Kingston Paradise in Toronto.

St. Jago de la Vega and Kingston had not yet met in their prophesized sprawling merger. Growing up in Jamaica, my cardiology would routinely spike on the commute between bucolic and bustle. To the extent that even now, there's nothing better for my heart than a hit of citypulse.
 
My latest sortie saw me emerge from a summers-end Muskoka sequestration. A few probing enquiries, and I headed for Hogtown's TIFF 2013. In this era we're still speaking about that cavalcade of prestigious cinematic unveilings, and the familiar frenzy of the red carpet.

But now, also, parallel fledgling festivals aligned with it.

The Caribbean Tales Film Festival occurs on the fringes of this frisson. The timing is advantageous to showcase the maturing output of Caribbean related filmwork, adding its own diasporic glam to the scene with contiguous scheduling and spicy spectacle. Shorts, docs, features, workshops and symposia.

TIFF Artistic Director, media-master, mogul, mullah Cameron Bailey, himself of Barbadian heritage, makes a natural patron and ally for the eight year-old CTFF, incepted and run by Frances-Anne Solomon, a proud Trinidadian film-maker.

Having missed sold-out TIFF screenings of Steve McQueen's acclaimed "12 Years a Slave," which ended up a clear winner of the top accolades, I had to re-focus. I was drawn out by a desire to see how my Jamaican friend, Mary Wells fared with her movie "Kingston Paradise," making its world premiere.

Five years prior we had pored over early footage as she shaped a working edit. At the time, final cut seemed ... remote.

In the tradition of Damian Marley's anthemic song "Welcome To Jamrock," Mary's cinema verité visuals of this island paradise bely the Iberostar propaganda of Tourist Board commercials.

And make no mistake, this isn't gratuitous invitation to indulge in ghetto-voyeurism or re-hash Jamaican political tribalism.

At core, this is about a couple's struggle for self-betterment. A capitalist's dream in a setting where there's little capital to go 'round. Driving taxi in this town requires more than a hackney permit. Chris "Johnny" Daley energetically portrays Rocksy. He hustles condoms and phone-cards but is readily seduced by a Syrian businessman's conspicuously crisp Mitsubishi Evolution.

Hollywood might've required a grand heist, but JAH-llywood finds gold in a petty auto-thief, complete with bumbling sidekick.

Camille Small, as Rosie, is Rocksy's main squeeze, complicit in methodology but not end-game. She's an art-lover and supporter of "woman work" who is not deferential to agressive testosterone. Unlike some of her predecessors in Jamaican cinema, Camille manages to infuse Rosie's pulchritude with an eloquent subtlety.

Everyone's heard of Trenchtown. Well, there are several comparable "garrisons" on the Kingston city grid. Mary credits gratitude to the people of Southside, which is in East Kingston.

 

Here, shambles of a once-grand downtown show systemic neglect, and every available space is adapted to accomodate the population therein. Supporting players are shrewdly utilised to rivetingly depict the day-to-day business of survival.

In the mechanics yard, gappy Clovie ("I thief but I never go jail") and pretty-boy Maltado deserve mention. So too does the ambiguous, dare I say, androgeny of the marginal players. During a prolonged de rigeur cop chase sequence one delivers, sans dialogue, haven for our hero, and the other nails what may be the most stylish onscreen come-uppance I can remember.

Wisely, Mary avoids padding the dialogue with cliche epithets and common themology. My Spidey-sense is that there was imput from her actors to this end. The result is believable dialogue which, of necessity, benefits from subtitling in service of the colloquial narrative. This allows the viewer to digest the all-consuming socio-economic reality at his/her own pace.

In Kingston, there's no avoiding this.

 

Perry Henzell's "The Harder They Come" (1972) will always serve as a blueprint. To this day THTC one-line take-aways pepper popular culture. Kingston Paradise has its share of those too, with at least one standout deadpan delivery certain to mash up movie-houses from Kingston to Toronto. 

 

Then of course there's the music. Award winning composer John Welsman, an honorary Caribbean if there ever was one, dials up the decibels. Combining original score and contemporary vocal tracks, this Canadian demonstrates a clear understanding of Jamaica's bass imperative.

