Extra-large Popcorn and Martini? A Cinephile's Pilgrimage.

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Back in early 2010, my girlfriend Miranda and I saw Facts on Projection, a great short video by Temujin Doran about his experience as a projectionist at Screen on the Green, a repertory cinema in London, England:



We were so inspired, we immediately made a plan to visit Screen on the Green, just so we could say “Hey Temujin, you inspired us!” Needless to say, we booked our tickets.

A few short months later, we were standing in line at the London cinema. It’s safe to say this was probably the best experience I have ever had at a movie theatre. Instead of filing us all in like Kodak slides, the theatre was designed to have a seating capacity of only 125 people. In lounging terms, that means 75 reclining soft individual seats and 48 premier sofa seats with pillows and foot rests. You even get a side table for your martini.

That’s right.

Martini.

As well as your traditional concessions of popcorn and pop, Screen on the Green serves martinis, fancy appetizers, and a medley of delicious desserts. When our order was ready, it was a nice touch that they brought it right to our seating arrangement.

So what did we see? Kick-Ass. We enjoyed the film, but I remember being more entranced by the preface of vintage concession advertising and rating spots before the trailers. You don’t see those too often.

After the film, we mentioned to the concierge that we were Canadian tourists and that we had been inspired by Temujin’s video to come visit. It was debatable whether we were more excited or she was. But then she became crestfallen.

Temujin was not working that night.

But our journey was not for nought. After learning that I also worked in a similar theatre, she rallied the troops and gave us a friendly tour of the upstairs projectionist booth. I observed that the staircase steps were short and narrowly pitched, likely a result of the old London architecture. I imagined how hard it must be to carry those heavy film cans to the booth.

Because we missed Temujin, I wrote him a note saying that we were from Guelph, Ontario, and that his video was our inspiration for visiting the Screen on the Green. I told him we had a great time and I left the note on the projector.

A year later, I received this email:

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Sept 27, 2011

Dear David,

My name is Temujin, I'm the projectionist at Screen on the Green, and on Sunday, whilst the new digital projector was being installed, a small note on lined paper was found behind the sound tower.

It was from you and Miranda, and I think you dropped it into the cinema some time ago, whilst I was not working.

Well, I've just now got it! Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'm sorry I missed you. I'm really glad you liked the film.

Alas, I don't really work at the cinema much any more. The projectionists were phased out (after being told to teach the managers how to use the digital projectors). I do still have many friends there though, and sometimes get to go back and project the old 35mm 'retro' films.

Mostly now I do drawing and film work. I've got a website, where I've been putting a few more films - it's here (if you get a chance to have a look).

Thanks again for your wonderful message, and if I'm about Guelph, I shall surely pop in and say hello!

All the best.

Temuji

 - David Kucherepa

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The Manor Premiere

What a wild and wonderful crowd turned up this weekend for the gala presentation of Shawney Cohen’s highly acclaimed documentary The Manor. There was our beloved Sister Christine and a bunch of gals taking up one row, many Bookshelf regulars here and there, and, of course, a great assortment of people whom I didn’t recognize. I think that we were all stunned and amazed by the honesty and the nitty-gritty details, the superb editing and camera work, and the very powerful storyline, which was archetypal in so many ways.

If you had thought that you were coming to a movie about the daily drama of a strip club, you would have been disappointed. This was about the reality of life for the Cohen family:  the battles they fought running the Manor, an adult entertainment complex, and the normal power dynamics that we all confront inside our own families, but taken to extreme limits. The main characters—the father Roger Cohen, the mother Brenda Cohen, the two brothers Shawney and Sammy—were so relaxed in front of the camera and so brutally honest and articulate that I cannot imagine finding any professionals who could have done a more credible job.

