My brother produced a movie and this is the trailer. Wrecked is having its North American premier at The Whistler Film Festival on December 4. Click here to buy tickets.

The last few Halloween editor’s letters have tackled topics like the very real time I experimented with cannibalism, the very real time I waterboarded my friends for a laugh and the very real time I was getting disturbing prank calls from a psychopathic killer (turned out the calls were coming from inside my house). To change things up a bit, this year I will tell you the very fake story about the time I was eaten alive by parasites in my sleep. Imagine the terror of discovering you’re sharing your bed with bugs—gross looking bloodsuckers too. A ladybug’s ear they ain’t. You probably can’t imagine because I’m quite confident I’m the first person in Canada to have experienced bed bugs first hand. But, mark my words, they’re coming for you next!

Colin Geddes is the International Programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival. Part of his job is selecting films for the Midnight Madness portion of the festival and updating the Midnight Madness Twitter account. If you made a horror, kung fu or just plain weird movie in the last 13 years, chances are you sent it to
Colin and prayed that he liked it. We had a chance to talk to this extremely busy and influential man before the start of the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.

Jams by Q Lazzarus, Gerard McMann, Das Racist and Devendra Banhart.

Nicholas Gurewitch, who does The Perry Bible Fellowsip, has helped make some animated shorts for the BBC.

Neck Face, one of my fav artists, just had a show open on Halloween in Los Angeles. It was a combination art show, haunted house and skateboard demo put on by the always interesting OHWOW Gallery.

A lot of people dismiss Neck Face as “crude” and/or “juvenile.” That’s actually the best thing about his art. Check out all the work from the show plus a video that captured the whole spectacle. Into Darkeness runs until November 20.

illustration by tyler quarles

Tom Six grossed out the entire planet with his film The Human Centipede. Say what you want about it, but that’s not something a lot of films can boast. The movie is driven by a simple but brilliant premise—a mad scientist wants to stitch three people together to make a human centipede. Talk of the film was on everyone’s lips this year, and if you’re brave enough to watch this David Cronenberg-influenced body horror, I guarantee it’ll stay in your head like a twisted radio jingle. Tom Six recently wrapped shooting on the sequel, and it’s slated to be released early in 2011. I chatted with the good-humoured filmmaker from his home in Amsterdam.

A screwed, and chopped Halloween mix titled Let Me Buy U, Anne Drank Vol. 2 by Babe Rainbow

Collectively, the Japanese are fascinating and hilarious and brilliant. These are all qualities I look for in a good friend. So my goal when going to Tokyo was this: don’t make Japanese people hate me. This is potentially very tough as I have a one-year-old’s understanding of the language and the moment my plane landed, I essentially become a stereotypical tourist who’s snapping photos of inane shit like gas stations and street signs. At least twice a day, for the two weeks I was there, I totally deserved to have someone scream “Hey gaijin, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” But the 13 million of people living in Tokyo were too polite to do that. Thank you for being so patient with me Japan!

Here are some pics I took and some stuff I learned about Japan…

While we’re on the subject, remember that time when you were eating in a restaurant in Seattle before the Daft Punk show in 2007? And you and a buddy thought it was a little strange that the people at the table next to you were speaking French? And, after doing a quick Google image search on your phone, you determined that one of the guys was Thomas Bangalter? Then you went and talked to him and got him to write down his top five current jams plus his all-time fav tune on a receipt?

Yeah, that was awesome.

You were a little starstruck and didn’t scold the man for selecting a track by Darlin’ (his first band) as his all-time favourite tune.

Learn all the Japanese you need to know before visiting Japan after the jump.

You can’t smoke in public in Tokyo but they do have little smoking stations in most areas where you can have one (naturally, you can smoke in pretty much every restaurant). To remind you not to walk and smoke or throw a butt on the ground, there are these great little ads that shame you into compliance.

Before I left town for Japan, I helped launched the Waldorf Hotel’s website. Check it out…
www.waldorfhotel.com

Who’s the most exciting new act of 2010? Funnily enough, the answer is Die Antwoord — or Afrikaans for The Answer. Die Antwoord is a South African rave-rap group consisting of Ninja, Yo-Landi Vi$$er, and DJ Hi-Tek. Their music has the ethnic flavour of M.I.A., the offensive lyrical flow of Eminem, and the eurodance charm of Aqua. Their clothes, hair and tattoos? Not so easy to classify. Thankfully, Die Antwoord has a word for it: zef. Ninja defines zef as “the ultimate style,” but a more apt definition is South African, white trash peacocking.

The braggadocious trio was virtually unheard of outside its homeland until the videos for “Zef Side” and “Enter the Ninja” got posted on the group blog Boing Boing in February. The next day, Die Antwoord was the biggest musical act South Africa had ever produced and a global sensation. Factor in the numbers from all the people who have reposted “Enter the Ninja,” and it currently has around 10 million views on YouTube.

If truth is self-evident, then it should be abundantly clear after watching the videos that Die Antwoord is an amazing new talent. But once the initial awe wears off, a common question people ask is: “Am I falling for an elaborate art school prank?” On the surface, it does seem like you’re watching music videos for the South African equivalent of the Trailer Park Boys. And kudos must be given to Die Antwoord for effortlessly doing a better job at the real/hoax thing than Joaquin Phoenix. But the whole debate is moot — especially with rap, where pretty much every performer has a wacky pseudonym and a larger-than-life persona.

Riding the buzz its videos generated, Die Antwoord did what every viral superstar should do: they flew to Los Angeles, signed with a major label and put on one of the year’s most talked about performances at the Coachella festival. From there, things got even more peculiar. It was confirmed that District 9 director Neill Blomkamp was working on a project with Die Antwoord. It was also confirmed that David Fincher was courting Yo-Landi Vi$$er to play Lisbeth in the English language adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (she turned down the role because it conflicted with her touring schedule, along with her further plans to star in a feature length version of the “Zef Side” video called The Answer).

Die Antwoord’s music, style and rapid rise to fame is so very, very now. It’s almost impossible to imagine this outfit existing at any other time than the present. On Oct. 12, Die Antwoord releases its major label full-length, $O$, and it’s essentially a re-release of an album it was giving away for free with four new tracks. This would be an anti-climatic move by the group if it wasn’t for the penis-laden and very not safe for work music video for the track “Evil Boy” that was just released. Video killed the radio star, but Internet made Die Antwoord video stars, and “Evil Boy” will surely be clogging up your Facebook and Twitter feeds for the next few weeks.

published in The Tyee on October 2010