take 9: 15.8.12

CANADA!

Doors opens at 19h45.
before and after the main features, ANIMATED SHORTS from Canada.

  
20h30, Canada 1985, 1h, english, no subtitles

YOSH AND STAN SHMENGE, polka players extraordinary, are retiring. The two legends are hanging up their lederhosen. And like most popular music stars, they are having a final concert for their devoted fans, most of them now over 50. ''The Last Polka,'' a zany ''documentary'' (=mockumentary) sendup of that concert and a review of the career of the Shmenges.

Old black-and-white home movies and newsreels show Yosh and Stan growing up during World War II in Leutonia, situated on the dark side of the Balkans and totally devoid of trees. Young Yosh and Stan break into show business with a vaudeville act playing music on geltkes, which are glass jars. Their first big influence was Lionel Hampton. Trying to get established, they try a number of gimmicks, at one point touring as ''Stan & Jolie,'' with Yosh done up in blackface and crouched on one knee. Eventually, though, with Yosh playing clarinet and Stan accordion, they settle on toe-tapping polkas, offering delighted audiences such popular favorites as ''Cabbage Rolls and Coffee.'' ''Hey,'' shouts big Yosh cheerfully, ''let's polka - two, three, four.'' 

The Spinal Tap of Polka starring John Candy and Eugene Levy and directed by John Blanchard is  very funny! Watch the trailer, if you don't believe me!

ca. 21h45, Canada 1974, 79 min., english, no subtitles

Monkeys in the Attic A Film of Exploding Dreams centres on two couples living in a sumptuously kinky Toronto household. The clowning and crazy Wanda (Jackie Burroughs) and Eric (Victor Garber) are wild in fantasy and sexuality, while Elaine (Jess Walton) and Frederick (Louis Del Grande) appear to be on the verge of separation; tired of Frederick’s bullying, Elaine retreats into a world of alcohol and pills, resenting Frederick and the freakiness of the other couple. When a pizza delivery boy (Jim Henshaw) arrives, he is lured into Elaine’s bathtub and then dumped into the backyard pool. His boss phones at the end, bringing the fantasy back to reality.

Morley Markson’s third feature is as carefully conceived and structured as his others, a precisely modulated and often funny exploration of the clash of egos caught up (in a similar way to Markson’s Breathing Together) in the battle between “a dead culture and a live culture.” Though some critics found Monkeys in the Attic a bad amalgam of Fellini, Buñuel and Bergman, it stands as the clearest expression of Markson’s sensibility. It won an award as best foreign film at the Rencontre internationale du jeune cinema in Toulon in 1974, but had only a limited commercial release.
by: Peter Morris

 This is an unusual film. That will be my first of many understatements about Monkeys in The Attic. I know that this is a Canadian film about two dysfunctional couples who live, love, and trip (not in the travel sense) together. Their interaction with each other is only interrupted when the pizza delivery man pays a call. That is where my understanding of the plot stops. I have a few theories about the meaning of this movie; I think all are equally valid. Theory number 1: This is an obvious attempt to shed light on aimless bourgeoisie awash in the morass of modern decadent Western capitalistic society. Theory number 2: This is a treatise on the subtle differences between appearance and reality, soberness and drunkenness, sanity and insanity, male and female, body and soul. Theory number 3: This is a visual essay on the physical and emotional impotence of the male in the modern world, in light of the feminist movement. Theory number 4: This is one long public service message about the need to "Just say no." Theory number 5: This is a paradigm of what happens when a bunch of Canadians get together to get naked, drop a lot of acid, smoke a lot of doobies, and get "turned on."

 The actors in this little drama do what they can with what they are given---which is not much. Victor Garber--who later went on to play the kind-hearted Thomas Andrews in the blockbuster Titanic--and Jackie Burroughs are the most interesting to watch. They must explore the greater range of emotions. Jess Walton--of The Young and the Restless fame--and Louis Del Grande, on the other hand, just seem to be in a bad mood. Comic relief is provided by Jim Henshaw, who plays the hapless pizza delivery boy. by Sheri Files on imdb

 Despite the playful title, this an adult film with some disturbing scenes of drug abuse, and sexual and domestic violence. It is not for the close-minded or the easily offended. To fully appreciate this film (if that is possible), you have to remember the times in which it was made: it is 70s mentality and morality. Many today will find it politically incorrect, but will watch anyway...like glancing back at a bad car crash.