I'm an actor (The Corridor, Hobo With a Shotgun, Moby Dick, Roller Town, Haven). I also punched a tiger in the head at age three. No joshing. http://www.GlenMatthews.ca
This past January I had the absolute privilege and pleasure to spend two weeks at The Banff Centre (see post “Acclimatization“) taking part in the 2012 WOMEN IN THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR’s Acting Ensemble.
Well today I am pleased as punch to share with you two scenes that were shot as part of the program. The first titled JANUARY AND THOMSON ALONE was directed by Celia McBride, and the second, SIXY DINNER was directed by Sara McIntyre. Enjoy…
Just when you thought I was done yelling at you about our modestly budgeted, expectation-exceeding feature film, THE CORRIDOR, here I am…
To be honest, I thought that last month’s Video On Demand release would be the last of it, but I am oh so happy to be proven wrong. After a very successful run on VOD, our Canadian distributor D Films has decided that THE CORRIDOR is deserving of a limited theatrical run in Toronto.
Starting next Friday, May 18th at Projection Booth East (1035 Gerrard St. East), THE CORRIDOR will be running nightly at 9:00PM until at least the following Thursday, the 24th.
Given the choice between the cinema and a laptop, THE CORRIDOR is a film that really thrives on the cinematic and claustrophobic experience that a movie theatre can provide. So if you’re in Toronto, I highly suggest that you take this potentially-final opportunity to see this film on the big screen.
But whatever you do, don’t stop reading because the good folks over at Scene Creek have 5, count ‘em, 5 double passes for the opening night screening, and you could win one of them! Head over to their website and tell them WHY YOU WANT TO SEE THE CORRIDOR for your chance to win! Contest deadline is May 15th at 11:59pm.http://scenecreek.com/news/toronto-the-corridor-premiere/
You may or may not know, but there is a war being waged at this very moment. The two sides, battling over the future of filmmaking, arguing which is better: film or digital.
There’s been a whole heap of articles written for each argument, but recently, Karim Hussain, the director of photography for HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN and the upcoming film, ANTIVIRAL (playing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival), had this to say…
Here’s the LA weekly article on the death of film and Christopher Nolan’s plea to preserve 35mm (http://www.laweekly.com/2012-04-12/film-tv/35-mm-film-digital-Hollywood/). I’d happily agree with him, if it wasn’t for the fact that labs and cinemas have been letting their 35mm / 16mm processing, dailies transferring and printing go to shit, laying off staff and ultimately screwing the filmmakers with countless headaches and worries due to sub-standard quality.
When you have an inexperienced kid transfer your rushes and you get a different looking film on set every day, or the lab snaps your negative in their developer, ruining tons of work, digital starts to look good. When your 35mm print is projected in a shitty green print on bad stock the film wasn’t even graded for, it’s out of focus, covered in dirt and scratches, shaking all over the screen, with the bulb turned down so hard to save money that the screen is just a murky smear, the sound is analog 4.0 and super-low because the cinema chain got in a fight with Dolby, good digital projection starts to smell pretty nice. If cinemas maintained their film projectors and technical presentations, then people would see how beautiful 35mm looks and sounds.
These days, they’re more likely to see a blurry mess and barely hear it if it’s an indie without DTS tracks. And in North America, DCP projection is following suit, darkening their bulbs to save on the even more expensive costs of digital bulb replacement. They are literally driving people from the cinemas by giving us horrible presentations. VOD is looking pretty sweet when you pay 13 bucks for a ticket, then can barely see what’s going on and people around you flood the cinema with light from their texting!
The best remaining lab technicians in the world (there are not so many left) will bend over backwards to ensure Christopher Nolan’s multi-multi-multi million dollar photochemical answer prints will look good and be well projected when he’s in the room. But he is the 1% of filmmakers.
The reality is, after the romance of film that I happily subscribe to, independent movies shot on film don’t get the same treatment as the big boys, and after all the headaches, the Arri Alexa starts to look pretty damn sweet. Plus it’s an amazing camera that frees you up in so many brilliant ways that were never before possible…
Filmmakers have been driven to digital for more reasons than just economy and after using the Alexa on a couple films, I’ll happily drink the Kool-Aid. I’m a much happier person because of it!
Interesting, eh?
Me personally, I love digital (of course I do, I wouldn’t have just had you read that if I didn’t). I worked at a movie theatre for three years, where I saw countless films given a terrible presentation simply because the minimum-wage employed projectionist really didn’t give enough of a shit to adjust the film properly.
There’s plenty of other reasons for why I welcome the digital age with wide open arms, a lot of which Karim mentioned above, but what do you think? Any diehard film lovers out there, not willing to let go?
On Sunday, April 29th, I’ll be hopping up on the stage of Trane Studio for the upcoming edition of The Toronto Monologue Slam (www.TOSlam.com) where a selection of Torontonian thespians take to the stage to perform a monologue and be judged by a panel of industry professionals. At the end of the night, a champion is crowned.
