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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 07 April 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

 

CIVIL WAR (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Alex Garland

 

CIVIL WAR is set in a dystopian near future when an ongoing war is being fought between the government of the United States and the Western Forces (WF), led by Texas and California.  Does the division sound familiar?  The story concentrates on a team of journalists who travel across the United States during the rapidly escalating Second American Civil War that has engulfed the entire nation. The U.S. Government has become a dystopian dictatorship and partisan extremist militias regularly commit war crimes.

Among the journalists are a renowned war photojournalist named Lee (Kirsten Dunst), her colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) and Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), an aspiring young photographer who accompanies Lee and Joel on their journey.  Also reluctantly travelling with them is Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson),  a journalist and Lee and Joel's mentor.

The film’s best segment belongs to actor Jesse Plemmons (POWER OF THE DOG, KILLERS OF A FLOWER MOON) who plays a redneck in one 4-minute scene that is well worth the price of the admission ticket  Donned in red-framed red-coloured shades depicting his characters as a redneck, his character is an unnamed soldier who captures two reporters and then asked to free them by the other reporters.  His question: “Where are you from?” would result in an answer promising death or freedom.   Plemmons completely embodies the role of a redneck - crazy, the type that would storm Capitol Hill in the name of America for whatever ridiculous cause he believes in.

Director Garland does not skimp on the violence or length of the violent scenes.  The result is a tough and disturbing watch that reflects the troubles faced by the current somewhat divided America, as seen by the eyes of a British (Garland is British) outsider, and what could happen.  The poster describes the film as an adrenaline-fuelled thrill ride through a near-future fractured America balanced on the razor’s edge.

The other segment demanding mention is the climatic storming of the White House where the then President of the United States is about to be assassinated by the Western Forces (WF).  What would the President (played by Nick Offerman) look like?  More like Trump or Biden?  The answer is left to be very last end with the image of the President being shot while him making a last quote for the reporters.

CIVIL WAR never seems to amaze as director Alex Garland (King of dystopian society stories) has always a surprise or two up his sleeve as in his previous films.  Garland wrote the novel THE BEACH which was made into the Tilda Swinton/Leonardo DiCaprio film and screenplays like 28 DAYS LATER, 28 WEEKS LATER and SUNSHINE, also directed the 2014 film EX MACHINA).  Forget the film’s flaws like the somewhat incredible premise or the unexplained reasons behind certain segments.

CIVIL WAR cost $50 million to make, making it A24’s most expensive film to date.  had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 14, 2024, to a positive response. It is scheduled to be released in the United States by A24 and by Entertainment Film in the UK on April 12, 2024

Trailer: 

 

THE GREATEST HITS (USA 2023) *

Directed by Ned Benson

 

Find the right song, change your past.  Find the right person, change your future,  These are the two captions on the film’s poster that totally describes the entire film, not that it is not predictable enough. 

 Harriet (Lucy Boynton) finds art imitating life when she discovers certain songs can transport her back in time – literally. While she relives the past through romantic memories of her former boyfriend (David Corenswet), her time travelling collides with a burgeoning new love interest in the present (Justin H. Min). As she takes her journey through the hypnotic connection between music and memory, she wonders – even if she could change the past, should she?

The dialogue is often downright silly.  One is assumed to be moved by dialogue like: “I wish I do not like you,” says Harriet to which David replies: “I wish I do not like you too.”

The silliness of the film’s romance is matched only by the silliness and non-credibility of its premise.  It does not take a genius to foresee the outcome of what can be classified as a totally formulaic Harlequin-type romance.  Harriet will eventually come to items with the present and fall in love with David.  Though predictable, there is a little neat plot ploy in the script near the end of the film.

One can hardly blame Lucy Boynton for this awful film, as she does her best given the horrid material.  The same can be said for actors David Corenswet who gets mainly to show his abs and Justin H. Min who plays Harriet’s lovers.  The film stops short of any sex scenes, and the chemistry between the couples is barely credible at best.

More interesting than the fantasy plot is the examination of Harriet’s two male boyfriends,  Harriet must love facial, hair as both share fascial hair - David with a mustache and the dead boyfriend, Max with a mini-beard.   Max is more stubborn and would not generally agree or listen to what Harriet says while David is more accommodating,

Totally boring, predictable and a boring excuse for a romantic fantasy, THE GREATEST HITS is a Fox Searchlight picture that heads head straight for streaming where one can be grateful that this dud has stayed out of the theatres.

THE GREATEST HITS will be streaming exclusively on Disney+ in Canada on April 12th, 2024

Trailer: 

HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS (Poland, Serbia, Australia, Croatia, Kosovo, North Macedonia and United States 2023) ***

Directed by Goran Stolevski

 

Dita (Anamaria Marinca) is forced to raise her girlfriend's two daughters even though she has never aspired to be a mother.  HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS is a touching tale about an odd family's battle to be together emerges when their separate wills collide.

It would be hard to imagine a more hectic and disruptive household than Dita’s.  There are so many ‘members’ of the household as there are problems.

The film disproves the saying that a family is one that one cannot choose.  Dita chooses hers - both straight and queer, mostly queer,   Despite lofty aspirations, director Stolevski has taken too much on his plate with one issue with one family member tossed in and out of another.  At times, it is difficult to follow all the members of the extended family.  Dita is also over-patient and over-kind, something that is quite hard to accept given the circumstances.  Despite its flaws, the saving grace is the performance of Anamaria Marinca as Dita.

The film tackles a few world issues like human trafficking, poverty, and LGBT+ issues as well as social issues like familial relations.

The film premiered on 6 September 2023, at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Queer Lion. It was selected as the Macedonian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

The film is shot in Albanian, Macedonian and Romani with English subtitles.

HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS opens in theatres on April 5th.

Trailer: 

IN BED (Keilu ein mahar) (Israel 2022) ***½

Directed by Nitzan Gilady

 

IN BED is set over a hallucinatory 24 hours, the line between violence and intimacy getting dangerously tried following a shooting during a Tel Aviv parade in writer/director Nitzan’s  (WEDDING DOLL, his first feature in 2015) giddy, erotic thriller drama.

Tel Aviv, the then present day. Two friends, Guy (Israel Ogalbo) and Joy (Moran Rosenblatt) are taking part in the city's LGBTQ+ Pride Parade celebrations.  Prepared for a night of hookups, drugs and dancing, their fun is suddenly cut short when a violent shooting sends everyone in the crowd running for safety.   The shooting is real real-life incident that occurred in Tel Aviv.  Fleeing the scene into the safety of Guy's home, they take in a fellow pride parader, Dan (Dean Miroshnikov), a fellow parade attendee, and bring him back to Guy's apartment to wait out the mayhem. A manhunt for the shooter begins outside. Back in Guy's apartment, however, the three are determined to still have a good time. Still in shock and with plenty of drugs at their disposal, a dark, sex-fuelled odyssey begins. As the drugs continue to distort his perception, a paranoid and strung-out Guy discovers the line between intimacy and violence is getting dangerously blurred.

Speaking from experience as a gay partier in his younger days, IN BED brings a lot of wonderful personal memories and experiences.  For one, the world-renowned DJ Offer Nissim is credited as providing the original music for his film.  Offer Nissim is one of the best DJs in the world, who has performed in Toronto at FLY in one of the best nights ever at FLY. (I was there when he DJ’ed.)  FLY was packed solid and every partier there just had a small space to dance but everyone, me included had the best time ever.  It was the BEST FLY night ever in Toronto.  Offer Nissim, being an Israeli Jew brings his experience and energy to the film  The film begins with popular gay anthems heard on the soundtrack as Joy and Jay head for the streets to celebrate Israel's Gay Pride.

Director Gilady does everything hit for this gay drama and thriller, capturing the super-charged energy of a Pride parade from the points-of-view of young honey partiers with colourful atmosphere, costumes and of course uplifting music from DJ Offer Nissim.

The happy delirium is interrupted by the gloom brought by the gunner in what the news denounces as a disgrace to Israel.  The paranoia can be seen in the emotions of Dan, who is shaking with her, made worse by his intake of drugs during the parade.  The film is based on a real-life shooting that occurred in 2009 in Tel Aviv,  What makes it so scary is the public being told that the suspect could have come from the LGBTQ+ community.

There is a scene in which Joy gives Guy a hard-on in the bathtub they are sharing.  Joy almost induces Guy to have sex with her but Guy says: “This is wrong.”  This best-friend relationship between the female and gay male makes total sense and hits a truthful spot in many best-friend relationships.  The scene is a subplot to the story but a real and emotional one.

IN BED, a sexually charged gay dramatic thriller with exhilarating party mixes by world-famous DJ Offer Nissim is a must-see for every gay partier!   IN BED opens on VOD/Digital Platforms on 4/12.

Trailer:

IN FLAMES (Canada/Pakistan 2023) ***

Directed by Zarrar Kahn

 

IN FLAMES is set in present-day Karachi, the capital of Pakistan centering on a medical student, Mariam (Ramesh Nawal) as she struggles to keep her family together while being stalked by forces she can’t entirely understand.  She is grieving the fresh loss of her grandfather and doing her best to support her grieving mother (Bakhtawar Mazhar) and brother (Jibraan Khan) while preparing for her upcoming exams.  It does not help that she is suffering from fainting spells that require her expensive medical costs.  The mother claims Mariam had asthma as a child but never as severe as she is suffering  now

IN FLAMES is a female film in which the females have to struggle and fight to survive in a cruel male chauvinistic world.  The male threat comes in a number of ways from her uncle, an incident involving a man throwing a brick at her car to the man masturbating in front of Mariam’s window.

The estranged uncle (Adnan Shah Tipu) re-enters their lives and declares himself their new patriarch, making noises about handling their finances out of the kindness of his heart. Mariam’s mother is grateful for the help. Mariam, on the other hand, sees disaster looming, warning the mother not to sign any documents.  She fears, and with reason that he intends to secure the family’s property.

Meanwhile, Asad (Omar Javaid), a charming fellow student freshly back from Canada, offers the possibility of romance and security, but even that is fraught with its own specific dangers.  And after a motorcycle accident, Mariam finds herself even more alone and vulnerable. Something seems to be stalking her through the streets, something that never quite comes into focus but whose presence she can feel at every turn.

The film occasionally feels like a horror movie because many scenes are shot in the dark with many of them involving Mariam’s nightmares, when she wakes up screaming or unable to breathe.  The use of a religious faith healer also creates the feel of the supernatural.  But the greatest horror occurs in Mariam’s real life.  Her exams are approaching but instead of spending time studying, she suffers trauma, personally for her breathing attacks and missing Assad and filial with the relationship wither mother topped with financial difficulties.  No one would wish to be in her place.

Director Khan’s film is a slow burn with a slow but effective build-up of tension and trauma for Marian.  It does not help that she is living in squalor with broken and dirty walls and neighbouring dirty streets.  Assad’s accident is only heard but not seen, an accident that occurs in the dead of night and so nothing is seen by the audience.

Nawal and Mazhar both deliver strong and powerful performances as the traumatized and desperate daughter and mother.