The first thing Mary asked me after the well-received screening, which led to the all-important CTFF 2013 audience choice award, was - what do I think of the film's commercial prospects?

Well, after driving around Kingston with her, not too long ago, I do know she could use a new car.

I predict here and now, she won't have to steal one.

Parables Of Riddick.

Installment three of the Riddick juggernaut opens today. The Vin Diesel publicity machine is in overdrive, selling a labor-of-love that's been soon come long time. Vin has fast and furiously found time to service other projects in the intervening period. I see in the society columns this includes starting a family. Nice.

Vin's navel-string connection to the Riddick mythic remains his most personal. My own brush with this franchise-of-the-moment remains resonant with me too - nine years after the Universal extravagance of The Chronicles Of Riddick.

Director of both films David Twohy, a man with the air of a New England rambler, makes a noteworthy foil to Vin's engagingly temperate braggadocio. By my observation, he's a Science Fiction fan. Casting for Chronicles was an intuitive process to the point where we were encouraged, in between gym visits, to name our own characters. Previously nameless lifer-convicts in the middle third of a sprawling, futuristic, extra-planetary adventure.

I called my guy Sniper. The unthinkable Washington D.C. shooting mayhem was recent memory. I stole the vacant soul of Jamaican born Lee Boyd Malvo for backstory. Director comments in my DVD extras keep that angle alive for me, despite much of the screen evidence falling by the way.

I'll have no spoilers on the new Riddick 'til I see it, so read on without fear. The Crematoria arc was very time-consuming to shoot but we got some stunning otherworldly footage. Backlot security was tight but there was a controlled stream of visitors. Like Vin's sis, his mom and kids belonging to Vin's twin bro.

One special day I had my own daughter with me. Coming back from lunch there was an unexpected gathering on our working soundstage, but all film-making activity had ceased. Vin's bullhorn baritone led cast and crew in a Birthday serenade, surprising her, and me, with sixteen candles in a cake. This raised the bar for such milestones in my neighborhood.

Riddick keeps good company. I had camaraderie with Judi Dench, Thandie Newton, Alexa Davalos, Keith David, Colm Fiore,Yorick Van Wageningen and others, while working among a filial cadre of local performers enjoying the bombastic profile of high-level production. It was here, during the hurry-up-and-wait interstices, that I tasted rare humility in Scrabble, which vied with Poker for pastime of choice.

Not to mention Snoop (then) Dogg hit-up da after-party in L.A.

Vin gifted me a VHS copy of Multi-Facial, his first short film. It features a diamond performance from an actor with more versatility than some recognize. You get the feeling he could do virtually anything with direct efficiency, power and charm. Like the best of America's husky heroes.

Makes me wanna send Riddick to go Rambo on Syria.

... Attack The Block, aliens and allegory ...

... ok fam, so it's jus' a movie right, 'cept it's more' than tha', innit ... it's bere laffs for one fing, and it chucks right off th' screen at u, an' pawns u by the bollocks ... not just y' biggie smalls bruv, but them bollocks in y' brain as well ... f'real gangsta! ... an' you done know seh it's not jus' di man dem pon the ends got bollocks, the girls dem too, yeh ... trus' me! ...

... Red, Gold and Grey, the colorz of a new Rainbow Country ... don't fear if you're allergic to spoilers, the call whether to continue reading is entirely up to you, but I'm more likely to be looking at a bigger picture than specific plot-points in this fun indie flick ... Attack The Block is set in the same Britain that recently ruptured close to social seams that have been straining for some time ... when they call it "Blighty" you can picture the traditional imagery, 'cept now a swathe of pop-youth-culture is inflected with reggae-isms and hip-hop ... 

... aliens and allegory, right and wrong, cops and robbers, boys and girls, weed and wisdom, not to mention guns and guts ... this movie finds a balance between modest (in focus and means) and boasty (in characters and thematic riches) ...

... trash an' ready for the Leicester Square red carpet, the young cast of this entertaining little feature presents a reflection of an emerging generation of tenancy in UK inner-cities ... young, gifted and bored ... poly-racial little-big-men slinging yard slangs and attitudinal overtones of cockney-cool and bluster ...