Shawney and Roger Cohen and film producer Paul Scherzer

Roger Cohen has been running the Manor since 1985. He is addicted to eating and is so overweight that we even get to accompany him on his stomach-stapling operation. He is also very bossy and opinionated. On the other hand, he runs Sue’s Inn, which provides temporary shelter to people with addictions. His big dream is to develop the land around the Manor into subsidized housing. Brenda Cohen is a devoted mother with a severe eating disorder who is consumed with providing meals for her family. Sammy, the younger brother, is the natural heir to the manor, as he seems to love business, fast cars, and beautiful women. Shawney, the oldest brother and director of the movie, is a tender and philosophical person who stole my heart as soon as I met him.

Food and control, addictions and compulsions: we all have them to various degrees, and they are all alive and in your face throughout the whole movie. I can’t recommend this documentary enough. Some of the most poignant parts for me were the stresses involved in running a business and working with your family. The business really becomes an extra sibling, as the Cohens and the Minetts can both attest to.

The After-Party at the Manor

Shawney invited people from the screenings to the Manor for the after-party, so we headed down just after 10:00. There weren’t too many people there yet but we were amazed by a couple of things: the place is very clean and there were a lot of professional exotic dancers. The service was excellent, and we sat enjoyed our drinks while taking in the ambiance and the crowd. A friend who went to the screening with me is a lighting designer for live theatre, and she thought that the lighting and décor and promo for the movie were pretty impressive.

Roger came and sat with us for a while. He is a very friendly man. He was thrilled that The Manor had opened Hot Docs and said that they were getting calls from around the world to attend festivals. Oliver Stone had called recently. I asked him how the making of the movie had affected the family's relationships. He said that he is closer to his son now than he was before the movie. They really got to know each other. He said that his son didn’t care about money and was a real artist. When I asked him why Shawney was so sweet he said, “He’s just like his mother.”

Shawney arrived with lots of people just before eleven and the place was lively and full. Of course Brenda had an incredible feast laid out for all of her guests and everyone was taking part with gusto. On our way out I thanked them both and told Brenda that she looked well and that her son’s documentary was very powerful. She smiled very ethereally and said, “Thank you.” Roger has lost weight and Brenda has gained weight since the movie has been released. They both looked very proud.

For another view on The Manor, see Andrew's blog on the movie. And you can check out a video of Shawney's introduction and Q&A for the film below:



- Barb


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The Manor Opens Tonight!

Shawney Cohen's documentary The Manor opens tonight at the Bookshelf Cinema, Guelph. The two-week run continues until June 13. Please check the Bookshelf Cinema page for exact show times.

Here is a FAQ on the opening:

1. The Box Office will open at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, May 31.
2. There are no advance ticket sales.
3. All ticket sales are cash only.
4. Director Shawney Cohen will be present Friday, May 31 at both 7:00 and 9:00 to introduce both shows and to do a Q&A following both shows.
5. To reserve a table for dinner and a movie (after May 31), call 519-821-3311 (x155).

For more information on The Manor and to view a trailer for it, see our staff review. See also the Guelph Tribune article on the making of the film.
 
See you tonight for what should be a very interesting evening!

- Peter

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The Manor

I've only been to a single strip club in my life, Montreal's Super Sex. I was taken there and didn't have a good time. (Full disclosure: I spent the meat of the night cornered in the bathroom while a new friend told me about the only time he met his father. The stranger--he'd seen pictures enough to recognize the man--picked this guy up from school on his thirteenth birthday, drove him to a farm in Northern Quebec, took a sword out of the trunk, and had him kill a goat. He drove him back, dropped him off at his house, and took off. This guy never saw his dad again and was really bawling about it there in the bathroom.) Prurient ogling with mostly male strangers at mostly girls and women doing the things they do in a strip club was not appealing to me--still isn't. I'm not saying this to chuck my own shoulder, but I think empathy was the wedge that kept me from having anything that resembled a hoot. Maybe if I could've been certain the dancers were there on account of some absolute joy, then I could've tucked in. Maybe. But because I didn't trust that this was the case, I couldn't get over the feeling that my being there, my looking, was somehow ambiently abusive or mean. This is presumptuous as hell, I realize. Assuming that someone has been circumstantially strong-armed into stripping adds up to a whole different kind of objectification. What it boils down to is I think and worry too much to dig into strip clubs.