The film had a prestigious premiere at the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes followed by screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival.  The film opens on April 12th,  2024.

Trailer: 

 

 

LOST ANGEL: THE GENIUS OF JUDEE SILL (USA 2022) ***½

Directed by Andy Brown and Brian Lindstrom

 

Within the first 10 minutes of Judee Sill’s biopic doc, the audience already learns that she is a heroin addict, served time, did armed robbery (actually saying: This is a fuck up, mother sticker!) and a singer/songwriter of exceptional talent who sadly died of a drug overdose.  What follows is a detailed life story of Judee Sill as she rises to fame and how she got to where she did.

Judith Lynne Sill (October 7, 1944 – November 23, 1979) was an American singer-songwriter. She was influenced by Bach and wrote lyrics drawing on Christian themes of rapture and redemption.

Sill was the first artist signed to David Geffen's label Asylum. She released her eponymous debut album in 1971, followed by Heart Food in 1973. In 1974, Sill recorded demos for a third album, which was never completed.  Sill was fired from her record label for calling Geffen a fat fag in public, something she regretted and tried to apologize for, that Geffen never forgave.

The doc is made up mainly of archive photos and the use of archive interviews.  There are only a few montages of Sill, mainly in her performances.   Added in, are some animation sequences to add flow to the material.

One of the very insightful segments that highlight the film, undoubtedly is the breaking down of the composition of her song ‘The lamb ran away with the crown’ as Judee sings it.  Again this is yet another one of her wonderful songs.

 She had a long-term relationship with the poet David Omer Bearden, who contributed lyrics to Heart Food and toured and performed with her.  The doc dedicates a fair amount of time to this troubled relationship.   Sill dedicated Heart Food to him.  As Asylum's first published artist, Sill also had a close friendship with David Geffen and wrote "David Geffen, I love you" in the sleeve for her first album.  Their relationship soured after comments she made in frustration about not receiving enough promotion for her second UK tour.

After a series of car accidents and failed surgery for a back injury, Sill struggled with drug addiction and dropped out of the music scene.

Judee Sill is a name that many including many singer/songwriters have not heard of, not for want of talent but for her many misfortunes that prevented her genius from being famous.  This biopic does justice to the genius and work of Sill and includes quite a few renderings of her songs that should help promote her fame in the music business, if never too late.

There is life after death.  Sill struggled with addiction for much of her life and died of a drug overdose in 1979. She did not find commercial success, and no obituary was published; however, several artists have since cited her as an influence. Her demos were released with other rarities on the 2005 collection Dreams Come True.

LOST ANGEL: The Genius Of Judee Sill opens in Theatres, on Digital and on Demand (Apple, Amazon, Vudu, major platforms) in the US and Canada on April 12.

Trailer: 

THE PEOPLE’S JOKER (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Vera Drew

 

THE PEOPLE’S JOKER parodies characters from the Batman comics, and the main character is a transgender woman based on the Joker, played by co-writer and director Vera Drew.  in a dystopian world monitored by electronics and cameras by Batman after his retirement, a young child grows up in Smallville, Kansas idolizing the performers on a sketch comedy program, UCB Live. The unnamed protagonist's mother (Lynn Downey) is disturbed when her child asks, "Was I born in the wrong body?" and immediately books a session with Dr. Crane (Christian Calloway) of Arkham Asylum, who prescribes Smylex: a drug that forces its users to put on a happy face, even if they feel depression, anxiety, or gender dysphoria.  This explains the origin of the film’s Joker.  The villain of the piece is a closeted gay Bruce Wayne who had abused Mr J (Kane Distler) as a child.

The film’s main story is set fifteen years later.  Joker has grown up and moves to Gotham City to join the cast of UCB Live, where a computer designates him a male Joker, who will be allowed to have an individual identity in the cast, unlike the women, who are all assigned to be nameless Harlequins that serve as back-up dancers. The process to become on-air talent includes paying $15,000 and enduring improv comedy classes from UCB cast member Ra's al Ghul. The hero strikes up a friendship with Oswald Cobblepot, another struggling comedian who cannot afford the entrance fee and the duo decide that they will instead make their own comedy troupe. To avoid rules that outlaw unapproved humour, they will call their act "anti-comedy".

Joker falls in love with Mr. J, a fellow member of the Red Hoods Gang.  How does Penguin know that?  “Do you want me to introduce the two of you?”  “How do you know?: asks Joker.  Because you’re laughing at a joke is so bad I wouldn’t tell  and cartoon hearts are popping out of your  eyeballs.”   As in this sequence and in many others in the film, the film is all over the place, grabbing at straws at humour and inventiveness.  “Acting like a slut while looking like a bitch” are the words of one catchy song that bursts out of nowhere.  All this could be either a plus or a negative for audiences, depending entirely on how one wants to look at it.

Drew takes the film one step further with Joker falling in love - and with a trans.  They talk about love while riding a boat through an amusement park’s Tunnel Of Love. (HR Hugginhink’s Funny Tunnel Of Love, it is called).

The controversial film had an equally controversial release.  According to Drew, "a media conglomerate" sent her "an angry letter (misreported as a 'cease and desist') pressuring them to not screen" shortly before the premiere.  Some media outlets assumed this to be Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company to DC Comics, but neither Drew nor Warner Bros. have confirmed this.  On September 14, 2022, a day after the film had premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, subsequent screenings of the film were cancelled.  The TIFF website stated, "The filmmaker has withdrawn this film due to rights issues.

THE PEOPLE’S JOKER opens in Toronto with these upcoming Toronto dates:

Apr 12-13 / Toronto, ON @ Fox Theatre

Apr 27 & 30 / Toronto, ON @ Revue Cinema

Trailer: 

PURE O (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Dillon Tucker

 

PURE O stands for the words Pure Obsessional, a crippling form of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).

OCD is an offensive word that is used to describe someone who worries a lot about small details and has a strong dislike of anything that is not perfect or to describe the behaviour of someone like this.  It is best to know the definition of the term before venturing into the film.  Wikipedia offers this timely description: Compulsions are repeated actions or routines that occur in response to obsessions to achieve relief from anxiety. Common compulsions include excessive hand washing, cleaning, counting, ordering, repeating, avoiding triggers, hoarding, neutralizing, seeking assurance, praying, and checking things. People with OCD may only perform mental compulsions such as needing to know or remember things. While this is sometimes referred to as primarily obsessional obsessive–compulsive disorder (Pure O), it is also considered a misnomer due to associated mental compulsions and reassurance-seeking behaviours that are consistent with OCD.

In PURE O, a rehab counsellor (Daniel Dorr, FURY, 20th CENTURY WOMEN) questions his sanity when he is diagnosed with a crippling form of OCD known as Pure Obsessional. With the help of his friends, a therapy group, and his addiction recovery clients, he discovers the life-affirming power of community to fight through the darkest moment of his life.

“You will get better,  In this community, we help each other.”  These are soothing words to a person just diagnosed with who finds it extremely difficult to understand the state of anxiety he is in.

Compulsions are repeated actions or routines that occur in response to obsessions to achieve relief from anxiety.   Common compulsions include excessive hand washing, cleaning, counting, ordering, repeating, avoiding triggers, hoarding, neutralizing, seeking assurance, praying, and checking things.  A few of these are demonstrated in the film.  People with OCD may only perform mental compulsions such as needing to know or remember things.  While this is sometimes referred to as primarily obsessional obsessive–compulsive disorder (Pure O), it is also considered a misnomer due to associated mental compulsions and reassurance-seeking behaviours that are consistent with OCD.   The rehab counsellor in the film constantly suffers from the thought of hacking his fiancé Emily and then committing suicide.  Besides him, the sufferings of the other members of his support group are also brought into focus.

PURE O, as expected is not an easy watch due to its subject.  In terms of educating the audience director Tucker, who himself suffers from OCD does a tremendous job.  Actor Daniel Dorr delivers a credible and nuanced performance.  But the film suffers from an ending in which director Tucker tries too hard resulting in a condescending tone that undermines an otherwise sincere effort.

PURE O was nominated for the Grand Jury award at 2023 SXSW and received critical acclaim. Script Magazine called it "vulnerable, honest, and remarkably, it feels real, “ and Signal Horizon said the film is “ one of the most poignant and optimistic films I have ever seen.”  PURE O opens Friday, April 12 - Digital release on major platforms.  Territories: US, Canada, UK.

Trailer: 

STOLEN (Sweden 2024) ***
Directed by Elle Marja Eira 

 

STOLEN tells the all-important indigenous story of the Sami people of Sweden, reindeer herder.  As in many films on indigenous people, it is always land or something close to land that is the focus of the story, like Martin Scorsese’s FLOWERS OF THE KILLER MOON.  Less epic in scope with a much smaller budget arrives the Swedish entry STOLEN directed by Elle Marja Eira and written by Peter Birro and based on Ann-Helen Laestadius’ book.

The film works better in the first half where the audience sees herds of reindeer and is introduced to a family of herders treated by unknown forces.  It helps that the story unfolds from a young indigenous girl’s point-of-view made even more pressing when her pet reindeer calf is killed right in front of her eyes.  STOLEN also Dackels current issues like climate change the ecosystem and the infringement of rights of indigenous people including prejudice, colonization and the suppression of the Sani language in English colonized schools.

The film centres on a Sami family that is made of Elsa, Mattias, Nils Johan, Marika, and Ahkku.  Much like the rest of their tribe, the family’s livelihood depends on reindeer. But someone is slaughtering and beheading them, and the police and society are doing nothing about it.  Since it’s customary for every member of the Sami to mark a reindeer, by making a small slice off its ear,  little Elsa chooses a white calf and is told by her mum that the animal is not her's butt borrowed from Mother. Things seem to be going fine until one fateful day, Elsa witnesses a man called Robert brutally murder her calf that she had named Nastegallu and he walks away unscathed after committing such a crime.  Young Elsa sees the culprit but is unable to say anything due to trauma.

STOLEN opens for streaming on Netflix on Friday 12th of April.

Trailer: 

WHAT JENNIFER DID (UK 2024) ***1/2

Directed by Jenny Popplewell

  The face of Evil

When Jennifer Pan calls 911 to report that her parents have been shot, she becomes the primary focus of a captivating criminal case.

WHAT JENNIFER DID is a film title that will arouse one’s interest.  What did Jennifer do?  The Netflix original doc opens with two intercept segments.  One has a teenage Jennifer at the police station recounting what happened that night at her family house in which her parents were shot - her mother dead and father wounded in the head and hospitalized.  The other segment is the 9-11 call and police arrival at the home.  The voiceover informs that this is a case that the police have never seen before and never suspected where it would lead.  If the voiceover claims that the crime is close to home - it is.  The crime took place in a residential home in Avenue Roadi in  Markham, Ontario, which is very close to her this film reviewer used to live,  From the beginning the doc works like a murder thriller mystery - very much like the recent fictional film THE ANATOMY OF A MURDER that won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for its director, Justine Triet and co-writer in which the wife of the prorated fall of her husband, dead from the balcony fall b echoes prime suspect of a murder.  “I did not kill him,” Sandra Huller who plays the wife insists.  Did Jennifer shoot her parents?  What did Jennifer do? is the question asked to the audience of this documentary.

