Tonight I attended the Toronto Film Festival’s Screening of ‘Vulgar’, and let me just say first and foremost, before getting into the screening itself, this movie is FUCKED UP. Fans of Kevin Smith’s brand of Dick and Fart jokes, won’t find too much of it here. This movie is definitely more dark humor, VERY dark even bordering on disturbing at some points. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the movie is still very entertaining, and funny, but it’s very very weird and is definitely a dark comedy. Anyways, the screening was held at Toronto’s very small Cumberland Theatre. The theatre was about the size of your average Mall Theatre, and was pretty packed. The theatre staff even gave out clown noses to everyone in attendance. Pretty Cool.
Kevin and Scott came out to introduce Bryan Johnson (Vulgar’s Director, otherwise known as ‘Steve-Dave’). Kevin told a few quick jokes (”Just a quick note for the ladies, unlike all the other times I’ve been to Toronto, I’m Married, so…I won’t be fucking any of you…sorry”), and then Bryan quickly intro’d the movie, after taking a picture of everyone in the clown noses.
The Movie was good but as I said, very very weird. It stars Brian O’Halloran (AKA Dante Hicks and the rest of the Hicks family) as Will AKA Flappy The Clown, a very down on his luck childrens birthday party clown. Other Askewers that made appearances were: Bryan, Kevin, Scott, Walt, Mewes (to the cheers of meny in attandance) and Ethan Suplee. Also, there’s a Quick Shot of The Stash and even a reference to Walt Flannigan’s Dog!
After the movie there was a Quick Q & A session with Bryan Johnson and Brian O’Halloran. All and All I thought the Screening went well and the general tone was good. Although a few people walked out on it. Bryan Later Commented it was fun to watch the people leave and give him a look as if to say “you dickhead,what’s wrong with you?”. Hopefully this movie will come out on video or DVD, or at least be more widly seen,because it’s definitely worth checking out, even if it caught me a bit off guard.

The movie was playing to a packed house. The theatre seated around 250 people, and not a seat was empty. All in attendance were given red clown noses to wear, and this this would pay off later.
Kevin introduced the movie. He started by cracking a few jokes. First, he apologized to the Torontonian women, saying that since he was last in Toronto, he has gotten married, and therefore would not be sleeping with any of them after the movie. Next, he told an anecdote about Affleck and filming Chasing Amy. Kevin related how Ben would constantly improvise his lines, until Kevin told him bluntly to stop. “If you have such great dialogue”, he said, “why don’t you go and write your own movie?”. The rest, of course is Oscar history.
Kevin then introduced Bryan Johnson. Bryan demanded that everyone put on their clown noses and then took a photo. (Maybe you can convince him to post it?) He thanked everyone for coming and introduced Brian O’Halloran, Monica Hampton and Scott Mosier. After a few more words, the film was shown.
I won’t review the film here, but I will say that the audience reaction was mostly positive. At least, no one left half-way through 😉
After the movie Bryan and the cast answered questions for about 15 minutes. The questions varied from the silly (Q: Brian, how did you prepare for your role? Brian: with plenty of Vaseline) to the interesting (Q: Bryan, are you afraid of alienating the Askew fans by making a movie that is so dark, compared to Kevin Smiths films? Bryan: I do not think so. I am sure I will turn off some people, but I would not dream of simply copying Kevin’s work – that would be wrong.) Unfortunately, despite several questions, Bryan would not give any details about his future projects or other future View Askew projects. He did say that depending on the movie’s reception in Toronto and other festivals, he is hoping to find a distributor. But he did not have anything firm yet. Kevin, by the way, did not participate in the Q&A, perhaps not wanting to take the spotlight from the rest of the team, as his role in the movie was small.
After the Q&A, the cast stayed a few minutes to sign autographs. And that is it!

I was at the Vulgar screening last night in Totronto and I have to say it was an interesting experience to say the least. The movie was screened before a full house to begin with and by the end of the film there were quite a few empty seats. That is not to say it was a bad film (I liked it and I am sure most people who stayed did as well) but the film is VERY DARK. Dark in theme dark in mood and just plain dark in every concievable catagory. The screening opened with a guy from the film festival introducing Kevin and Scott. Kevin said a few words and told a story (I am paraphrasing) about how he has only encouraged two people to get into writing (because he doesn’t need the competition) one being Affleck and he won an Oscar and the other is Bryan Johnson and here we are. he also metioned that this was his first Toronto Film Fest as a married man so he wouldn’t be fucking any of the ladies in the crowd tonight and then intorduced Bryan. Bryan came up and looked really nervous spoke a few words an the film started. After the film Bryan (more relaxed aswered questions and made a few self defacing coments about how he was glad his parents sat up close so they could not see all the people leaving at the back. The film is interesting and I liked it but I didn’t find it a movie that you find yourself laughing out loud even though there were some spots when people did. All in all there is an audience for the film and I am sure people will dig in at Vulgarthon 2000.

