in the past with posters and cd's to give away as prizes and are generally all around good people. That being said, I (Brent) feel that this review is still balanced and if you listen to the show you know I'm not one to play favorites either in terms of reviewing.

GravyTrain is the latest film by Canadian independent film makers April Mullen and Tim Doiron who last brought us the Rock, Paper, Scissors: Way of the Tosser, a film that was a really interesting little indy film set in the world of Rock, Paper, Scissors tournaments.

GravyTrain follows the story of small town cop Chuck Gravytrain (Doiron) and his newly assigned partner Uma Booma (Mullen) as they try to track down the elusive Jimmy Fish Eyes, the town's notorious criminal mastermind and killer of Chuck's father. The film features performances by Colm Mochrie, Tim Meadows and Alan Frew of 80's rock band Glass Tiger.

And for me, unfortunately, it's a film that doesn't completely work. BUT it may work for you. Just keep reading and I'll explain and I promise it's not a cop out.

Humor is hard. It's the hardest thing in the world to get right with everyone. What I find funny and what you find funny could be two totally different things. Neither one of us would be right or wrong...unless you like Bruno...and if that's the case, what the hell is wrong with you?

Where the film works (for me) is the world Tim Doiron created. Tim wrote GravyTrain as well as being the principal actor and to both ends he did a great job, especially for only his second feature. The world of Gypsy Creek really grabbed me. I love the fact that it had a whorehouse that the law didn't care about, a bar ran by what could only be described as the love child of Meadow's Ladies Man character from Saturday Night Live and Issac the bartender from The Love Boat and a local tv channel so poor that their main anchor has to do the news's opening theme song.

Not to mention Alan Frew.

Now I've never been and never will be a Glass Tiger fan but Frew as the local homeless man, Ewan McCauley, was a stroke of genius.

April Mullen and Tim Doiron also pull off very well as a comedic duo. April is a classic straight woman to Doiron's absurdity. Both have grown into much better as actors since the last time we saw them in Way of the Tosser.

The town and it's people were just fascinating to me. If you've seen shows like Little Britain or League of Gentlemen (or the Kids in the Hall version Death Comes to Town), it's got a similar vibe to it but totally original. No rip off characters, no stolen ideas, just a similar sense of humor to it. A town where common sense has been thrown out the window but yet it still makes sense.

In fact the town and it's people are so interesting that I didn't care for the actual plot of the film which is where my main problem with GravyTrain lies.

The plot about Chuck trying to find Jimmy Fish Eyes almost seems secondary in comparison with the world it is in and I found myself wanting to see more with Full Serve (Meadows) or the newscaster then I did actually wanting to see a resolution to the central plot.

In fact, if I were April and Tim, I would think about re-working this a little and pitch it as a series. I really think that Gypsy Creek and the adventures of it's towns people and of Chuck and Uma could hold it's own given the popularity of Adult Swim cartoons and the like.

Now on to the technical side.

April Mullen served as co-director on Way of the Tosser and has graduated to directing solo on this one and she has gotten good.

I mean real good.

The directing and cinematography (thanks to cinematographer Daniel Grant) behind GravyTrain is really solid. Mullen's developing a style that works well with in her current genre of films but could lead to some interesting work outside of comedy if she so chooses. It reminds me a lot of Jay Chandrasekhar (Super Troopers, Arrested Development, Chuck) but a bit more cinematic. If April ever decides to give up acting entirely, she'll have a solid career as a director to go into.

So you can see where my review is a bit weird. I rather liked everything about the movie but the actual main story to the film itself. There is obviously a lot of talent at work here both in front of the camera and behind the scenes but for whatever reason, the movie itself didn't fire on all cylinders for my tastes.

Now as to where these young film makers should go from here, Adam, Alex and I discussed it a bit after we exited the theater and we kind of came to a consensus.

Making an independent film is tough. In Canada it's even tougher. Due to budget concerns alone, you have to wear a lot of hats. In an ideal world what I'd like to see for their third film is one of the following:

1) A film written and directed by the pair but not starring.

or

2) A film starring Tim and April but where they're not writing and directing.

I think at this stage in the game it would do them good to have a bit of separation from the work in one form or another. Both Mullen and Doiron are talented both as actors and director/writer respectively but I think a bit of distance from the work would sharpen things up a bit. Given the nature of the world of independent film, this may not be possible but I'd like to think that given the obvious talent that's involved here that someone will give these folks enough money to make a movie where they can concentrate on the writing process and concentrate on the directing process without them having to worry about getting into hair and make up or hitting their marks. I'd also like to think that someone would see the talent of these two and try them out as a duo in their movie and just have them act together. With either scenario I see really good things happening.

For more details about GravyTrain (including where you can see it for yourself), you can find the official site here