The doc is made up of re-enactments, reviews and archive footage.  Except for actress Samantha Chang who plays young Jennifer, the cast from Alan Cooke who plays the homicide investigator, Bill Courtice as the lead investigator, Deborah Gladding and the victim liaison officer to Jennifer’s friends are all played by themselves seen in interviews or through archive footage,

The film is shot in English and in a bit of Vietnamese as the family arrived from Vietnam.

By inevitable comparison with THE ANATOMY OF A MURDER, the way WHAT JENNIFER DID unfolds with lots of cliches from the false clues to the crime investigation.  Ironical the fictitious ANATOMY has a predictable outcome but is generally free from cliches.

The film includes details about the Vietnamese Pan family which enhances the interest of the film.  The doc is directed and also written by Jenny Popplewell (AMERICAN MURDER: THE FAMILY NEXT DOOR (2002).  The family owns two cars a Mercedes and a BMW.  The mother does line dancing and is an auto manager while the father is a machinist.  Jennifer is seen as racist as she describes her ‘attackers’ as black and one with a Jamaican accent,

The doc originated from the U.K. with a Canadian setting.

WHAT JENNIFER DID, a Netflix original documentary that opens for streaming this week is intriguing for its content -  a crime drama depicting evil in its vilest form, its good execution as a documentary and its immigrant family subjects.

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Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 03 April 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

ALAM (The Flag)(France/Tunisia/Palestine/Saudi Arabia/Qatar, 2022) ***

Directed by  Firas Khoury

 

Director Khoury looks at the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from the eyes of youth, five Israeli-Palestinian high-school classmates — struggling under the burden of forced forgetting — weigh the risks involved in remembering a different history.  They live in an Israeli-occupied country.  Marked each year by celebrations, Israel’s Independence Day coincides with the commemoration of Al-Nakba (the Catastrophe) — the day Palestinians memorialize their dispossession and displacement. For Tamer (Mahmoud Bakri, a member of the acting dynasty begun by veteran Palestinian performer Mohammad Bakri) and his high-school friends — Safwat (Mohammed Abd El Rahman), Shekel (Mohammad Karaki), and Rida (Ahmed Zaghmouri) — the social and psychological dissonance of being Palestinian in Israel is a daily struggle that is only heightened in the lead-up to Nakba Day.  The film concentrates on Tamer, who has a romantic fling but stays away from the over-used coming-of-age story.  Not much of a story - only about a flag that initiates violence, the film is a sincere and honest look at the forever never-ending conflict.

Trailer:  

BOY KILLS WORLD (South Africa/Germany/USA 2023) ****

Directed by Moritz Mohr

 

When his family is killed, a deaf man named Boy escapes to the jungle, where he is trained by a mysterious mentor to enact vengeance on the murderers.  Bill Skarsgård stars as "Boy" who vows revenge after his family is murdered by Hilda Van Der Koy (Fame Janssen), the deranged matriarch of a corrupt post-apocalyptic dynasty that left the boy orphaned, deaf and voiceless.  Driven by his inner voice, one which he co-opted from his favourite childhood video game, Boy trains with a mysterious shaman (Yayan Ruhian of THE RAID) to become an instrument of death and is set loose on the eve of the annual culling of dissidents.  Bedlam ensues as Boy commits bloody martial arts mayhem, inciting wrath of carnage and blood-letting.  As he tries to get his bearings in this delirious realm, Boy soon falls in with a desperate resistance group, all the while bickering with the apparent ghost of his rebellious little sister, the one who has disappeared and the one he has sworn allegiance to.

There might be little nuance to this mayhem, but heaps of heart, particularly in Boy’s naive sincerity. 

Of the cast, one will recognize South African actor Sharlto Copley (DISTRICT 9), a veteran of weird South African films who plays a wacko spokesman for Van Der Koy.  In addition, the story includes to other compelling characters,  Jessica Rothe as a hardened enforcer who communicates via her sick LED motorcycle helmet, and a hilariously mumbly Isaiah Mustafa, whose frequent exposition transforms into surrealist asides on account of Boy’s bad lip-reading

If the action martial arts flick BOY KILLS WORLD shares the same mayhem as the best of Sam Raimi’s horror and action films, it is the fact that Raimi serves as one of the producers of this film.  The actioner stars Bill Skarsgard, all handsome with a chiseled and muscled physique, brother of Alexander and son of Stellan Skarsgard.  Bill marks another feature debut of Bill after the two Stephen King IT horror films.

The action sequences though appearing chaotic are well shot and exciting enough - if not too violent.  The climactic fight has two good guys fighting the very powerful shaman villain, something similar to combining forces to fight an extra strong villain, as in King Hu’s memorable DRAGON INN.  There is also a twist in the plot that seems a bit too fantastic to believe, so much so that one wonders whose side Boy is on.  Boy is totally drenched in blood and cuts in the climactic fight scene.

BOY KILLS WORLD looks like another cheap run-of-the-mill martial arts flick but it surprises and succeeds as fresh, hilarious and exciting entertaining.  The plot could be dismissed as crazy rubbish but this crazy rubbish is excellent crazy rubbish.  Highly recommended as a crazy mayhem action film!  The film premiered in the Midnight Madness Section of the Toronto International Film Festival last year and turned out to be a surprise gem.

BOY KILLS WORLD opens only in theatres on April 26th.

Trailer: 

 

CHALLENGERS (Italy 2024) ***** Top 10

Directed by Luca Guadagnino

 

Luca Guadagnino is an Italian film director and producer known for his 'desire' trilogy films I AM LOVE, A BIGGER SPLASH and CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, the latter film that shot Timothee Chamalet to fame. His films are characterized by their acute observations, emotional complexity, eroticism, and sumptuous visuals and if anything else, always something to look forward to.

The three characteristics of Guadignino’s films emotional complexity, eroticism, and sumptuous visuals are not only present in CHALLENGERS but pushed to their limits.

Written by frequent collaborator Justin Kuritzkes (including their next film QUEER), the plot follows a professional tennis champion, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) who plots a comeback with the help of his wife, Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), a former tennis prodigy who retired after an injury, as he goes up against another player, Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor), who also happens to be his former best friend and wife's former lover. Nothing more should be revealed in the story except that her strategy for her husband's redemption will take an unexpected turn.

The chemistry among the three stars is stellar, their performances bouncing off each other like the balls of a winning tennis match.  In preparation for her role, Zendaya spent three months training with pro-tennis player-turned-coach Brad Gilbert.  Gilbert also served as a consultant on the film.  As can be observed in many of her tennis games in the film, Zendaya serves a wicked backhand, using both hands and completing it with a full backswing over her shoulder.  As for O’Connor, his serves seen from the starting point from the back of his shoulder are impressive.  As for Faust, he makes two jumps over the tennis net, once when goofing around and another when running to Tasho’s rescue after her knee injury.

Thai cinematographer, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (who has worked on the films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul such as in UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES) shoots the tennis matches with verve and style.  There are many excellent framed shots, the best of which shows the two tennis combatants Art and Patrick to the left and right with Tashi, watching their match in the centre of the same frame though they are distances apart.  The climatic overhead shots of the two players over the net make the perfect ending.

The film’s music score deserves mention.  The film's original score was composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.  A remixed version was released in collaboration with Boys Noize.  The sound mixing alternating between intensity and also alternating with silence is very effective in shifting the mood of a scene.

If one wonders what the movie is about or who is the main character, then director Guadagnino and writer Kuritzkes have achieved their goals.  Art and Patrick play tennis or are they playing a love match for the prize of Tashi?

Romantic comedies are this reviewer’s least-liked genre but the romantic thriller is another ball game,  CHALLENGERS, best described as a romantic thriller hits the mark, making CHALLENGERS Luca Guadignino’s best film so far.

CHALLENGERS opens only in theatre on April 26th.

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CITY HUNTER (Japan 2024) **
Directed by Yûichi Satô

 

CITY HUNTER is based on the manga series "City Hunter" by Tsukasa Hojo (published 1985 - 1991 in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump).  It was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1985 to 1991, with its chapters collected in 35 tankōbon volumes.  The manga was adapted into an anime television series by Sunrise Studios in 1987. The anime series was popular in numerous Asian and European countries.  City Hunter spawned a media franchise consisting of numerous adaptations and spin-offs from several countries.   The latest is this latest live-action film adaptation from Japan opening this week on Netflix.

The series follows the exploits of Ryo Saeba, a "sweeper" who is always found chasing beautiful girls and a private detective who works to rid Tokyo of crime, along with his associate or partner, Hideyuki Makimura.  Their "City Hunter" business is an underground jack-of-all-trades operation, contacted by writing the letters "XYZ" on a blackboard at Shinjuku Station.

One day, Hideyuki is murdered, and Ryo must take care of Hideyuki's sister, Kaori, a tomboy who becomes his new partner in the process. However, Kaori is very susceptible and jealous, often hitting Ryo with a giant hammer when he does something perverted. The story also follows the behind-the-scenes romance between Ryo and Kaori and the way they cooperate throughout each mission.

The film follows a similar premise.  Set in present-day Shinjuku ward, Ryo Saeba (Ryohei Suzuki) works as a "sweeper." He likes beautiful women and when he sees one, he doesn't hesitate to talk to them. Nevertheless, when he receives a request from a client to carry out a mission, he does excellent work with his elite gunman skills, physical ability, and cold attitude. After Ryo Saeba's partner Makimura is killed, he begins to work with Makimura's sister Kaori (Misato Morita). They form a new team to uncover the truth behind his death.

At its best, the cinematography and filming of Shinjuku are impressive, sometimes raining, looking like the set of BLADE RUNNER.   The crowd scenes and the mayhem ensuing are all executed with style and excitement.

But the film has a too cartoonish effect, which likely suits the manga and animated previous versions.  The lead character is played by Ryohei Suzuki with maniac childishness, downplaying the seriousness of the kidnapping and the huge crime at hand.  The humour is less funny when executed coming across as silly and infantile.

The fact that Rio loves sexy girls does not help the film’s image as well.  The film comes across as male chauvinistic and sexist with girls portrayed below their potential.  Ryo cannot control himself as the saviour of Shinjuku, flirting with all the girls and any pretty girl who happens to fall in his path.  Ryo has few redeeming qualities except that he kicks the butt of the bad guys.

The film’s story is simple enough to follow for a manga film, but nothing out of the ordinary.  The action set pieces are satisfactorily done.

CITY HUNTER looks like manga and with its production values could have been a better film under more capable hands that favours a more forward execution.

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THE DOOMSDAY CULT Of ANTARES DE LA LUZ (Chile 2024) ***

Directed by Santiago Correa

 

The first and yet most disturbing cult sacrifice in Chile!

