SEFC Social Housing: Hey Meggs, Let's get real!

From a recent Vancouver Sun Story by Jeff Lee on the SEFC Social Housing cost overuns...

"However, Anton said she favours selling the units at market prices and putting the proceeds towards building more affordable housing elsewhere.

Her idea was roundly condemned by other councillors, including Woodsworth and Geoff Meggs, who said it would turn the village into a "gated neighborhood" where only the rich could live."

What utter nonsense!

The reality is, the cost of the social housing units, now estimated at approximately $600,000 each (including land), is far beyond what was initially expected. It is estimated that to make these units affordable to core needy households could cost another $55 million in subsidies, or more.

As a former Program Manager of social housing for CMHC, and a consultant to the BC Government when it established its Social Housing proposal call program, I am a supporter of integrated communities with a mix of market and non-market housing. However, given these costs, and the very real potential for significant losses on the land sale to Millennium, and losses and cost over-runs on the balance of the SEFC development including the public amenities, I think the responsible thing would be to sell these units as "fettered ownership housing" to families who cannot afford the market units.

The units could be sold with resale controls to prevent windfall gains, and other restrictions...ie, can only be purchased by 'end-users', not investors, and generally not be rented out; priority would be given to families with children; the city would have the right to buy back units and re-sell over time. Similar programs have been put in place very successfully at UniverCity (Verdant) and in Whistler (employee housing).

While this would not result in the 80/20 split of high/low income residents, it would result in a healthy mix of mid and higher income households, and the desired mix of families with children and other households.

So please Councillors Meggs and Woodsworth. Please stop the rhetoric and reconsider how best to spend the taxpayers money. And yes, Vision Vancouver and COPE can now start planning some non-market lower income housing ON ADJACENT SEFC sites, to ensure the broader socio-economic mix in the community. If you start now, you might even have some units finished by the next election. And I know you will ensure they will never go over budget!

Jean-Jacques Beineix on DVD (Updated)

Cinema Libre announced the first two DVD releases of their Jean-Jacques Beineix collection, Roselyne and the Lions [Roselyne et les lions] on 14 July and IP5: The Island of Pachyderms [IP5: L'île aux pachydermes] on 18 August. As Eric pointed out, the studio is re-releasing Beineix's most famous film Betty Blue, with Béatrice Dalle and Jean-Hughes Anglade, in theatres before a DVD release next year.

As for other DVD announcements, PeaceArch will release Marianna Palka's Good Dick on 1 September, as well as Valentino: The Last Emperor, on DVD and Blu-ray, 15 September. MPI is releasing Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel's Deadgirl on both formats 15 September. James Cotton's La linea, with Andy Garcia and Ray Liotta, will be out through Maya on 10 November. Facets is set to re-release Wojciech Has' trippy Saragossa Manuscript on 28 July. Oscilloscope will add Treeless Mountain to the already crowded 15 September street date. And sometime in October, Water Bearer Films will be releasing Philippe Vallois' We Were One Man [Nous étions un seul homme] for the first time on DVD in the US.

On the Blu-ray horizon, a couple of noteworthy titles have been announced. Shout! Factory will have Takashi Miike's Audition on 7 October; from Sony, The Craft on 13 October; and from Dark Sky, John McNaughton's Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer on 29 September... all in time for Halloween. That's all for now. I'll resume the Decade List soon. I've taken a needed break from it by revisiting Six Feet Under.

UPDATE: Thanks to Jeremy at, of course, The Moon in the Gutter for finding this. Cinema Libre has the dates set for all of their Beineix releases, including a box-set with all of them on 1 December. According to their site, a DVD of Beineix's Locked-In Syndrome [Assigné à résidence], a documentary about Jean-Dominique Bauby who was the subject of Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Otaku and his first short Mr. Michel's Dog [Le chien de Monsieur Michel] was released today, but I didn't find it on Amazon.com. Mortal Tranfer [Mortel transfert], also with Jean-Hughes Anglade, will hit shelves on 22 September, and The Moon in the Gutter [La lune dans le caniveau], with Nastassja Kinski, Gérard Depardieu and Victoria Abril, will be out 20 October. It also didn't dawn on me that the studio's theatrical release of Betty Blue would be the first time it's officially been shown in its full version in the US. Betty Blue will be on DVD on 17 November.

