by SCOTT C, ANNE MARIE MARKO, MARK SLUTSKY and JULIET WATERS

Domino

“This is based on a true story,” a title card reads, followed by, “Sort of.” Thus begins Tony Scott’s completely batshit-insane Domino, a whirling, swirling, bloody and frequently incoherent pseudo-biopic of late bounty hunter Domino Harvey. Harvey, who died of an apparent overdose earlier this year, was the daughter of actor Laurence Harvey, whose most notable role was in the original Manchurian Candidate. She also did a stint as a fashion model before turning to bounty hunting as a profession.

She’s ably played here by Keira Knightley, the centre of Scott’s bizarro yellow-tinged vortex. If you’ve seen any of his recent stuff, like Spy Game or Man on Fire, you know just how hyper-stylized the guy has gotten lately, and when you add an overly-complicated screenplay by Donnie Darko creator Richard Kelly, the result is a colourful, alternately entertaining and tiresome explosion of cinema. Domino’s bounty hunter pals are played by Mickey Rourke and Edgar Ramirez. The trio is soon tapped to star in a reality show helmed by producer Christopher Walken and hosted by—and I’m not kidding here—Beverly Hills 90210’s Brian Austin Green and Ian Ziering. Playing themselves. (And these aren’t just cameos either—they’re pretty significant supporting roles.) Soon the whole crazy gang gets mixed up in a Byzantine scheme involving the Department of Motor Vehicles, $10-million in casino money, a billionaire casino owner played by, of all people, Dabney Coleman, mobsters, the FBI, Lucy Liu, symbolic goldfish... It’s a trip. Is it good? Is “good” even applicable here? It’s something. (MS)

Margaret Cho: Assassin

There’s really nothing to compare to a Margaret Cho tongue-lashing, as we see in her latest concert flick, recorded live in Washington, D.C., at the Warner Theater in May 2005. Never one to hold back, Cho goes to work decapitating the Republican agenda while cornering the Christian Right with one raw attack after another—all to the delight of the packed house. This lippy liberal feminist has enough ammunition for George Bush and his cronies, but saves some of her best bits for the gay, lesbian and bi community that she’s clearly proud to be a part of. She speaks her mind about Americans who’ll laugh at Will & Grace, but are dead against gay marriage, taking what they want from gay culture and trashing the rest.

Other memorable moments include comparing a short meeting with John Kerry to talking to one of the Ent tree spirits from The Lord of the Rings, and when she hinted that Laura Bush’s vagina might taste something like Lysol, I did a spit-take right there in the theatre. Although most of the White House humour consists of bits that you may have already heard in one form or another, Cho clowns the house down when she becomes her Korean mother onstage. Complete with hilarious facial expressions, a spot-on accent and stories that only a proud, loving daughter could send up, she proves that she can find the humour in anything. (SC)

November

Director Greg Harrison’s intended psychological thriller is really more of an experiment in storytelling—if, that is, the storyteller is a pathological liar. You see, it’s hard to know what’s supposed to be going on in this picture, and worse, it’s even harder to care.

Courtney Cox and James LeGros play Sophie and Hugh, a likeable couple who, on their way home from dinner, stop at a convenience store to satisfy Sophie’s craving for something sweet. While Sophie waits in the car, Hugh is killed by a nervous burglar inside. Not the way anyone wants to end a nice night out.

What follows appears to be a film about Sophie’s post-trauma journey, an element supported by the use of headings taken from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grieving and by Sophie’s admissions to her psychiatrist. When Sophie, a photography teacher, happens upon an image of the convenience store taken the night of the murder in the slide carrousel of a student’s photography project, she is compelled to investigate the event. And let’s just say there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye. What that is, exactly, is pretty much anyone’s guess until the final act—and even then it’s still pretty much anyone’s guess.

While November is indeed nicely stylized and features some above-average acting, it tries to pack way too much into its 73 minutes to be satisfying. Think Ghost meets The Sixth Sense meets Jacob’s Ladder, but minus the clarity. (AMM)

Saints-Martyrs- des-Damnés

Saints-Martyrs-des-Damnés is Quebec comedian and video maker Robin Aubert’s first film. Hopefully it won’t be his last because there’s a lot of talent in here somewhere, and signs that Aubert has it in him to become Montreal’s Bruce McDonald. But... whoa... what a tragic, goddamned mess of a debut!

A tabloid journalist with an interest in the supernatural, Flavien Juste (François Chénier) sets off for a small town with a reputation for mysterious disappearances. The film gets a little heavy with its Jim Jarmusch influences as Flavien—wearing a shirt that seems to be made from 40-year-old wallpaper—drags his photographer buddy Armand (Patrice Robitaille) on this ill-fated road trip. Aubert has a great gothic sense of rural Quebec and creates some truly funny surreal scenes. He also has a fantastic eye for retro detail—in fact the film will probably spark more speculation as to where he managed to find quarts of Dow beer in this day and age than where the town visitors are actually disappearing to.

Eventually it becomes just too hard to care with a plot that’s so ambitious, it’s uncomfortably amateur. The last half hour is sheer, self-indulgent hell. Too bad because most of the problems in this film could have been solved at the script stage. Maybe what Quebec needs is a film agency that kidnaps young directors and forces them to amputate a good third of their film, or give them the kind of gentle lobotomy that forces them to take themselves a little less seriously. (JW)

DOMINO, MARGARET CHO: ASSASSIN, NOVEMBER AND SAINTS-MARTYRS-DES-DAMNÉS OPEN FRIDAY, OCT. 14

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