  The crime committed in this documentary is the sacrifice of a 2-day-old baby by a religious cult.  When the doc begins, it talks about the hierarchy of crimes committed.  The worst of which will be punished in prison when the prisoners themselves will kill those imprisoned for the worst of crimes.  The prisoner convicted of sacrificing a baby would never survive.  In this disturbing and revealing doc, the psychology and reason behind the crime is examined, from the point of view of a crime journalist, who claims that she is interested in what goes behind the commitment of the crime.  Ultimately, the motive behind the crime was not the usual motive for example of stealing a car or of a crime of passion.  The motive behind this crime was saving the world.

The title of the doc comes from the leader of the cult who’s himself the name Antares.  Ramón Gustavo Castillo Gaete was a Chilean musician and leader of a doomsday-oriented religious sect stationed in Colliguay, a rural area in the Valparaíso Region, where he claimed to be the second coming of Jesus and was known as "Antares de la Luz" (from Spanish, "Antares of the Light”).  In 2012, one of the cult members, 25-year-old Natalia Guerra, became pregnant with his child, who he believed to be the Antichrist. Castillo's infant son was ultimately immolated in a bonfire on 23 November of that year as a human sacrifice, to prevent the supposedly incoming end of the world on 21 December 2012.  After Chilean authorities were informed of the murder in April 2013, a nationwide manhunt headed by the Investigations Police of Chile began, which soon spread to neighbouring Bolivia and Peru, the latter of which where he hung himself to evade capture.

This doc works primarily for the enormity of the crime and the curiosity behind the motive behind the crime.  The look at human nature and behaviour behind what happened is the most intriguing as to what is the reasoning behind the man who calls himself Antares is made to act the way he did.

The doc also plays like a part courtroom drama.  As Antares’ followers were at the scene of the crime where the 2-day-old infant was killed and tossed into the fire, they faced a trial for manslaughter.  Would they be found guilty?   The defendants’ lawyers argue that they could not act on their own will, being manipulated to think that Antares was God.  On the other hand, the prosecutors believe that this crime should not go without any punishment.

The story from start to finish is told from the mouth of one of its main followers, Pablo.  Pablo describes in chilling detail how he was fed the plant drug, hallucinating and seeing visions thus making him think Antares is God.  It is intriguing to see how Pablo could be so easily convinced of the falsity and indeed many wold have followed the same.  Not shown is the death of hanging by Antares, thus escaping the punishment due to him.

 

THE FEELING THAT THE TIME FOR SOMETHING HAS PASSED (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Joanna Arnow

 

THE FEELING THAT THE TIME FOR SOMETHING HAS PASSED follows Ann (Arnow), a 30-something Brooklynite who passes time in her long-term BDSM relationship, low-level corporate job and quarrelsome Jewish family, with Ann’s parents, played by Arnow’s real ones.  For nine years, Ann has been involved as a submissive partner with an older man (Scott Cohen) who can’t even remember what college she attended (Wesleyan, Arnow’s alma mater).  Ann decides to move on to other men (including one who wants her to wear a pig costume) and finally meets someone with whom she might find love.  Director Arnow is unafraid to go all out for her film including revealing her own full frontal; nudity. Director Arnow is fond of using the style of Director Roy Andersson, especially in his use of deadpan humour and stationary camera.  This is clearly an Arnow’s styled film, with the auteur serving as the star, writer, director and editor of the film.  Though not autobiographical, the press notes claim that the film is based on the filmmaker’s experiences. 

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HACK YOUR HEALTH: THE SECRETS OF YOUR GUT (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Anjali Nayar

 

The doc HACK YOUR HEALTH: THE SECRETS OF YOUR GUT often feels like a Biology lesson.  It begins by telling us the importance of the gut, then explains microbes, particularly the Mirobione.  What is more interesting is of course, how all this affects human beings.  The doc treats the subject lightly, often including cutesy animation in order to make a point.

The microbiome is the community of microorganisms (such as fungi, bacteria and viruses) that exists in a particular environment. In humans, the term is often used to describe the microorganisms that live in or on a particular part of the body, such as the skin or gastrointestinal tract. These groups of microorganisms are dynamic and change in response to a host of environmental factors, such as exercise, diet, medication and other exposures.  The doc praises the 9% good bacteria in our bodies.  So for humans, bacteria that live in your gut help in the digestion of food, and bacteria that live on your skin help to break down the lipids to produce a natural moisturizing factor for your skin. These microbes that live on your skin or in your gut are also wonderful in providing colonization resistance. They're basically taking up all the space so that the pathogens that might want to try to invade humans don't have the opportunity, and that's really our greatest protection against microbes that want to colonize us but don't help in our health.

The microbiome affects each individual human being differently.  To prove the point, the doc interestingly picks several different people who are interviewed to talk about their bodies:

• one Japanese cannot feel hunger.  He can eat but never feel the satisfaction of having eaten and is envious of the fact that people can feel that they are full.  His full-time job is competitive eating.  The doc includes a clip with him doubling down on hot dogs.
• one black woman complains about her weight.  She says she has tried everything to lose weight but whenever she loses weight, she gains more than she had lost.
• a white girl complains about the pain she feels in her gut.  She has that pain forever and it hurts her ever so much
• one is a pastry chef who can eat nothing but vegetables, which makes her job increasingly difficult.  She does have a craving to eat a hamburger and rare beef.

The 4 subjects’ microbiomes are studied as their brains are observed during an MRI conducted with each person with food pics shown to them,  As expected, each individual’s brain reacts differently,

Most of what can be seen in the doc is available out there in books and of course on the internet.  But the film gives us the pleasure of having assembled all the information together, making learning about gut education, entertaining and of course useful.

HACK YOUR HEALTH: THE SECRETS OF YOUR GUT is a Netflix original doc opening for streaming this week.

HUMANE (Canada 2024) ***
Directed by Caitlin Cronenberg

 

HUMANE is director Caitlin Cronenberg’s feature debut, written by Michael Sparaga.  If the director’s last name sounds familiar, that is because Caitlin is the daughter of horror master David Cronenberg and the sister of Brandon Cronenberg.  Her film will be much anticipated for this reason and might be judged a little too harshly.

The film is a dystopian satire taking place over a single day, mere months after a global ecological collapse has forced world leaders to take extreme measures to reduce the earth’s population.   Lack of essentials such as drinking water is no longer a problem in poor countries but for everyone due to reasons like overpopulation, careless use and global warming.  “All international borders will be closed and all countries will have one year to meet their population reduction goals.”  This is the voice heard (Colm Freore’s) as an announcement by the Government at the start of the film.  In the wake of this environmental collapse that is forcing humanity to shed 20% of its population, a family dinner erupts into chaos when a father's plan to enlist in the government's new euthanasia program goes horribly awry.

Director Caitlin takes the film down to a more personal level.  In a wealthy enclave, a recently retired newsman, Charles York (Peter Gallagher) has invited his grown children (a host of Canadian actors led by Jay Baruchel of GOON) to dinner to announce his intentions to enlist in the nation’s new euthanasia program.  Right after dinner before the children leave, the euthanasia people led by Bob (Enrico Colantoni) appear at the door to carry out their duties.

As it turns out, although Charles and his wife, Dawn Kim (Uni Park from KIM’S INCONVENIENCE) have agreed, Dawn has chickened out and disappeared.  Dawn insists that a replacement be made by one of the other members of the family.

The film takes a direct stab at ex-President Trump.  Trump has blamed the pandemic on the Chinese without much proof.  Blame is Trump’s strategy in the Pandemic rather than finding a solution, resulting in many hate crimes among Asians in the U.S.  In the film, The blame of the ecological collapse is again blamed on Asians resulting in the hate crime of Ann’s Asian restaurant burnt down to the ground.

“We are hardly family, ” says Rachel (Emily Hampshire), one father and daughters, “I only see you one or two times a year during family birthdays.  I know more about the girl who does my nails.”  When told that they have to decay on a replacement, an all-out war begins in which each member distrusts every other and tries to kill off a sibling to survive and have a larger inheritance.  Director Caitlin ups the ante with a bit of violence that includes stabbing and swiping to the head with a walking cane.

Director Caitlin shows total control of her material as her film succeeds in maintaining a constant atmosphere of seriousness and desperation, even though the premise is futuristic and hypothetical.

Trailer: 

UNSUNG HERO (USA 2024) *

Directed by Richard Ramsey and Joel Smallbone

 

Warning!  UNSUNG HERO is a faith-based film that many would avoid!  And with reason.

UNSUNG HERO begins with the caption on the screen - This is a true story.  Most films would state that it is based on a true story.  The fact that this statement reads “this is a true story’  upholds the fact that the message of the film would be straight in one’s face, and for the worse of it.  The company behind the film is called For King + Country which implies a faith message is forthcoming.

When David Smallbone's successful music company collapses, he moves his family from Australia to the United States in search of a brighter future.  With nothing more than their six children, their suitcases, and their love of music, David (for KING + COUNTRY's Joel Smallbone) and his pregnant wife Helen (Daisy Betts) set out to rebuild their lives from the ground up.  Based on a remarkable true story, the mother's faith stands against all odds; and inspires her husband and children to hold onto theirs.

True story or not, the fact does not make for a good film or even a compelling one.  Just because UNSUNG HERO is termed a true story does it make the film a credible one.  It depends on how the film unfolds with regard to performances, story buildup, atmosphere, music and others.  UNSUNG HERO turns out incredibly boring right at the one-hour mark and it does not take a genius to figure out how things will eventually turn out for the Smallbone family.

The Smallbones is a family with 6 children.  The script does not make any attempt to distinguish any one child from another, except for the eldest daughter who turns out to be the star singer.

The film has a more female slant, the family is held together more by the mother rather than the father whose pride gets in the way. The family is also saved from poverty by the daughter.

There are quite a few faith-type messages in the story.  One key message is the strength of the family and how the family needs to stay together despite all odds.  The other is the strength of the church as the Smallbones are helped with donations from the church.  The vanity of Pride is yet one of the other messages.  David has immense pride that almost causes the downfall of the family.

The film contains a few songs, that are supposed to be chart-busters.

UNSUNG HERO is the typical faith-based feel-good movie that critics detest for the main fact that it is manipulative, cliched, artificial and unoriginal.  This is not to mention that the music is scored so that it tells the audience how to feel and react at different parts of the film.

UNSUNG HERO plays like it is staged by a Sunday Day School teacher for her Sunday School class.  And it feels like an adult forced to sit through a Sunday School lesson.  UNSUNG HERO opens on April 26th.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 30 March 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

ABIGAIL (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is best to enter the screening of the new Universal Pictures horror comedy ABIGAIL with no prior knowledge of the film or story whatsoever.  Of course, this is clearly impossible as the film’s poster gives it away, not to mention the hype that has been going around the film already.  Yes, ABIGAIL (Alisha Weir) has superpowers, that of a vampire and she does away with her kidnappers with ghastly violence one by one.

But even if one knows this fact, the directors can still make use of the fact to their advantage.  Take Alfred Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS or Steven Spielberg’s JAWS.  The first sight of the attacking birds or shark does not appear till the second half of the film,  prompting the audience's anticipation.  In the same fashion director Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett tease their audience with Abigail’s first revelation of other powers during the film’s second half.