... the allegorical story survives precocious characters, even daring to feature a leader named Moses, humanizing the very people historian David Starkey pointed to before invoking lurking memories of Enoch Powell's 1968 "rivers of blood" speech ... his statements read like cliche formula, race equals riots, but the big picture is more instructive, beginning with the historical veracity of expansion into lands considered claimable ... occupants therein deemed inferior and taught, indeed bred, behaviors of subservience, in deference to a lust for sweet lucre ...

... zzzzzp (the sound of scrolling through intervening years) ... to a world where Bolt and Becks are boss, Mavado matters more than Mountbatten and Yellowman is still known in some dances as King ... a one-time vortex of empire we know as Jamaica continues to resonate that very energy, only now it plays out in the wider world precisely because of the complicated psychologies associated with shedding shackles of any kind ... the pushback of life's pendulum is the riddim of Creation ...

... it doesn't escape my notice that Starkey and Bob Marley were born early in the same year ... I compare how relevant their respective legacies are to the youth on the block, who, like punks generations ago, get called-out publicly by people who just don't get it ... is like dey dealin' wit' aliens, blood ...

... and still, natural as change is, there's always friction at the intersection of past and present, with lessons to be learned and adjustments to be made by all concerned, assuring social advancement, even as variables continue to require adaptation ...

... writer/director Joe Cornish sends for extra-terrestrials in Attack The Block as foils for our heroes, effective dramatic counterweight, the blackest of avenging intruders ... ironically, their deep darkness actually illuminates common-ground above the socially stratified post-colonial Queendom ...

... British expediency, Tudor through Victorian, before and after, has woven itself into social DNA far beyond the ports of Bristol or Liverpool, and back ... that the hybrid language of the street should bristle is understandable, but the true "tell" is in the tone of the reaction it elicits ... Mr. Starkey's freestyle, on-air apoplexy over "Jamaican patois" was fed by troubling imagery of wanton looting, but the selective tack and torque of his commentary betrays fear and revulsion, two cornerstones of racist reaction, so often negative in intent and impact ...

... the economical, character-driven storytelling of Attack The Block ecourages viewers to calibrate private sensitivity to larger issues via developments that find truth in the personalities of the protagonists and their personal choices ... but, lest you get the impression it's a dry celluloid lecture, and use that as reason to delay, I assure you, this rollick's a real riot ...

... oops, I mean ...  it's a lark innit, bashment yeh?! ... the movie's boom! ... believe! ...

... beneath "The Skin" ...

... they have fangs, suck blood, creepy-crawl or fly by night,

dress in cloaks, sleep by day, shy from crucifixes on sight,

they fascinate us and seem to be everywhere of late,

books... TV... on Halloween they may even appear at your gate ...

... folkloric characters are found in all world cultures and there's a wide variety to choose from in Caribbean societies populated by slave descendants who have commingled African traditional beliefs with those of European origin, resulting in some pretty gruesome geo-specific ghouls ... known collectively in the region as jumbies or duppies ...

... with such a rich heritage of mythical demons it's somewhat surprising that there isn't more overt usage of demonology in modern Caribbean artforms ... such folklore is largely consigned to oral tradition of countryfolk, archives of heritage traditions, underfunded cultural festivals and nostalgic mention ...

... enter one intrepid husband and wife filmmaking team lending their initials to HAMA productions of Antigua ... HAMA developed a feature-film script centred around the drama that ensues when the dormant malevolence of a Soucouyant is aroused, terrorizing residents of the post-colonial tropical isle ... the small but growing local film industry benefits from those of us with experience in the filmworld at large, and on this fourth HAMA effort, it was a rewarding experience to have assisted in the preparation of the two leading players ...

... yours truly, as the sleazy Detective Morgan, along with Jamaica's eminent Carl Bradshaw (The Harder They Come, The Lunatic, Third World Cop) and Britain's Jeff Stewart (The Bill, Dr. Who) as an obeah man and opportunistic yachtie respectively, add weight to a cast of colorful local performers, many gracing the screen for the first time ...