If there’s anything I love, it’s being judged.
I will be performing a piece from a work in progress by Kristin Slaney.
If you’re anything like me, then this sounds like one hell of a fun time, so on Sunday, April 29th, skip evening mass and come on out to Trane Studio at 964 Bathurst Street at 8:00pm and take in some staged soul bearing.
Foreword: the following entry is meant to be read as a companion piece to THE CORRIDOR and contains a few mild-spoilers.
During the process of taking THE CORRIDOR around to film festivals and showing it to audiences, I learned very early on that my favourite part of the Q&A session was always when the conversation would inevitably turn to “So, what exactly is ‘the corridor’?”
We, the cast, along with our director Evan Kelly, and our writer Josh MacDonald were fortunate enough to have five days of rehearsals before we started shooting THE CORRIDOR. A lot of questions were answered, and a lot of the relationships were established. One afternoon though, Evan asked us all what we thought the corridor was. He and Josh allowed us to sputter on for a few minutes each, without applauding or disproving any theories. Evan said “Interesting”, and that was the last discussion we had.
We were never given the answer (which I’m thankful for), but instead were left to find our own fear of, and beauty within “the corridor”.
What I’d like to do today, is offer up my own interpretation of the corridor, not as any sort of definitive answer, but instead to start up a conversation among those of you who’ve seen the film, and offer up your own meaning…
One substantial ingredient to my theory comes from a seemingly silly internet video called “We Are All Connected” by Symphony of Science. Symphony of Science takes videos of famous quantum physicists (ie. Carl Sagan and Neil Tyson Degrasse) talking about many of the universe’s wonders, and they auto-tune their voices and add music to them. See below:
Pretty darn awesome, eh?
Aside from being fairly catchy, there are also some really staggering facts and theories lobbed around in there. The line that stuck with me the most, however, was Carl Sagan’s simple explanation for everything: “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself“.
In the film, David Patrick Flemming‘s character Chris says of the corridor “It’s a probe. It’s seeking.”
For me, once I combined these two pieces of information, I started to view the corridor as an evaluation process. This was the universe’s way of “checking in”, by sending this probe and seeing who it really was, as a sentient being.
The corridor connects those who connect with it (ie. Ev, played by Jim Gilbert, sitting on the snowmobile, hearing conversations in the airplane), it also intensifies their desires and their thoughts, illuminating their primal instincts, showing their true selves so that they can be judged by the universe.
Once it saw the truth (or at least the truth amongst these five men): the pain they caused each other, the jealousy, the unhappiness, it didn’t like what it was seeing and decided to do away with them, in an act of disgust.
The probe moved forward, and would continue to move forward, towards the city, until it could find something in itself that it found to be admirable. It was Tyler’s (played by Stephen Chambers) sacrifice at the end of the film that the corridor AKA the universe found to be noble, and as a result, it stopped seeking.
Are you still with me? I feel like I may have scared a few of you off.
Now as I said, this is in no way a definitive answer, and as we learned a few days ago with Matt Groening revealing that the Springfield from THE SIMPSONS is in Oregon, definitive answers are no fun.
Now that I’ve shown you mine, please show me your theories of what exactly the corridor from THE CORRIDOR is…
THE CORRIDOR is available now on Video On Demand in Canada via Bell VOD, iTunes, Sony, Xbox, Cogeco, MTS, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw VOD, Telus, VCC, Videotron, Google, RODO and in America on IFC On Demand, iTunes and others.
That’s it, that’s all. Three weeks later and THE NUN’S VACATION is done. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ready to walk away from it, I’m absolutely spent, but it’s definitely bittersweet.
My life as an actor has been spent bitching about either (A) not having work, or (B) being exhausted from work. Quickly, someone tell me to shut up!
I would like to thank all of the wonderful folks who helped bring this grassroots production to life. Firstly, the play’s producers and my co-stars Sandy Duarte and Stephen Chambers – I did not envy your workload, but you absolutely pulled it off. Our militant director Jack Grinhaus. Our stage manager Tanya Rintoul, who taught me the importance of Zip Zap Zop. Alyksandra Rowynne, who showed a profound passion for hemming pants. Johnny Nghiem, who knows how to build stuff, which I cannot. Dan Huziak, who took photos of us (see above). And the writer, Tom Walmsley, who, without his witty, dirty words, none of this could have been possible.
Thank you all.
Pardon me while I now complain loudly about not having any work.
I’m pleased to announce that next Saturday, April 14th, I’ll be moderating a panel discussion on the importance of social media in this (and any) industry, at this year’s ReelWorld Film Festival. See details below:
LET’S GO VIRAL: From the Computer Screen to the Movie Seats 12:30 pm – 1:30 am
If you’re not tweeting about your current project, or posting updates on Facebook, then you’re not making social media work for you. Learn how to network with your followers, what kind of content you should be posting and when is it time to call in the experts.