The Manor doesn't have an opinion about strip clubs, about their rightness or wrongness, or their worth, or any of the other issues that cling to that business. Those looking for a seedy behind-the-scenes peek at Guelph's sole nudie bar might be a smidge let down. In the doc, The Manor exists as both a fractious and connective element, marring the family as much as keeping it together. A subtle triumph of Shawney Cohen's first film is that he didn't make it explicitly about the club. His father, Roger, who bought the place when Shawney was six, might as well be the owner of a fast food joint or pet store. Saved from overt scrutiny, the business is freed up to do the work of both subject and metaphor.

 If it's not a slick-with-sweat look at the machinations of a strip club, then what is The Manor? At the outset, it would appear to have a Godfatherish trajectory, with Shawney (who, we find out, went to the club for a lap dance on his bar mitzvah) reticent about his role in and obligations to the family business, while his younger brother Sammy is gung-ho; there's even the "adopted" family member (not exactly Robert Duvall), law-troubled French Canadian, Bobby. I get the feeling that this might have been the animating idea at the head of Cohen's filming, the dramatic rack on which to hang his findings, but pretty quickly the focus on the qualms of the individual is enveloped in the ensemble strife.

The Manor, essentially, is about people trying to get well and do well, to do and be the right thing in their lives. Roger strives towards altruism and health, Bobby towards lawfulness, Shawney towards a less clear satisfaction. Such processes, of course, demand a certain degree of sustained self-awareness, honesty, and stripping down; personal assessment and overhaul requires moral, emotional, and intellectual (excuse me) nudity. The documentary has plenty of opportunities to become heavy handed, but maintains a light touch--Shawney the director and Shawney the subject even seem to diverge when the opinion of one might weigh down that of the other--with the opinions of the subjects never quite becoming the opinion of the film.

I said that the cornerstone of my not enjoying strip clubs was my knowing nothing about the performers. I realize now that that makes no sense. How would if feel if I knew the person peeling? No doubt I'd be equally, if differently, uncomfortable. A greater distance from the subjects would have left them laughable in a Reality TV way, would have made Roger an oaf and brute, Brenda spacy and stricken as a bird, Bobby FUBARishly thuggish. But because we come to know these people, and understand them a bit, it can become difficult to see them stripped and struggling to make positive changes in their lives, as it would be to watch your own family, yourself. It was of that one weird night I spent in Super Sex that I thought about after seeing The Manor. My watching felt somehow wrong, as though I was objectifying the Cohens. Shawney's sally into his family's life is incredibly personal. They're (excuse me) stripped down to the people we all are. And this is one of the sources of discomfort. We're in a position to leer at this family, to judge them. A few glittered, oiled, gyrating bodies manage to make it into The Manor, but otherwise the bodies the documentary dwells on are those of Shawney's dad and his mother, Brenda, as they struggle with their opposite health issues. It's the presence of Shawney--the reminder that these are real people, real parents--that prevents any veering towards exploitation.

Upping the local ante, the score by Jim Guthrie, equal parts gravitas and levitas, keeps the doc human, the tone empathetic. Obviously its local ties will make The Manor a must see in Guelph, but hopefully that circumstantial draw will slough away quickly, and everyone will appreciate the film for its sheer emotional locality.

- Andrew Hood

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You’re Going to Need a Bigger Screen (June Guelph Movie Club)

Da dun. Da dun. Dun dun dun dun. Dun dun dun dun.

If you enjoy movies (even a little), you already know what I’m talking about. Episode 6 of Guelph Movie Club is Jaws. Earlier in May, I called this movie the granddaddy of summer blockbusters. And I was right. This is the movie that made us terrified of the water and love the big, bad summer movie.

So, mark your calendars: Thursday, June 27, 9:00 p.m.