... the result is an entertaining supernatural thriller-with-a-difference entitled The Skin, a reference to the specific habits of the (female evil-entity) Soucouyant, known by variable but similar pronunciations and other names throughout the diasporic carry-beyond (Caribbean) ...

... just as it takes a community to raise a child, so too the processs of making a film, particularly in places where the infrastructure is embryonic ... The Skin benefits from skills brought by Howard University's Professor S. Torriano Berry who held the camera and augmented the crew with his film students eager to combine an island getaway with an on-set practicum ...

... quid pro quo deals, deferred payments and "favoured nations" arrangements to use scenic locations, combine to lift this one off the page ... actual filming was intense but not without its lighter moments to mitigate early mornings and late nights ...

... well received at an incubatory screening for the Caribbean Tales film cognoscenti in Barbados this spring, The Skin was to premiere at last month's Reggae Film Festival in Jamaica but organizational cross-wiring, of the sort that too often undercuts effort in this region, meant that the grand unveiling took place last week in front of an appreciative home crowd in Antigua ...

... things have a way of working out as they properly should - part of the pervasive mysticism that governs life in the Caribbean ...

... the King wears Bermuda shorts ...

... a casual linear approach to directions can locate everywhere east of west, and north of what's to the south, on this spherical planet ... 'til you actually come full circle ... therefore, all points on the globe, save both absolute poles, are co-ordinates of those four cardinal points, North, South, East and West ...

... I've just returned from the only place I can think of right now which to tends to defy this imperative, as it has popularly come to be regarded in terms of only three ... sitting in mid-Atlantic isolation is the anomalous island of Bermuda, the apex of a fabled triangulation of marine mystery ... culturally, this land is a tryptych of sorts, drawing with almost equal weight from cultures to its east, west and south, a trident of British, American and Caribbean sensibilities blending into a unique identity ...

... like other island societies, survival in the swim of world dynamics hinges on external lifelines, and more than most, Bermudian experience reflects a binding assuredness instead of centrifugal fractiousness ... to my eye, the monarchic allegiances of Bermuda's colonial heritage and the New England habitude of North American privilege sits in relatively comfortable co-existence with the influence of Afro-indenture that gives these parts so much of its color ... the sum of such parts is invariably greater than the whole and modern Bermuda stands on this platform, a remnant outpost of empire owning its strands of history and despite size, unapologetically claiming nationhood ...

... every year for the past fourteen, Bermuda has hosted BIFF, an International Film Festival welcoming cinematic expression from every worldwide source, in programmes reflective of a diversity beyond the primary trifecta of their own cultural wellspring ...

... it doesn't feel as long, but it's been three years since the 11th annual BIFF when Frances-Anne Solomon screened her film A Winter Tale to a rapt full house at Speciality Cinema in Hamilton, and now I find myself invited to serve as a juror ... BIFF 2011's cadre of short films, numbering thirty-two in all, was the largest selected for competition at this small yet important contributing festival for the gran'daddy Academy Award in this eclectic category ...

... our panel of jurors represented various perspectives and areas of expertise ... working with them was a pleasure, effectively lowering my degrees of separation vis-a-vis prominent names like Scorsese and Tarantino and projects like "48 Hours", "The King's Speech" and "Inglourious Basterds"... we divided handily into groups focussed on documentaries, features and short films, the latter category becoming the purview of publicist, producer and performer, an eager troika charged with watching all competition shorts to choose one for the jury prize ...
 

... as to be expected, or hoped for, the creativity in competition was broad in scope, artistic in presentation, tantalising to the imagination and culturally inclusive, with a dizzying array of footage all seeking to be memorable in abbreviated time ... extensive deliberation and democratic decision-making awarded the prize to super-concise storytelling in the form of a clever four minute Spanish film by Albertto Dorado called "Lost" featuring a Somalian plotline, an eight year old boy and music-over-the-credits from hot Somali-Canadian rapper K'naan ...