MODERATOR:
Glen Matthews — Writer, Director, Actor
PANEL:
Lyon Lee –founder of FanCrank, a Facebook management service
O’neil McLean — CEO Kaimera Media Inc
James Fowler (Social Media Director of Akimo)
Joanna Jang — Director of HOSTAGE
Marawan el Asfahani — Oxygen Design Agency
Should be fun! Be sure to check out the rest of the ReelWorld Film Festival‘s programming, there’s some really exciting things going on!
Update – April 17, 2012: Here’s a photo from Saturday’s panel discussion…
The “long road” to film distribution, when it comes to independent filmmaking, can sometimes feel like a transcontinental flight, and this is certainly one of those cases.
After two years of doing the rounds at some of the globe’s premiere genre film festivals, I am thrilled (thrilled, I tells ya!) to announce that THE CORRIDOR, the feature film in which I have a lead role, is now available to my fellow countrymen here in Canada (also now in the USA), through various Video On Demand services…
Available in Canada via iTunes, Sony (PS3), Xbox, Bell VOD, Cogeco, MTS, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw VOD, Telus, VCC, Videotron, Google, RODO.
I am damn proud of this film, which can be described as THE BIG CHILL meets THE THING, so I hope that you’ll give our modestly-budgeted, overly-ambitious film, a chance. This is probably what it feels like to have a child go off to school for the first time. Be nice to my child, my slightly-twisted, sci-fi/drama hybrid child.
A quick round-up of THE CORRIDOR’s reviews, stolen from Matt Singer at IndieWire:
Ryland Aldrich, Twitch: “A taut thriller that wraps the audience in a blanket of paranoia without falling victim to the cliches that plague so many cabin-in-the-woods horrors.”
Scott Weinberg, FEARnet: “‘The Corridor’ may borrow themes and ideas from a handful of disparate sources, but in the end it all comes together with care and craftsmanship, and the result is one of the coolest Canadian chillers in years.”
James McCormick, The Criterion Cast: “This is definitely a horror film that should be watched with the lights low, with a few friends that you would hopefully go away to a cabin in the woods and not kill.”
Travis Keune, We Are Movie Geeks: “Seamlessly blends human drama with science fiction, psychological and visceral horror, and even a touch of metaphysical philosophy for one of the more mesmerizing but accessibly cerebral films I’ve seen in years.”
Please let me know what you think of the film, if you catch it!
Update – April 9, 2012: THE CORRIDOR was iTunes’ #1 Horror film rental of the past week! I’m trying to play it cool right now, but there’s no way that’s happening.
Jordan Bimm from Toronto’s most-read weekly magazine, NOW!, recently caught THE NUN’S VACATION and gave us 4 N’s out of a possible 5…
The cast is uniformly good, with Matthews standing out as funny and downright scary, and together all three make us believe in the lust and violence between every combination of characters possible.
This is easily one of my favourite characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing and I’m so happy that he seems to be striking a cord (one way or another) with the audiences.
The play is only running until April 8th, so if you’re in Toronto, I hope you can make it out and catch the show. It’s something that we’re all very proud of and want to show to as many people as possible.
The Nun’s Vacation - ON STAGE
‘Like Three’s Company if it were produced by HBO’ Serafin LaRiviere / Toronto / Thursday, March 22, 2012
I always thought that nuns have it pretty good. After all, black is the most slimming of colours, and even the worst home-perm disaster remains unremarked upon when hidden under a habit. But let’s face it: being married to Christ is a perfectly lovely idea until you realize there ain’t gonna be nothing going on south of the border that isn’t menstrual or bathroom-related.So it makes sense that even the most saintly of nuns needs a holiday once in a while, as occurs in Tom Walmsley’s new play, The Nun’s Vacation. The piece poses that timeless question: “How do you believe in God and still get laid?”Sister Shannon is a sheltered nun who has spent most of her adult life in a quiet convent contemplating the mysteries of life and spirituality. Oh, and tonguing a little labia as well. She’s been involved in a confusing but rewarding liaison with fellow postulant Rose for quite some time, but as their illicit relationship begins to unravel, Shannon feels the need to escape the safe confines of her order and discover her true nature.“It’s her first time experiencing real hurt and conflict,” says Sandy Duarte, who plays Shannon. “She’s discovered love for the first time, but because of her religion and faith there’s an internal struggle with her heart loving someone it shouldn’t.”
Enter ex-priest Brody, long-time friend to Shannon and now a psychiatrist living in Toronto. Brody (Glen Matthews) doffed the collar upon accepting his own homosexuality. Shannon races to his unsuspecting arms, hoping to trade her confused lesbian nun-hood for a seemingly uncomplicated life as a complacent (and, hopefully, sexually fulfilled) wife and mother.