Before the movie starts, I’ll be announcing the winning movie for Episode 7, the July GMC (the short list for that should be ready for voting soon). And after the movie, you'll have a chance to cast your ballot for Episode 8, so start thinking about what movie you’d like to see back on the big screen.

There’s normally a few of us who stay after the movie to have a pint in the Green Room and talk movies. You’re more than welcome to join us. You can watch me crush a beer can (or a paper cup).

Don’t forget to visit the Bookshelf Facebook and Twitter pages for voting and more details!

Till then, see you at the movies.

 - Danny W.

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Blood Pressure

   
"The people around you don't see how amazing you are. But I do," insists the first mysterious letter Nicole (Michelle Giroux) finds on her doorstep. It's something of a fan letter to a person who didn't know she was someone's celebrity. The letter is riddled with the purple rhetoric of Oprah-spun self-help, is inspiring and flattering and elevating. There's nothing explicitly unlivable about Nicole's life: she's married to a workaholic, the mother of two not-uncommonly demanding teenagers, works as a pill counter at a pharmacy, and is on the cusp of forty-one. No one in her life sees how amazing she is; she doesn't see how amazing she is. Suburban ennui is the trouble: Nicole's life isn't terrible--it's just not phenomenal. The letters continue to come, both comforting Nicole and urging her out of her comfort zone. Though conceptually creepy, the letters, at the beginning, are never anything more than laudatory. I'm sure everyone in the audience would love for themselves to be put under such a loving microscope. And this is the bait at the end of director Sean Garrity's hook. As soon as we're caught, the letters begin to get literally creepy.

Blood Pressure is an unassuming movie. Stylistically it's calm, observant. It maintains more of an interest in its characters than its events. As the letters come in, the style doesn't hang a lantern on the dubious turn that may or may not come. We're never quite sure what kind of movie we're watching. The first half of the movie sometimes threatens to become a typical Meg Ryan popcorn fair: there's a secret admirer out there who wants nothing more than to see our main character happy. What this does is align the viewer with Nicole. Along with her, we ignore the suspiciousness in favor of the flattery--or, also in line with her, we struggle to ignore it. And so when it comes time for the screw to turn, we feel her reticence. And it's this connection to character as much as plot that's fundamental to Blood Pressure, because if this movie's about anything, it's about empathy, about the benefits and consequences of caring for a person and being cared for by a person.

Blood Pressure's carefully-wrought tension is two-fold. One one hand, there's the mystery itself: we know as little about the letters' source or end game as Nicole does. The first half of the film (up until the plot is revealed) cooly sustains a don't-go-into-the-basement tautness as Nicole further engages with her admirer's requests. And, running alongside the thriller-movie element, is the empathetic tension: how will all this sneaky weirdness affect Nicole's life, her family; will she or won't she--should she or shouldn't she--live up to the idea her admirer has of her; will the people around her see how amazing she is?

This sounds like a simple mix, but it occurred to me only afterward, thinking on the movie, how rarely a balance between caring about plot and caring about character is achieved. Blood Pressure is full of chances to devolve into a flat genre film, but it never does. No matter the genre it skirts, it is always a movie about being human, and humane, and the attending rewards and strife.

- Andrew

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Professor of archaeology, expert on the occult, and, how does one say it? Obtainer of votes.

Guelph Movie Club Episode 5: Raiders of the Lost Ark is screening Thursday, May 30 at 6:45 p.m.—note the change in start time.

But we will have other business that evening, you and I, because I'll also be announcing the movie for Episode 6 in June. But before I can do that, I’ll need your help to decide which movie we’ll be showing. The shortlist has been enumerated and I’m pleased to share it for your voting pleasure:

• Jaws
• Vertigo
• Taxi Driver
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Casablanca

That’s a list of heavy hitters – not a bad one in the bunch.

You can vote for which movie you'd like to see in June by taking this GMC poll:

Voting ends Thursday, May 16, at midnight.

Don’t forget Indiana Jones, Thursday, May 30, 6:45 p.m. Till then, see you at the movies.

- Danny W.

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