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are to be credited for their ability to blend horror and fun.  The script contains lots of laugh-out-loud humour as well as genuine scares that will keep the audience at the edge of their seats quite so often.  The laughs are often goofy and driven by the often hilarious cast ensemble.  Take, for example, one of the kidnappers, Dean (Angus Cloud) suddenly appearing in Sammy’s (Kathryn Newton) room saying: “I saw the way you looked at me.  Maybe we could…” to which Sammy replies: “Get the fuck out of my room!”  or the heavy, Peter the Quebecois (Canadian Kevin Durand) running to bash down a heavy door unsuccessfully, only to remark: “It is locked.”   Durand is the funniest of the lot and steals every scene he appears in.   From the film’s excellently crafted beginning where the 12-year-old ballerina, Abigail is first seen rehearsing in a huge empty theatre to the music of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake before she is kidnapped, the film is never short of excitement and laughs.  The script by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick which is smart and funny combined with the excellent timing of the directors proved a deadly combination.

The assorted gang of misfits are all unknown to each other and given fake names just as the crooks in Quentin Tarantino’s RESERVOIR DOGS were given colours in order to each other.  The other misfits are Frank (Dan Stevens) and Joey (Melissa Barrera) and Rickey (William Catlett).

Cineastes will be thrilled with the nods to many famous films including DRACULA’S DAUGHTER, OCEAN’S ELEVEN (The Rat Pack), RESERVOIR DOGS, TEN LITTLE INDIANS (…AND THEN THER WERE NONE) and every Dracula movie among others.

The story involves the misfits putting their stupid prejudices and mistrust aside and working together to outsmart Abigail, who is the main predator.

Though the climax drags on a little at the end, there is a neat twist with a surprise appearance.   The film is dedicated in loving memory to actor Angus Cloud who plays Dean in the movie.

ABIGAIL opens everywhere in theatres on Friday, April 19th.

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE (USA 2020) ***
Directed by Jen Rainin and Beth Medow

Curve (magazine) is global lesbian media.  The magazine covers news, politics, social issues, and includes celebrity interviews and stories on entertainment, pop culture, style, travel, and a website that hosts an internet forum focusing on lesbian issues, active since 2000.

The film focuses on the beginnings of the magazine as seen from the eyes of its founder, known amicably in the doc as Franco, who is in almost every frame of the film.  Frances "Franco" Stevens in San Francisco in 1990, first published Curve as Deneuve but was renamed in 1996 after a trademark dispute with French actress Catherine Deneuve.  The film says the magazine was so called because Franco had a cat called Deneuve and the magazine name translated means ‘new’.  But the film does include an image of the lesbian vampire film cover THE HUNGER which starred Catherine Deneuve.  

Diane Anderson-Minshall was editor-in-chief when the magazine was acquired in October 2010 by Australian media company. Avalon Media.Merryn Johns became Curve's editor-in-chief.  With the change in ownership, Curve became headquartered in Sydney, this fact not mentioned in the film.

The doc works best when it deals with the magazine itself - its contents, the difficulty of it being made, how it grew in popularity and what type of articles made its sell.  This provides insight to those working in magazines particularly gay themed ones, like Dragon Magazine and Banana Magazine, two Toronto gay Asian magazines (like Curve) that catered to a niche gay target audience.  This reviewer started his film reviewing career writing for free for Dragun Magazine that lasted less than three years.  Curve covers articles of importance, often getting gay women in politics to submit articles or well known personalities who have come out to agree to be on the cover.  When Budweiser and Subaru advertised with Cure, the magazine became more mainstream and popular.  The doc also documents many lesbians from small town America who probably were the only gays in the village.  They claim that the magazine was their only connection to the gay world.

The film also follows its founder, Franco, talking about the magazine.  Franco goes about in a motorized wheelchair as a result of an accident of boxes falling on her feet.  

Nothing is also mentioned of other gay magazines, particularly the male ones that would either complement or be in competition with Curve.  Curve magazine got a bit of free publicity when it tried to out gay actress Michelle Rodriguez.  Many then, got to hear of the magazine for the first time.  Nothing in the film was mentioned about the controversy, which made a big impact on Curve.  It is quite clear that the editor and publisher of Deneuve/Curve are not well versed with legal and business practices.

Like the magazine Curve, the film would have limited appeal being catered to the niche target audience of lesbians.  But the directors make a conscious effort in making her doc more widely appealing in its content.   The result is an interesting and insightful documentary that affects more of the LGBT community.  A fair bit of screen time is devoted on the importance of LGBT rights.  Ex-President Trump again, rears his ugly head in passing back the law that lets employers fire LGBT employees.

AHEAD OF THE CURVE opens on NETFLIX ON APRIL 22 marking the start of LESBIAN VISIBILITY WEEK 2024

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BLOOD FOR DUST (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Rod Blackhurst

 

BLOOD FOR DUST is a 2023 American action crime thriller film written by David Ebeltoft and directed by Rod Blackhurst.

In noir fiction form, Cliff (Scoot McNairy), a traveling salesman drowning under the weight of providing for his family and the myth of the American dream, finds himself on a dangerous path after a chance encounter with Ricky (Brit actor Kit Harrington playing an American role), a colleague from a dark past.  By accident, Cliff meets Ricky at a strip club and this is where the trouble starts.  Trafficking guns and drugs are now on the agenda, which Cliff keeps from his woman.

Noir fiction stories are characterized by their use of dark and gritty realism, exploration of moral ambiguity, and often the use of unconventional narrative structures.   The atmosphere created in the film is definitely on the side of the nitty, gritty realm especially when Cliff travels from small town to small town frequented by visits to seedy bars and equally seedy strip clubs.  Cliff’s characters are flawed (drinking and having an affair) and compromised, as are the characters generally found in noir crime novels by authors like James Ellroy  (L.A.CONFIDENTIAL), who could pretty much be the writer of this piece.  Credit is to be given to scenarist David Ebeltoft.  Cliff is an honest salesman who has avoided the temptation of going into the shady business but he has a hard time providing for his family.  The first half of the film is devoted to bringing out Cliff’s haricots and surroundings giving the film a solid atmosphere and placing.  The film is set and shot in (Billings) Montana.   The film thus possesses realism and psychological depth though it might require a bit of patience due to its slow burn.

The owner of the New England Patriots American football team, Robert Kraft, is one of the richest men in America and a political crony of Donald J. Trump. In 2019 he was arrested for visiting a day spa in Florida where he paid sex trafficked women for illegal sexual services. The sex-trafficked women working at the day spa were arrested, charged and convicted of prostitution.  A privileged white man gets away with breaking the law while accepting no responsibility for his actions or choices and is then allowed to proceed in all of his ways with impunity. While the real victims were punished. Because that’s America and America is broken.

BLOOD FOR DUST is director Blackchurst’s creative reflection of this truth and a film for our current moment about the desperation so many of us face as we struggle to provide for the ones we love and change our stars in the face of systems, institutions and power all designed to disenfranchise and beat us down

Director Blackhurst builds the suspense and suspense to a climactic shoot-out at the end.   BLOOD FOR DUST has garnered favourable reviews in general and should satisfy both action fans and crime nori fans, but more of the latter.

BLOOD FOR DUST opens in elect Theatres & Digital on April 19.

 

 

Trailer: 

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (Romania/Luxembourg/ France 2023) ****

Directed by Radu Jude

 

The director of BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN returns with a much ruder piece with a milder title DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD.

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD  paints a very bleak picture of the world, particularly Romania but doused with a hilarious adulterated sense of humour.  The capital Bucharest is where most of the action takes place, shown as an overcrowded city where traffic is found and with run-down buildings and rubble often seen around the city.  The residents talk about trash not collected for months with rats running around yet they say that the world is shit but the people are good.

The film has been presented as a tale of Cinema and Economics in Two Parts: "Overworked and underpaid, Angela drives around the city of Bucharest to film the casting for a 'safety at work video' commissioned by a multinational company.”  This part "A" of the film also contains edited elements of a 1981 film about a lady taxi driver in Bucharest (Angela played by Lucian Bratu) and Angela's own Tiktok videos. Part "B" consists of the shooting of the safety promotion campaign video in front of the entrance to the chosen employee's factory.

Are these people in director Ray Jude’s movie good people?  Maybe they are but they do not show the fact as they are extremely rude.  The main protagonist is Angela (Ilinca Manolache), a bombastic production assistant working 16-hour days while, on her own time, honing a quippy online brand featuring her alter ego, a self-pronounced friend of misogynistic media personality Andrew Tate, currently facing human trafficking and other charges in Romania.  Angela is first shown totally nude waking up in the morning, with the camera now shying away from her tattooed body.  “Blonde skank,” is what one driver calls her.   Angela has her own curse words at motorists: "Why’re you so nervous?  You should get treatment.”  Or “You are hurrying to your own funeral!”  If not cursing she is telling horrible jokes. “What did the blind man say at the fish market?”  “Hey, girls!“  But Angela is shown, despite her outwardly rude personality to have a kind side.  She gives money to a needy beggar while drinking her coffee and chiding the cafe’s owner for chasing the beggar away.

The film’s title comes from an aphorism from the Polish poet Stanisław Jerzy Lec.  The film touches on labour, exploitation, death, and the new gig economy. Part comedy, part road movie, part montage, it is a film that is innovative, fresh, hilarious and a solid satire if not being too rude and naughty.

The film though running a bit long at 163 minutes, is so, much bad guilty entertainment that one wishes it not to end.

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD premiered at the 2023 Locarno Film Festival on 4 August 2023, where it received the Special Jury Prize.  It opens in Canada on April 19th.  In Toronto, slightly later -  May 4 at TIFF and Carlton Cinemas.

Trailer: 

FOOD, INC. 2 (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo

 

The filmmakers never intended to make a sequel for 2008’s doc Food, Inc. – the Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning documentary that showed viewers how the food system could be changed with ethical shopping. 

So what has changed since 2008 that warrants the making of a sequel?   The number one reason is the Pandemic that occurred that changed the world, especially in terms of food supply and distribution and second are the changes in food production in the small handful of multinational corporations.

The first film targeted two large companies, Monsanto and Perdue.  Monsanto was revealed for its unethical practices in the introduction of genes into plants in what is now known as (GMO) genetically modified crops.  The doc also revealed that Perdue Farms harvested chickens in the cruelest of ways.

FOOD, INC. 2 contains lots of information that continues to anger the public, especially with the growth of the fast food industry since the 1950s.  From the mistreated immigrant workers (the audience is informed of workers tied to their transporting vehicles) to the minimum wage workers in fast food restaurants ( a black woman is interviewed as saying she can hardly support her family, resorting at one point to sleeping in her car).

The food companies are nothing more than businesses wishing to satisfy their shareholders.  Bigger sales, mean eating more and bigger earnings.  Food is sold everywhere including clothing stores where racks of candy are placed near the checkout counters.  The doc also addresses ultra-processed foods.

Most of what is seen in the docs is nothing really new.  FOOD, INC. 2 like the first FOOD , INC. seems to be throwing at the audience any material it can get its hands on.  But this might be understandable as there have been so many violations by the multinationals.  But there are the details in the practices that are new and disturbing.

