Just
Buried, an
off-beat black comedy about the murderous hi-jinx happening in an
out-of-the-way Nova Scotian funeral home features, as programmer Jesse Wente
said in his introduction, perhaps the most comic movie impaling in recent
history.
The
director, , was on hand along with several cast and
crew members to answer questions after the screening. The first question, one
which was probably on many people?s minds, was how he came up with the idea for
this film.
Thorne
responded: This was actually thought up one night drinking. I have my best
buddy Chris, his wife to thank for it. Jessica said to me one night ?I always
thought a really good idea for a movie would be about a guy who inherits a
funeral home and he has no customers so he has to start killing people?. And
y?know, like six years later I made a movie about it.
One
audience member commented during the Q&A that he loves a smart, dark
comedy, and that Just Buried was the best example he?d seen in a long time. ?Thanks,? Thorne replied, adding
?do you happen to represent a major American distributor??
One
of the funniest moments in the Q&A was when an audience member asked Rose
Byrne, who plays sexy coroner/mortician Roberta, to say her signature line ?who?s
your dirty girl?, in her native Australian accent. Byrne was the only
non-Canadian on cast, but you?d never guess it from her absolutely convincing Canadian
drawl.
The
film screened with a fantastic short called Paradise,
by Jesse Rosensweet (whose previous animated short, The Stone of Folly, won the ). Paradise is a tale of a ?50s era
couple of tin toys who move through their lives on rails, repeating the same
routines day in and day out. Slowly, the veneer of their idyllic lives begins
to fall away, with hilarious and touching results. The amount of emotion
Rosensweet manages to imbue the motionless tin faces with is a real testament
to his mastery of the craft. An absolutely beautiful film!
Catch
both films again on Tuesday Sept. 11 at 9:15am at the Cumberland. Director Chaz
Thorne has also co-written another film screening at TIFF this year, Poor Boy?s
Game
? a stirring drama about racial tensions, forgiveness and loss. It?s premiering
on Tuesday Sept. 11 at 8:15pm at the Varsity.
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