Grindhouse? Maybe?

A couple of people have suggested to me that the theatrical version of Grindhouse, with all the trailers, is coming to DVD and Blu-ray on 11 August. No official announcement has been made, so I don't know the specifics of the release. I'm pretty skeptical about any of the upcoming Weinstein Company's releases anyway.

New Fever Ray Video

The new video from Fever Ray, better known as Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife's solo project, was released last week for "Triangle Walks," directed by Mikel Cee Karlsson. As expected, it's gorgeous, unsettling and totally fucking awesome. Enjoy!

Family Ties

Summer Hours [L'heure d'été] - dir. Olivier Assayas - 2008 - France - IFC Films

Written for Gone Cinema Poaching.

Separating Olivier Assayas' films into two camps, the "globe-trotting erotic-thriller" and the "prestige" pic, is an easy action. On a superficial level, Boarding Gate and Summer Hours couldn't be more different. However, when it comes to Assayas' work, most people choose to make the simple connections, such as the one above or noting the similarities between demonlover and Boarding Gate without recognizing their strong dissimilarities. But really, pairing one against the other overlooks the central idea that appears in nearly his entire body of work (I haven't seen any of the films that came before L'eau froide): a search for identity within changing landscapes, even if it's indirect.

In Summer Hours, the search is quite apparent. After the passing of their mother Hélène (Edith Scob), three siblings (Charles Berling, Juliette Binoche, Jérémie Renier) must determine how to deal with their family's inheritance, with special consideration for the fact that each of them live on separate continents. Like really all of the director's films, Summer Hours is almost deceptively slight. Assayas keeps the film free of teary melodrama and unwanted sentimentality, restricting his camera from the actual death of Hélène as well as her funeral. Summer Hours isn't about a family's grief; it's about the value, monetary and sentimental, of what's left behind.

Though its persistent honesty is no small feat, the strength of the film reveals itself fully in its final moments. Once it's decided to sell the family home, the two eldest grandchildren (Alice de Lencquesaing, Emile Berling) throw a party in the nearly empty house. As teenagers and loud music occupy the rooms, Assayas takes the film in a place I never expected, though maybe I should have known better as he's always placed great emphasis on his films' closing scenes, even if they seem initially puzzling. As my hands down choice for the best film to hit theatres this year, I'd be surprised to find a film as sublime as Summer Hours in the remaining months of 2009.

A Few More from Sony, Miramax Martial Arts on Blu-ray

Sony is continuing to make it their year for DVD releases. Here are a few DVD and Blu-ray releases I uncovered this weekend.

DVDs

- The Buttercup Chain, 1970, d. Robert Ellis Miller, Sony, 8 September
- Crank 2: High Voltage, 2009, d. Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor, Lionsgate, also on Blu-ray, 8 September
- Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing, 1973, d. Alan J. Pakula, Sony, 8 September, w. Maggie Smith, Timothy Bottoms
- Model Shop, 1969, d. Jacques Demy, Sony, 8 September, w. Anouk Aimée
- The Pursuit of Happiness, 1971, d. Robert Mulligan, 8 September, w. Barbara Hershey
- Private Century [Soukromé století], 2006, d. Jan Sikl, Facets, 22 September
- The Hanging Woman [La orgía de los muertos], 1973, d. José Luis Merino, Troma, 29 September
- Anvil! The Story of Anvil, 2008, d. Sacha Gervasi, Universal Music, 6 October