One of the most interesting details involves the company PepsiCo initiating a research study as to the correlation between energy and sweeteners.  When the researchers showed results that PepsiCo was not happy about, the company claimed that the results were incorrect and removed funding instead of using the results to improve their products.  This behaviour though totally intolerable is expected as why would a company spend money to harm its image instead of improving its sales?

The doc ends, as many docs do, on an optimistic note, in both plant and animal food farming.  One is the justification of soil fertility with animals consuming plants while putting them back into the soils and the other deals with the farming of an alternative seafood source such as kelp farming,

If there was a message from the two FOOD, INC. docs, the message from the 2008 film, the same message holds for the sequel, which would be to push the government for better controls and power by the FDA and USDA, and to eat more organic food.

FOOD, INC. 2 opens April 19 in Toronto (Hot Docs Cinema)!  The film also opens throughout the spring in other cities.

Trailer: 

INFESTED (VERMINES) (Frane 2023) *** 1/2

Directed by Sébastien Vanicek

 

` Spiders have always freaked humans out as creepy crawlers.  One can imagine the horror of a spider killed and dozens of little baby spiders crawling out of the mother’s body. It is no surprise that spider horror movies are almost a genre in itself with films like ARACHNOPHOBIA, EIGHT-LEGGED FREAKS, TARANTULA, EARTH VS. THE SPIDER, most of them not very good.  From France, premiering at Cannes last year arrives INFESTED (previous title: VERMIN), arguably the best of the lot, and is as creepy as hell.

The film has a solid good build-up of suspense and thrills to the final climax.  It begins with the introduction of the deadly spider nested in the sands of a sweltering desert.  A group of Arabs hut for these creates and one shoots for jot having discovered a nest only to be killed by one jumping and stinging him on his face.  A few of these spiders (not tarantulas as they look different) are captured in small boxes and sold as exotic pets.  One comes into the hands of Kaleb (Theo Christine), a teen Arab living in a Paris suburb.  The visually striking buildings where the action is set are the Picasso arenas in Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris, designed by architect Manuel Núñez Yanowsky in the 80s.

Kaleb is about to turn 30 and has never been lonelier. He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, infesting the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.

The script that is co-written by director Vanicek and Florent Bernard devotes a lot of time to the characters of Kaleb and his sister and friends (friends that argue, fight, and call each other names half the time).  The dialogue is crisp and ripe with swear words and slang, the way the living marginally speak, creating an atmosphere of credibility as well as sympathy for those living at the edge of poverty.  The word putting can be heard dozens of times.  Putting is French for whore but it is more used s a curse word for ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’.  The janitor, an old Asian lady is bullied by the resident youth, but is rescued in one scene by Kaleb only to be scolded by her instead of her thanking him.  Such is life!  Will the band of so-called friends and family of Kaleb band together to find the new menace of their apartment building?  The spiders reproduce rapidly within the hour with offspring much larger than their parents.  The result is infestation.

The spiders are partly created by CGI with some of them actual real creatures.  Director Vanicek keeps his film smart, fun and scary, a sure-fire formula for a successful spider horror movie.

INFESTED is the first feature film for director Sébastien Vanicek, who had directed a few shorts before.  The film was nominated for two Cesars, for Best First Feature and Best Visual Effects.  Vanicek has pitched the movie to producer Harry Tordjman, who loved it and introduced him to Netflix.  They loved it as well and thought the movie deserved a theatre release before ending up on Netflix, which is a big deal in France as the minimum legal delay in 2023 between a theatre release.  INFESTED is available for streaming on Shudder Friday, April 26th with a special screening on the 24th at the TIFF Lightbox.

Trailer:  

 

IRENA’S VOW (Canada/Poland 2023) ****
Directed by Louise Archambaul

 

IRENA’S VOW follows her solemn silent and personal vow Irena makes when she witnesses a German officer killing an innocent Jewish baby by crushing it with his military boot.  It is a terrifying scene that makes the entire audience gasp in shock and sets the raison d’ete for Irena’s actions for the film..  In occupied Poland, a former nurse (Sophie Nélisse) risks her own life to shelter a dozen Jewish men and women from the Nazi war machine.  The setting is Warsaw, 1939: when the Nazis invade Poland, and nurse Irena Gut (Sophie Nélisse) is displaced and forced to work in support of the German war effort, eventually assigned to run the home of a Nazi commandant (Dougray Scott) where she hides the Jews.  Director Archambaul keeps the tension mounting throughout from start to end, with the fear that the Jews will be discovered at any moment.  But one knows Arena survived since the film is based on her story.  The film shows the triumph of the spirit over impossible odds, all made the more astonishing that the story is all true.  One of the best Canadian films of 2023.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 29 March 2024

HOT DOCS 2024

 

 

Just Announced—2024 Festival Full Line-up!   The 2024 Hot Docs Festival's full line-up is officially out! With 168 documentaries from 64 countries and 83 world and international premieres, this year’s Festival will showcase compelling stories of visionary filmmakers and intriguing subjects from Canada and around the world, offering you an unparalleled opportunity to engage with a wide range of topics. From the opening night screening of Luther: Never Too Much to Big Ideas presented by Scotia Wealth Management to the $50,000 Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary, the 31st edition of the Festival will bring you a wide range of programs and events to celebrate the finest documentaries together. Members' and package holders’ exclusive booking window is now open! Become a member or buy a 12- or 20-ticket package today and book your must-watch documentaries before single tickets go on sale to the public on April 2.

 Capsule Reviews of Selected Docs:

THE BONES (Canada/Germany 2024) ***½

Directed by Jeremy Xido

Paleontology is the study of ancient life, from dinosaurs to prehistoric plants, mammals, fish, insects, fungi, and even microbes.  For fans of JURASSIC PARK, this is the doc to be watching!   It reveals the true evidence of the world of fossils by traversing the globe alongside paleontologists (one featured in the doc has a role in Spielberg’s JURASSIC PARK) on a quest to unearth dinosaur fossils that may hold the key to save humanity from extinction. It is shown that the bones disappear into the hands of fossil dealers, who stand to make millions by selling them on the open market.  A cinematic adventure that reaches from the Mongolian Gobi Desert to the floor of a Paris auction house, "The Bones" exposes the clash between science, post-colonial reckoning, and hard-nosed capitalism.  Educational inspiration in a field that very few know about.  THE BONES arrives as a special screening at Hot Docs on Friday, May 3rd, 7:30 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 7.

Trailer: 

 

 

THE DAY ICELAND STOOD STILL (Iceland 2024) ***½

Directed by Pamela Hogan

 

  THE DAY ICELAND STOOL STILL is October 24, 1975. On this well-planned and orchestrated day, 90 percent of Iceland’s women walked off their jobs and out of their homes.  Fed up with the gaping inequity between the value of women’s labour and women’s wages, female employees, wives and mothers just stopped—stopped working, cooking, cleaning and looking after their children—together on that fall morning.  The country came to an abrupt standstill, but a revolution had begun. Fascinating archives and inspiring animation accompany new interviews with the women and activists who were there that day. Through interviews and archive footage, the film documents the days before, on and after what the women call “Strike Day”.   Like Strike Day, this is a well-documented and orchestrated feel-good film that would have both genders cheering for the victory of women in the workforce which is equivalent to a citron for mankind.  Iceland is at present the country in the world with the most female equality.

 

DEVI (Nepal/South Korea/UK 2024) ***

Directed by Subina Shrestha

 

This doc is all about Devi.  The doc follows Devi as she interviews other rape victims and how she copes with her injured past.   In 1997, 17-year-old Devi’s life took a harrowing turn. Arrested during the onset of civil war in Nepal, she was accused of rebellion, subjected to torture, and endured the unimaginable trauma of rape while in custody. Branded a “victim,” Devi faced the weight of social stigma and battled depression and isolation. Her story didn’t end there, however. Devi is an immersive vérité film (the doc plays just as it is, with little or no theatrics or dramatics) that follows her remarkable journey. From joining the rebel frontlines to ascending through the ranks and eventually serving as a member of parliament after the war’s end, Devi defied all odds.  The doc shows how difficult it is to make a change in society where men accept this fate of women.  Devi complains, and with reason that three of her attackers are now serving in Parliament.  How then can there be change?   But with all due respect to DEVI, the doc repeats itself too often with Devi making same complaints again and again.

 

THE FABULOUS GOLD HARVESTING MACHINE (Chile/Netherlands 2024) ***

Directed by Alfredo Pourailly de la Paz

 

This doc about the father/son relationship spans more than 5 years from the time the father, nicknamed Toto suffers health problems from the strenuous work of extracting the precious metal manually to the success of the son’s making of his fabulous gold harvesting machine to make the gold harvesting job easier.  The setting is Tierra del Fuego in Chile, Toto’s 60-year-old body cannot take it anymore.  But he has to work to earn a living with the little income he gets from his artisanal gold-digging process is just enough to sustain himself. He fears he might die but at the same time loves life. His son, Jorge, is quite the mechanical genius while also proving himself an apt rodeo rider in one scene.  Nothing fancy but nothing wrong in this doc that moves like a home movie mostly narrated by Toto himself.

(Screening: Apr 28 04:00 pm, Apr 30  08:30 pm)

 

THE HERE NOW PROJECT (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel

 

Every doubling in the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the temperature of the earth by 4C.   The HERE NOW PROJECT consists of videos taken by people in the year 2021.  The doc tells the story.  Witnesses to environmental phenomena pick up their phones to share this moment with the world.  Drawing from thousands of hours of in-the-moment footage, Emmy Award–winning filmmakers Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel chronicle the year 2021: a pivotal chapter in the fight against our new climate reality. Seen through the eyes of everyday people around the world, The Here Now Project transforms the common act of shooting a cell phone video into an act of resistance.  The state of Texas is under a winter storm warning; a tropical cyclone hitting Southern Indonesia for the first time; swarms of locusts destroying crops in Kenya; and intense pollution in the Sea of Marmara, Turkey; these are just a few of the videos capturing the catastrophes due to climate change around the world,  Warning: Because these are people’s videos, they contain everyday people’s language like: “Holly F***!” “Colder than a miner’s arse.”  and of course, the very common saying, “You must be f***ing kidding me!”  Evoking a sense of agency and celebrating the power as a population, the film captures the simultaneous, global nature of climate change and highlights the deep human resilience, resourcefulness and courage needed to confront it. At once epic and intimate, its message is clear: We’re all in this, together.  A mesmerizing and unforgettable doc!

NEVER LOOK AWAY (New Zealand 2024) ***½

Directed by Lucy Lawless

 

The doc NEVER LOOK AWAY celebrates famed photojournalist Margaret Moth, warts and all.  Born in Gisborne, New Zealand, as Margaret Wilson, she got her first camera at age 8.  Moth covered the Persian Gulf War, the rioting that followed Indira Gandhi's assassination, the civil war in Tbilisi, Georgia, and the Bosnian War. She had been described by colleagues as quirky, tough, fearless and funny.  The doc works avoids being a biopic by omitting Margaret’s past.  When the first boyfriend (the17 year-old), Jeff Russi asks Margaret of her past, her reply is that she had forgotten.  So, no mention of her childhood is found in the doc.  Risks come with a price.  No one is invincible - Margaret Moth included,  In July 1992, Moth was shot and severely wounded while filming in Sniper Alley in Sarajevo.   Director Lawless also goes personal, trying to understand the woman who faces danger and dismisses family life.  What is behind her anger?  Why is her background leading to this state?  