Vulgar tells the tale of Slappy the clown a hard-luck children’s performer with an impossibly overbearing mother, a group of obnoxious losers who seem to have nothing better to do than sit on his front lawn drinking and hurling bottles and abuse at him. In a moment of desperation he hits on the idea of becoming a vulgar clown act for stag parties only to have his first clients (a father and two moronic sons) beat and rape him. The rape scene is gratuitously violent and full of inappropriate gags. In fact, that basically sums up the entire movie. Johnson’s script and direction expect us to be able to change gears between far too many tones and stories far too quickly. The effect is similar to going from first to fourth gear and back repeatedly without the benefit of a clutch. About 60 people walked out of this film and I must say I was tempted to join them. The few good scenes are debased and destroyed by ones which occur later and the characters and performances are nothing special. Slappy, real name Will, is a particular problem since Brian O’Halloran who plays him lacks any sense of comic timing, a trait probably important for someone playing a clown. As for Johnson, I can’t fault him entirely as he also gives the best performance in the film; which might have something to do with writing himself the most believable character.
Overall Vulgar is a waste and actually painful to watch (despite repeated audience complaints Johnson insisted on keeping the film at a volume where it was almost an assault on those of us in the front half of the theatre) and offers no validation to those who remain through the end for the Herculean task of enduring it. This is the kind of film which opens on a Friday to a number of cult fans and is buried by its own word of mouth before the Sunday matinees start.

When I went and saw Vulgar, it was Wednesday September 13th, at 10:30 am…the press screening. My friend and I had tickets for the show the night before, but were unable to use them, do to the packed theatre. We were told to come back the next day, and try and get in the press screening. We did. We ran into a hard on of a security guard that wouldn’t hear of any of this, we needed a press pass. He wouldn’t let us in..we thought we were screwed. Then I saw this guy we had met the night before, who was like promoting the film, and he told us to wait outside and he could see what he could do. After about fifteen minute of waiting, and thinking that he wasn’t coming back, he showed up..with one ticket, and even then he said, we might need a pass, so “good luck” he said…”hopefully we see you up there”. Avoiding the guard that denied us before, we walked into where another guard was, and I handed him my ticket, and he said “Up stairs you give it to them” my friend and I took this as our cue, and we headed up the escalator. When we were half way up, another festival guy, asked where our passes were, and we just shrugged and kept going. At the top of the escalator, we see some of the View Askew crew, Scott Mosier, and Bryan johnson, and our promoter dude, that got us. He gave me an approving nod, but we still weren’t in the theatre. I walked over and began talking to Mosier, and told him our sob story. He was all cool, and he got Bryan Johnson to come over, and I talked to him. This is when Bryan Johnson, becomes my hero. He walks over to the Usher watching the door, and tells him to let us in. I could’ve fucking kissed the guy. This was so cool. We were seeing Vulgar with critics, and the media, people from Premiere magazine, and shit. As we were walking in, Kevin Smith was walking out. I said “Smith”, patted him on the back, and headed in. We took two prime seats up front, and what we saw…well…

Bryan Johnson, in his first directorial debut, did an astounding job, the film flowed smoothly, and understanding what was going on was easy. I don’t want to spoil anything for anybody, because I want all your mouths to drop just as much as mine did when I saw it. The twists this flick takes are just incredible, a very original piece of writing, I believe was also done by Johnson. Also, the performances…christ…Brian O’halloran is just incredible as William (Vulgar the clown), and even the director Johnson does a decent job as William’s best friend. Throughout the movie, we meet a slew of characters from the bowels of New Jersey, that take the story to different peaks, and each one of them is pivotal to the story, there are no underlying charcters thrown in for just the hell. Every character who is in the flick, has a purpose, and that’s why I think the movie flows so well. From beginning to end it’s just non stop, no lag, just great dialogue, and action. Look for View Askew references galore, and you’ll see everyone from Walt Flannagan to Kevin Smith in the film. I don’t want to give anything away, because like I said, I want you to be as shocked as I was, but here’s a teaser..Three Cocks. One Ass. Vulgar. See what you can make out of that…