Blu-ray

- Go, 1999, d. Doug Liman, Sony, 18 August
- Silverado, 1985, d. Lawrence Kasdan, Lionsgate, 8 September
- Requiem for a Dream, 2000, d. Darren Aronofsky, Lionsgate, 8 September
- Hero, 2002, d. Zhang Yimou, Miramax, 15 September
- Iron Monkey, 1993, d. Yuen Woo-ping, Miramax, 15 September
- The Legend of Drunken Master, 1994, d. Liu Chia-Liang, Jackie Chan, Miramax, 15 September
- Zatôichi, 2003, d. Takeshi Kitano, Miramax, 15 September
- The Prisoner: The Complete Series, 1967-1968, A&E, 27 October

I Wanna Be Adored

Adoration - dir. Atom Egoyan - 2008 - Canada - Sony Pictures Classics

Written for Gone Cinema Poaching.

It seems a long time ago that Atom Egoyan, after the successes of Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter, was among the forefront of international cinema. By following The Sweet Hereafter, which garnered the Egyptian-born, Canadian-raised filmmaker two Oscar nominations, with the disappointing Felicia's Journey, we got our first indication that Egoyan might never create the magic he showed during the late '80s and '90s again. With Adoration, Egoyan returns to the style and structure that worked so well for him early in his career; unfortunately, something's missing, even if it feels like all the pieces are there.

Those familiar with the director's work will spot some of the director's trademarks of style and theme easily. Airport customs, video recorders, fragmented narrative, paternal struggles, Arsinée Khanjian, devastating loss, the nature of truth, traces of personal ancestry. All are weaved into Adoration as one might expect, so why does the film feel so minor league? Like Ararat, the only post-Sweet Hereafter film of his that I genuinely like (even though I'm in the minority), Adoration never comes off like a sad act of self-mimicry. Egoyan continues to pose fascinating, gray-area quandaries; they just don't resonate or haunt the way his films always used to.

I suspect one of the reasons why could be attributed to the fact that Adoration (as well as Ararat) addresses very specific, button-pushing issues where Exotica, The Adjuster, Family Viewing and The Sweet Hereafter tackled more abstract ideas through less particular situations (Where the Truth Lies is another story altogether). It's not that Egoyan is preaching or over-symplifying these matters; it's that, like Charles Aznavour's character in Ararat says, Adoration feels like something he always "needed" to make. This necessity and self-applied obligation to explore terrorism and the waves of ignorance that surround it restrains the director and make the film's mysteries and revelations a hell of a lot less seamless and profound.

Additionally, the importance Egoyan places on keeping Adoration from being sanctimonious gives way for some glaring surface-level problems. It never seemed to dawn on Egoyan the preposterousness of the film's main plot detail, in which high schooler Simon (Devon Bostick) presents an assignment/monologue, with the encouragement of his French teacher Sabine (Khanjian) who also teaches drama, that adopts the perspective of an unborn child whose Middle Eastern father has planted a bomb on the child's mother as she boards a flight to Israel without him. Simon asserts that the story is true, even though his parents (Rachel Blanchard, Noam Jenkins) actually died in a car accident. This "experiment" leads to more social exercises between the boy and his teacher, all of which begin to enrage the (physical and online) community. All the major plot points and subsequent disclosures never rise above their own contrivances, and you can almost see an uneasiness in the way Khanjian, Egoyan's wife and muse, plays her scenes.

Despite fantastic turns from Scott Speedman, as Simon's uncle who raises him after the accident, and Kenneth Welsh, every bit as creepy here as he was in Twin Peaks as Simon's grandfather, Egoyan can't get much out of Bostick, who plays the youthful centerpiece that's so crucial in nearly all of Egoyan's films. After eliciting such a mesmerizing performance from Sarah Polley in The Sweet Hereafter, Egoyan hasn't been able to replicate that with Elaine Cassidy, David Alpay, Alison Lohman (though she has been forgiven thanks to Drag Me to Hell) and now Bostick. In his two principle actors, we can see a glimpse of Egoyan's own admirable, but disconcerting hereafter, where everything has become a murky reflection of what once was and the pieces that once fit together no longer do.