... there could only be one winner but in a dream world I would be King and decree all who deserve a prize to receive one ... Carlos Castineira, also of Spain, should hold on to hope for his powerful film "Easy Money" in case I ascend to the throne, as should Italy's Massimo Cappelli for his classy "41" ... two efforts out of the U.K., Peter Cattaneo's charming "Capturing Santa" and a sexy fifteen minute romp entitled "An Act of Love" by Edward Dick, would be rewarded for levity amid the de rigeur darker themed offerings of necrophilia and pedophilia ... and, were it not for a brief moment of confusion near the end, which I'm willing to consider was my own dim-switch kicking in, I might have pushed harder for Pierre Ferriere's watchable leading actress in "The Story of My Life", a riveting six minute French film ...

... this jewel of a Film Festival keeps a down-to-earth profile, not to suggest a paucity of boozy parties and hors d'ouvres between programming ... you may assume that ... but I saw cool features and documentaries, met some fascinating folks-in-flicks and had a heartfelt reunion with an old high-school friend who will henceforth lead the campaign for my coronation and act as aide de camp cum Lionel Logue ... for return payment in kind ...

... along the way I learned that the critical measure regarding Bermuda shorts is that they fall two inches above the knee ... someone should make a film about that ... I'd vote for it ...

... apres destructo cinema ...

... can't swear to it but I'm fairly certain this happens from time to time where you live too ... when the going gets tough, the tough go to the movies ...

... with Haiti on the mind and the perpetual high stakes of this complex existence we are a part of, screen fantasy can offer a pressure-release valve, a chance to visit another dimension or the illusion of one ... to breathe in a popcorn-scented, climate-controlled change from routine and limiting existences ... this is true even if the world you are transported to is post-apocalyptic ... or an imaginary, ex-planetary one ...

... I've got news for The Brothers Hughes ... if your story is set in a time following a great manifestation of pestilence or destruction ... and, you style the look of your film in the dusty tradition of Mad Max, you court the tag "post-apocalyptic" ... and, if you construct the sets to be reminiscent of wild-western towns, saloon, shoot-out street, head-'em-off-at-the-pass buzzard's-eye P.O.V. and all, then we will see cowboys and sheriff badges ... jus' so it go ... but why not?, these are genre choices which don't preclude the result being enjoyable ....












... so, when my son said he had strong thoughts of me as he watched The Book Of Eli, and really wanted to know what I thought of it, I was intrigued but thought better of digging too deep for fear of spoilers ...















... what I encountered at the cinema shortly thereafter was a seductively drab futuristic High Plains Drifter ... on foot ... but that wasn't all, this take on the doomsday scenario is as crisply conceived in its sense-of-self as any that preceded it within the genre, the difference here for me was in the pulse ...

... the broadly drawn, unhurried story developments liberated space between the superhero moments ... allowing time to luxuriate in the visuals and decide how to ... or whether to ... suspend disbelief around the nagging questions and doubts which are inevitable when the baddies are so mindlessly led by malevolence and negativity, to no relatable end ...

... my choice for saviour in this case is the consistently deft craftsman Denzel Washington, who walks the unlikely middle ground between Clint Eastwood and New York Governor David Paterson ... my turn with Vin Diesel et al in The Chronicles Of Riddick gave me first-hand exposure to how an actor manoeuvres behind permanent eyewear ... so, after watching, I can with some confidence, endorse Denzizzy as a past master of the art ...

... the "apres destructo" theme is worth a thought in these times ... so too are the psycho-spiritual constructs which inform the specifics of human morality and conduct ... it's a recipe for success if filmmakers can marry popular entertainment to a contemplation of higher calling ... hence the zen-cool, quick-draw defense of the Christian cornerstone enriches Eli in the same way James Cameron's paleo-astral metaphor for environmental responsibility has turned Avatar into his, and the world's, biggest grossing film ... in effect sinking the Titanic one more time ...














... the strong suit here is the scale and scope of Cameron's effort of course, more an indicator of where we are going than where we have been ...

... the vividly realized world of Pandora is rivalled in this film by subtexts in the shooting script ... the hardly veiled twin-threat of oppression and exploitation have the same familiar feel to them now as they had at the start of the previous decades ... if it is accepted that art mimics life then surely we must interpret the truths at the heart of this blockbuster statement as a cinematic challenge to make adjustments ...