ROUGE (USA 2024) ***

Directed by Hamoody Jaafar

 

The basketball doc is all about basketball, so non-basketball players might want to stay away though the filmmakers try to include other issues like racial prejudice and black poverty into the equation.  The coaches and players of Rouge River High School are examined.  The doc is more successful in looking at the school coaches who are an inspiration for the younger players.  In the 1950s, legendary high school basketball coach Lofton Greene led the racially integrated River Rouge High School Panthers to a record number of state championships in a league of otherwise segregated schools. Now, almost 70 years later, LaMonta Stone, a former Panther himself, has returned to the struggling industrial town of River Rouge, Michigan, to coach the Panthers as they chase the school’s 15th State Championship. Stone and three of his star student-athletes, including seniors Brent Darby Jr. and Ahmoni Weston, and junior Legend Geeter, strive to fulfill generations’ worth of work on and off the court by preparing for their next chapter of life.

THE STRIKE (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Joebill Munoz and Lucas Guilkey 

 

THE STRIKE tells the story of a generation of California prisons as they endure decades of solitary confinement and, against all odds, launch the largest hunger strike in US history. Told through intimate interviews and archival verité footage, the film goes beyond making a case against solitary confinement by illuminating the power of organizing this prisoner-led resistance, and in doing so, flipping the true-crime genre on its head

The strike refers to a hunger strike, inspired by reading about Bobby Sands who protested with a hunger strike till he died after 66 days.  The doc reveals how it took years before the strike began.  The ex-prisoners say that they are already dead, so what is there to lose?  And how do the prisoners who enter the hunger strike communicate among themselves?  THE STRIKE is an extremely engrossing doc for the mere fact of how human beings can be so cruel to another in the name of punishment.  Informative, educational and scary, THE STRIKE should serve as an important and urgent message to generally be kind to one another.

 

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 26 March 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

 

INFESTED (VERMINES) (Frane 2023) ***  1/2

Directed by Sébastien Vanicek

 

` Spiders have always freaked humans out as creepy crawlers.  One can imagine the horror of a spider killed and dozens of little baby spiders crawling out of the mother’s body.  And it is of no surprise that spider horror movies are almost a genre in itself with films like ARACHNOPHOBIA, EIGHT-LEGGED FREAKS, TARANTULA, EARTH VS. THE SPIDER, most of them not very good.  From France, premiering at Cannes last year arrives INFESTED (previous title: VERMIN), arguably the best of the lot, and is as creepy as hell.

The film has a solid good build-up of suspense and thrills to the final climax.  It begins with the introduction of the deadly spider nested in the sands of a sweltering desert.  A group of Arabs hut for these creates and one shoots for jot having discovered a nest only to be killed by one jumping and stinging him on his face.  A few of these spiders (not tarantulas as they look different) are captured in small boxes and sold as exotic pets.  One comes into the hands of Kaleb (Theo Christine), a teen Arab living in a Paris suburb.  The visually striking buildings where the action is set are the Picasso arenas in Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris, designed by architect Manuel Núñez Yanowsky in the 80s.

Kaleb is about to turn 30 and has never been lonelier. He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, infesting the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.

The script that is co-written by director Vanicek and Florent Bernard devotes a lot of time to the characters of Kaleb and his sister and friends (friends that argue, fight, and call each other names half the time).  The dialogue is crisp and ripe with swear words and slang, and the way one living marginally would speak thus creating an atmosphere of credibility as well as sympathy for those living at the edge of poverty.  The word putting can be heard dozens of times.  Putting is French for whore but it is more used s a curse word for ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’.  The janitor, an old Asian lady is bullied by the resident youth, but is rescued in one scene by Kaleb only to be scolded by her instead of her thanking him.  Such is life!  Will the band of so-called friends and family of Kaleb band together to find the new menace of their apartment building?  The spiders reproduce rapidly within the hour with offspring much larger than their parents.  The result is infestation.

The spiders are partly created by CGI with some of them actual real creatures.  Director Vanicek keeps his film smart, fun and scary, a sure-fire formula for a successful spider horror movie.

INFESTED is the first feature film for director Sébastien Vanicek, who had directed a few shorts before.  The film was nominated for two Cesars, for Best First Feature and Best Visual Effects.  Vanicek has pitched the movie to producer Harry Tordjman, who loved it and introduced him to Netflix.  They loved it as well and thought the movie deserved a theatre release before ending up on Netflix, which is a big deal in France as the minimum legal delay in 2023 between a theatre release.  INFESTED is available for streaming on Shudder Friday, April 26th with a special screening on the 24th at the TIFF Lightbox.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 25 March 2024

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THE ANTISOCIAL NETWORK (From Memes to Mayhem) (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Giorgio Angelini and Arthur Jones

 

A Netflix original documentary the film begins with words that would make anyone sit u, listen and watch this somewhat intriguing documentary:

You can fix code but you can’t fix people.

The weakest part of any system is the people that put it together.

The jokes (made on their system) that they made would turn into conspiracy theories.  This misinformation has reshaped society,

(we) started something and never intended for it to end this way.

And now I am trying to clean up my own mistakes.

A meme is a word that has been popularized lately and practically unheard of in the past an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or a genre of items that is spread widely online, especially through social media.

A group of lonely teenagers formed an online community and bonded over their isolation, but their collective beliefs warped reality.

Despite the doc having its tech-savvy subject, the film adds its human emotional element by including a bit about the personal lives of the three who invented this antisocial network.  Their stories are narrated by the subjects themselves and they share the common element of being lonely and misplaced kids with alter-personas on the net.  All are tech-savvy and know the ins and outs of social networks.

In terms of information education, there is quite a bit of this doc especially in Japanese culture as in the the worlds of Otaku and 2channel, as explained in the film.

Most of the voiceovers provided by the three subjects create a more credible platform for their stories.  Directors Giorgio Angelini and Arthur Jones clearly and constantly include tactics like animation, colour and dialogue to keep their audience glued to the subject,

THE ANTISOCIAL NETWORK (From Memes to Mayhem) is a socially relevant and informative doc that is both relevant and entertaining in today’s internet culture,

THE ANTISOCIAL NETWORK won the audience award at the Documentary Spotlight Section at the SXSW Film Festival.  A noteworthy doc to be seen that opens for streaming on April 5th on Netflix.

 

BAGHEAD (UK/Germany 2023) **

Directed by Alberto Corredor

 

Written by no fewer than 3 writers Christina Pamies, Bryce McGuire and Lorcan Reilly and directed by Alberto Corredor in his debut feature based on his short film in 2017 with the same title, BAGHEAD (not to be confused with the 2008 Mark and Duplass comedy) bears a certain similarity to the acclaimed horror TALK TO ME which by inevitable comparison proves to be the inferior movie, not for want of trying.

There is a certain attractive scare of the image of someone with a sack over his head.  When the sack is pulled up, the head of a different person can be conjured up, or even maybe the head of a monster.  This premise must have inspired the filmmaker to conjure up BAGHEAD.  A few other scary scenarios are added in - the picture of a prisoner tied down and unseen in a dark basement; an inheritance of evil; the signing of a contract that cannot be invoked and a shapeshifter.  To create a more human emotionally effective story two human elements are added.  One is a father/daughter lost relationship and the other is a girl/girl relationship between the protagonist and a girlfriend (the word lesbian is never mentioned but the lesbian relationship is assumed).

Following the death of her estranged father (Ken Loach’s regular actor: Peter Mullan), Iris (Freya Allan) learns she has inherited a run-down, centuries-old pub.  She travels to Berlin (as this is a German co-production, though hardly any German is seen or spoken) to identify her father's body and meet with The Solicitor (Ned Dennehy) to discuss the estate.  Little does she know, when the deed is signed she will become inextricably tied to an unspeakable entity that resides in the pub's basement - Baghead (played and voiced by Anne Muller) - a shape-shifting creature that can transform into the dead.  Two thousand in cash for two minutes with the creature is all it takes for desperate loved ones to ease their grief.  Neil (Jeremy Irvine), who has lost his wife, is Iris' first customer.  Like her father, Iris is tempted to exploit the creature's powers and help desperate people for a price.   This shape-shifting creature can transform into the dead and can provide two minutes with a loved one for a fee of two thousand dollars. Iris is tempted to use Baghead’s powers to help people in need and earn a profit, just like her father did before.  But she soon discovers breaking the two-minute rule can have terrifying consequences. Together with her best friend Katie (Ruby Barker), Iris must battle to keep control of Baghead and figure out how to destroy her, before she destroys them.

The film suffers from the cliched jump scares that one can always do without.  The dark atmosphere of the pub and often used settings add to the horror and potential scares of the film.  However, too much plot ends up with a muddled ending as the climax disappoints after a solid buildup.

Performances are ok at best, and it is good to see veteran actor Peter Mullan lending his hand to a new director’s debut feature.

BAGHEAD streams on Shudder on April the 5th.

Trailer: 

 

 

THE OLD OAK (UK/France/Belgium 2023) ****

Directed by Ken Loach

 

THE OLD OAK is directed by Ken Loach who makes a film every 3 years or so, usually excellent fare, something worth waiting for.  THE OLD OAK, Loach’s latest film is no different.  Loach is a British film director and screenwriter known for his socially critical directing style and socialism as evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty (Poor Cow, 1967), homelessness (Cathy Come Home, 1966), and labour rights (Riff-Raff, 1991, and The Navigators, 2001).  Loach's film KES(1969) was voted the seventh-greatest British film of the 20th century in a poll by the British Film Institute.  Indeed, this is my favourite Loach film.  His last two films I, Daniel Blake (2016), received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, making him one of only nine filmmakers to win the award twice and SORRY WE MISSED YOU are unforgettable social dramas.

In the film, THE OLD OAK is the name of a pub in a northern English town where coal mining has its day.  Pub landlord TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner), living in a previously thriving mining community in County Durham, struggles to hold onto his pub and keep it as the one remaining public space where people can meet in the town. Meanwhile, tensions rise when Syrian refugees are placed there, but Ballantyne strikes up a friendship with one of the refugees, Yara (Ebla Mari).

TJ’s wife had left him and his son is not speaking to him.  The fact is mentioned in the film but the details are not shown on screen. With the town going to bits, he had contemplated suicide by looking into the sea but was saved by a happy dog running to the beach.  The dog, which he named Marra saved his life and brought him companionship and a reason for living.  Any film with the protagonist and a faithful dog means that there is a great temptation for the dog to be killed in the story for dramatic effect.  In the last film LAND OF MINE, the protagonist a Dane sergeant had his dog blown up by a mine.  Will Marra face the same demise?

