Topic: Time for a totally OT skate-related, but vaguely film related thread ;-)

[mcduff]

 Yes spring comes to Canada (eventually) and young men's minds turn to skateboarding. Old men's minds (such as mine) also do, even if they should not -- and the are forced to post an OT thread!!!

I will blame this one on Hungry Mike who is a cinephile and aware of my love of the "Devil's Toy" (both the 4-wheeled version and the film by the NFB)

I am pretty sure the film has been on here before, and is a classic NFB documentary and the images of Montréal from this period are awesome.

At any rate NFB has launched The Devil's Toy Redux In honour of the 50th year of the gorgeous Rouli-roulant or Devil's Toy (the english version)

I am sure all the films that will come back paying homage to this film will be of that yucky non-analog variety, but please check out the original and think of the arrival of spring (and wonder if your knees are good enuff to play with the devil's toy!)

(Ironically, just before I got this link from Mike I was talking to TinTin about how I am planning on making a mess developing some BW super8 this summer that I have kicking around, haha)

[Francois]

It's still pretty cool in so many ways.
Just watching it made me think of the old Bones Brigade videos with Lance Mountain just goofing off

I find it funny that they went to shoot at the Olympic stadium. This place is really a skater's paradise. Roger Talibert never though he'd made such a playground when he imagined all those curves and banks

[Hungry Mike]

Devil's Toy is one of the great unsung Canadian / Quebec films. Period. It should be better known. I love that film.

I prefer to be called a cine-ASS-te rather than a cinephile though!

[David A-W]

Ooh - interesting: I can read all the words but have no idea what you are tallking about. I must have a look at this film but I think it'll be from an outside's perspective.

[Francois]

There's got to be a transcript somewhere...

[SLVR]

[mcduff]

I edited my first post to include the English and French versions of the film. It is probably one of my fave documentaries period. Partly because it is skate related but it is also just so sweet. Cinematographically is is also awesome. I just love the last couple of minutes of it - with these "kids" who are now in their sixties.

Also as an old longboarder, seeing them cook down those hills on such skinny boards is terrifying and liberating!

[Francois]

One thing I find very funny is the subtitles for the segment shot in the arena.
They write "trop de bruit! trop de monde! c'est plate!" which translates to "too noisy!", "too crowded!" and, for the last one there's a bit of a pun included. "C'est plate" in regular French means "Its flat!"... but in Quebecker it also means "It's boring!"

And come to think of it, there's not much more boring than pushing a board on the flat cement of an arena...

[LT]

do they take photographs in it?

[Francois]

Not really but the cinematography in the short 15 minute clip is quite nice. All B&W.

[Hungry Mike]

The cinematography is by one of the greats, Michel Brault. Likely his best known work, internationally, would be Mon Oncle Antoine which has the same director as this short, Claude Jutra (a beloved director in Quebec).

[Francois]

Claude Jutra even got an award named after him. The Jutra prizes are given to Quebec productions exclusively. Too bad all the contenders don't have his talent... I sometimes have a hard time imagining how people can produce so many bad movies.

[Hungry Mike]

Too bad all the contenders don't have his talent... I sometimes have a hard time imagining how people can produce so many bad movies.

Ha! While I can see that being true from a film viewer's point of view, I mean who really needs another broad populist comedy like Elvis Gratton or a Les Boys sequel, but the last few Best picture nominees have been decent: Incendies, Monsieur Lazhar, Rebelle. I'm not a fan of Xavier Dolan's J'ai tué ma mère but even that has some merit. And to Quebec's credit, they have a greater and more consistent appetite for international & challenging films as a population compared to the rest of Canada.

My favourite Jutra award is "Film s'étant le plus illustré hors Québec" (the most successful [Quebec] film outside of Quebec). What place does something like that!   

[Francois]

We also have "Les prix aurore", a comedy gala of the worst productions of the year... think of it as the Razzies with no budget, no special effect, lousy scripts, bad acting and other oddities that make you go "huh?"

BTW, here's that famous trophy they give to the "winners"


So far, I've yet to meet someone who went to see a local production at the cinema... since the early 1980's

[Hungry Mike]

"Les prix aurore"

Too funny! I actually hadn't seen that! My favourite of their awards being "Prix « Liquid Paper » de l'acteur qui fera disparaître de son CV son rôle dans un film"! Very funny. Nice to see that the terrible looking  À vos marques... party! 2 was well honoured!

[Francois]

If you want to see the entire show (30 minutes), here is this year's gala...
http://www.tou.tv/infoman/S14E23

[Francois]

Reviving this.
Last night, I watched an old skateboard video called Skateboard Madness. It's an old 1979 film shot on 35mm showing a very young Stacy Peralta and featuring a photographer called Mellow Cat that goes around shooting pictures with what appears to be a speed graphic while wearing Elvis shades.

It's so funny to see how things were before the invention of wide boards and the ollie

[mcduff]

Haha it had Phil Hartman narrating it. Not that I ever did it bit I love watching the old pool riders pop their boards over the rails.

[Francois]

One thing I just couldn't get over was how insane some of those old skateparks were. That plexiglass capsule where the kids would do vertical 360° rides must have been quite something.