... Jake Sully makes significant moves in his character arc, rejecting the part of himself that was obsolete and embracing that which was concealed behind "cultural" barriers ... why concealed, by whom and for what purpose, is for a different post ...










... "avatar" will become a common word I predict ... first used, then over-used and eventually mis-used, but Earth is our Home Tree and, in the absence of readily available alien life-forms, we get the chance to be our own avatars and merge with our fellow inhabitants ...

... I think that's essentially what Eli's book is trying to tell us too ... and, I must have gotten it across to my son at some point ... or maybe I just remind him of Denzel  ... ;-) ...

... welcome to Parkdale! ...

... I've had opportunities to be part of many different types of projects in my time as an actor ... I can attribute much of that blessing to a combination of good fortune, genetics and effort ...

... oftentimes I'm questioned as to whether I fear the dreaded "typecasting"... my responses alternate between the flippant "bring it on!," or a post-Jerry Maguire "show me the money!," and the quizzical, mild annoyance of a "whaddyamean, which type are you referring to?" ... I've come to believe this is related to my personal flava, hybrid accent and mannerisms ...

... y'see, my personal blend of youth and age, public and private schooling, urban and rural upbringings, "dread" and "baldhead" influences, Jamaican and Canadian world citizenships, isn't usually the character description in the casting breakdowns, yet happily, I've managed to play a few variations on this theme ...

... and then there are the rare, though not entirely unique, instances when a role gets crafted toward the mongrel in me ...









... the initial phone call was innocuous enough ...

... my friend Michele and her filmmaker cousin Frances-Anne had a really talented cast, a concept and a plan, plus the fortitude to combine them ... they proposed adding me to play the central character Gene Wright, a well-meaning social worker with challenges and shortcomings of his own ...

... the open aperture beckoned, and before long I was deep in development-workshops on the grittier end of Queen Street West, a place with notable population history and not enough to show for it ... welcome to Parkdale and long days spent brainstorming, improvising scenarios and bonding into a tight unit ... a workably representative cross-section of contemporary black Toronto ...







... collectively we evolved a living script ... the contribution from each player inhabits the textured nuances of the final product ...

... veteran turns from the remarkable Leonie Forbes, a versatile Jamaican treasure who had previously played my grandma in Soul Survivor (1995), and Dennis "Sprangalang" Hall - an avuncular Trini-icon, grounded the film in bridge-building territory by commanding respect up and down the English-speaking Caribbean and its extensive diaspora ...

... younger cast members, particularly the rising talent of Michael Miller, gave everything of themselves to infuse the piece with G.T.A. street-realism and anchor the story firmly in the context of urban North America ...





... the workshopping and rehearsal journey was rewarded by a sell-off, limited-run stage-production lauded for its intelligent use of minimal material resources ...

... the rich, sincere, non-sensational storytelling, around issues the Caribbean-Canadian family are only too familiar with, ensures the humanizing of every character and makes A Winter Tale compelling insight for broader audiences ...

... having engaged with focus-groups, community screening-forums, university and school groups of various ages, far-flung film festival folks, regular-release houses and even a non-West Indian audience at a police-sponsored showing in a charming Calgary, Alberta rep-house, I'm convinced Frances-Anne Solomon's direction accomplished its intent ... namely, a story reflective of social conscience and relevance, eschewing much of the self-consciousness sometimes found in this vein ...













... from this actor's p.o.v. there's no downside to socially-relevant credits on a resume ... I experienced a singularly organic process in making this film, binding camaraderie, splashy-bashy openings in Toronto, New York, Port Of Spain, St. John's, Antigua, and the particularly sweet irony of seeing my own largeness on the screen at the Carib Theatre in Kingston, Jamaica where I'd watched so many double-bills as a yout' ...

... A Winter Tale ... http://www.awintertale.ca/ ... has won some honors and much acclaim along the way, and if the award of recognition I was given at last year's Caribbean Tales Film Festival for my work is the result of some kind of typecasting, then so be it ... whosoever will may come ...