The Brits are not happy with the new refugees in their town.  They claim that they are not racist even though they are.  They cannot speak a word of English and their pub, The OLD OAK is now crawling with them.  Loach offers a reason for the Brits to be this bitter.  They themselves are victim, in this case, the victims of big mining companies that use and underpay them and then leave town.  Many have lost family members during the mining operations.

Director Loach offers a possible solution to the conflict - keeping the back room of the pub for the refugees and Brits to eat together for free but the plan falls through.  Still, a happy ending is required for a film with such strong undertones.

Loach’s THE OLD OAK is not his best, but it is still an excellent film, all things considered.  The film is an easy watch, pulling all the right political and social-emotional strings while offering an insight into the frailties of the human race.

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LA CHIMERA (Italy/France/Switzerland 2013) ****
Directed by Alice Rohrwacher

 

 

LA CHIMERA follows the adventures of a linen-suited British archaeologist first name of Arthur (Josh O’Connor) as he digs up tombs and sells treasures in the likes of Indiana Jones.  Arthur has the uncanny ability to be able to foretell where treasures are buried.  Unlike the Spielberg movies, this is art-house Indian Jones, putting a spin on the latest Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.  LA CHIMERA has its major surprises and is an utter delight in its delivery, presentation and originality.

The audience first sees Arthur aboard a train (the film is set in 80’s Tuscany) where he beats up a socks salesman for insulting his smelly feet.  Arthur is shown to be impatient, angry and a man who gets what he wants, no-nonsense tolerated.   Who would not be angry with someone who insults your feet in front of pretty girls in a train compartment?  Arthur is a handsome fellow and O’Connor, in a remarkable role, portrays him with a certain suave and likability.

It turns out that Arthur has just been released from prison for the crime of grave robbing, the only one caught the last time he was tomb digging with the gypsy Romans, who are eager to get up with him again.  Apparently, the Romans had paid Arthur’s way out so that they could continue to rob graves with him.  But Arthur is visiting the aristocratic mother, Flora (Isabella Rossellini) of his beloved missing girlfriend.  Flora is also awaiting her daughter’s return and is glad to see Arthur again.  Flora is holed up near a dilapidated train station among many squatters.

The Romans are shown to be a colourful and playful art and director Rohrwacher delivers many of the film’s funniest and brightest moments of this group, many members of which love to dress in drag.

Nothing more should be said of this lush and colourful adventure that director Rohrwacher takes her audience to except to mention that there is a surprise around every corner.  Watch for the film’s ending which has a nod to Alfred Hitchcock’s final scene in NORTH BY NORTHWEST, in which Cary Grant reaches out to Eva Marie Saint as she almost falls off the cliff only to reveal the final scene where Grant lifts her to the top of the bunk bed on the train.

Trailer: 

DOGMAN (France 2023) ***½

A film by Luc Besson

 

“Wherever there is an unfortunate, God sends a dog.” is a quote that is used in the film.  The unfortunate in the film is Kaleb (Caleb Landry Jones), a man dished out all the misfortunes of life.  His saviour is the canine species, a whole lot of dogs that bid Kaleb’s every command.

It all begins with an emergency at the Detention Centre.  Kolbe is injured and in drag.  He is questioned by a psychologist, who leaves her daughter with her mother in the middle of the night to handle this emergency.  At first hesitant, Kaleb eventually opens up to the psychologist.  His story unfolds as he tells his story, shown to the audience in flashbacks,

French director Lucy Besson is well known for his innovative films, his most successful and best films being LUCY, LEON, NIKITA and of course, THE FIFTH ELEMENT.  DOGMN i a lazy revenge fantasy something that is likely never seen before and the strangest film to be seen on the screen this year - a good thing.  If Besson’sfilm lacks credibility - the audience is supposed to believe that all of Kelly’s dogs can understand his English-spoken commands and can steal jewelry from a mansion.

Besson is French and his French imprint is clear in the film as he chooses Edith Piaf for Kaleb to perform in drag.  The film ends with an English version of Edith Piaf’s ‘Je Ne Regrette Rien’.  As in Besson’s films, DOGMAN is excessively violent and innocent people do get killed off as well, for dramatic effect.

The lead role of Kaleb is performed by American actor Caleb Landry Jones, known for quirky roles as in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and.  Jones has never failed to impress and DOGMAN is perhaps his best role as both a handicap and a drag queen.  His drag performances are superb, especially his rendition of ‘Lili Marlene’.

How the filmmakers got all the dogs trained to perform all the tricks seen on the screen is something that needs to be seen to be believed.  A variety of breeds are used and they are mostly adorable.

Not without flaws, Besson’s latest DOGMAN with its incredible plot and hard-to-believe situations is filmmaking that looks as impressive on screen as his futuristic FIFTH ELEMENT.  It is compulsive watching, for sure, though not for everybody, one cannot go away saying that the film is unforgettable in its execution.

DOGMAN opens in theatres on April 3rd.

Trailer: 

GLITTER + DOOM (USA 2024) **

Directed by Tom Gustafson

 

GLITTER + DOOM is a gay romantic musical based on the music of the Indigo Girls.

In a fantastical romance set to the hits of the Indigo Girls, a carefree circus performer and struggling musician fall in love at first sight, in a local dance club– until the real world comes calling. Their whirlwind summer is interrupted by the realities of pursuing their dreams. Punctuated by an all-queer supporting cast, GLITTER & DOOM attempts to be a creatively ambitious musical about the power of love.

Glitter comes from a rich family, but wants to be a circus clown. Doom, on the other hand, is a singer-songwriter from poor surroundings, trying to break into the local club scene. While Glitter has an over-abundance of self-confidence, Doom has self-doubts. They meet and have under a month to fall in love, before Glitter leaves for clown school in Paris. Meanwhile, Doom needs to produce a promotional music track to confirm his breakout club gig.

There is something that is wrong with the film.  One glaring concern is the actor playing DOOM.  He has a British accent and the accent comes through all throughout the film.  Nothing is explained about his accent.  Or he is an actor who should be hiding it in an American film where the characters have no British connections,  The two characters are also so egoistic not to say annoying, and the script has the audience believe that these two characters are geniuses in their own field.  Doom’s mother also appears in the middle of the film adding another unnecessary subplot to the story.

The music is from the Indigo Girls, repurposed, rearranged, and sometimes mashed up. The songs are sung by the two principals, with a small ensemble doing some dancing around them at times. The entire combination has a magical effect.

For musicals, the characters break out into song at the most misappropriate moments be it at the supermarket or in the fields in the moonies.  The choreography is passable and nothing too spectacular, looking a bit too gay for the average audience.  At its best, the musical numbers are not overdone, with the songs sung mainly by the two principals with dancers around them.  The film was shot in Mexico during the Covid pandemic, where Mexico was quite liberal in its lockdown procedures,

The ultimate question is whether Glitter and Doom will make it at their romance and live happily ever after as well as achieve their dreams or goals in life.  It does not take a genius to be able to guess the answer to these questions,

GLITTER + DOOM is a film that has limited appeal and thus would be a rough sell to the general market.  Unless one is young and queer and full of annoying energy or if one is a complete Indigo fan, this romance comedy about two very annoying young men who do not know what they want or roughly do but do not know how to achieve it is largely a boring affair.  The film runs almost two hours with songs that are amusing at most,  Indigo Girls gave permission for the filmmakers to use their music which consists of a catalog of more than 300 songs, which helps lift the film a little

GLITTER + DOOM premiered at the Indie Out LGBT Toronto Film Festival as its Closing Night Gala.  The film is available digitally on April 9 to rent/purchase on all major platforms.

Trailer: 

MONKEY MAN (USA 2024) **1/2

Directed by Dev Patel

(Written by Guest Reviewer Andre A.)

Monkey Man, directed by and
starring Dev Patel, is a film that seeks to meld the gritty essence of
crime-action cinema with layers of Indian mythology, social critique, and
martial arts extravagance. The film narrates the journey of a young man, who, clad in a monkey mask
reminiscent of Mexican wrestlers, engages in underground battles within an
Indian city. He embarks on a vengeful crusade against unscrupulous developers,
whom he holds responsible for his mother's death. Known as Monkey Man, he draws
inspiration from Hanuman, an iconic figure in Indian mythology, representing a
fusion of cultural reverence and urban vigilantism.

However, the film’s realization falls short of its grand ambitions.
Cinematic techniques like excessive slow motion, erratic camera movements, and
blurred visuals compromise the story’s clarity and can be overwhelming,
particularly for viewers sensitive to fast-paced visual shifts. These excessive
stylistic choices eclipse the action sequences, including the much-anticipated
initial confrontation between the protagonist and the antagonist, and diminish
the narrative’s impact.

Monkey Man also suffers from an overload of clichés and a convoluted plot that
weaves through a myriad of themes, including economic exploitation, personal
vendetta, prostitution, and religiosity, attempting to encapsulate the entirety
of Indian societal issues. While aiming for a grandiose spectacle, the film’s
narrative becomes overstretched and perplexing, leading to viewer disengagement
rather than compelling insight or reflection.

The portrayal of hijras as cultural icons who
transform into powerful warriors adds to the narrative’s inconsistency, veering
from a story of personal revenge to a bewildering bloody action spectacle. The
primary plot of a young man avenging his mother’s murder against the backdrop
of systemic injustice is lost in the chaotic blend of numerous themes and
references.

Dev Patel's dual role as the director and protagonist
in Monkey Man appears to be an attempt to transition from his renowned
dramatic talents to action-centric roles. Yet, the film falls short of
leveraging his full potential and does not live up to the expectations
engendered by Jordan Peele’s production involvement. Despite its high
ambitions, Monkey Man struggles to provide a cohesive and engaging
cinematic journey, leaving audiences desiring a more streamlined and impactful
narrative amidst its tumultuous mix of visual and thematic turmoil.

Trailer: 

 

 

REMEMBERING GENE WILDER (USA 2023) ****

Directed by Ron Frank

 

REMEMBERING GENE WILDER, a heartfelt and entertaining portrait of the life and career of the beloved actor, featuring an extensive array of highlights from Wilder’s most memorable films as well as interviews with his closest friends, family, and fellow comics.  The doc features interviews with Mel Brooks, Carol Kane, Alan Alda, Ben Mankiewicz, Rain Pryor, and Karen Boyer Wilder, among others.

Gene Wilder was an American actor, comedian, writer and filmmaker. He was mainly known for his comedic roles, but also for his portrayal of Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). He collaborated with Mel Brooks on the films The Producers (1967), Blazing Saddles (1974) and Young Frankenstein (1974), and with Richard Pryor in the films Silver Streak (1976), Stir Crazy (1980), See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) and Another You (1991

Gene Wilder’s doc begins with his appearance in the first scene with his rendering of the song “Come with Me, and You will be, in a World of Pure Imagination….” taken as many low from Mel Stuart’s WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.  Everyone loves Gene Wilder, a very funny man who made his name with Mel Brooks, rising to fame for his title role in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.

The doc does the comedian justice with clips from many roles at the doc’s start.  It goes on with how fate changed the life and introduced fame to Jerome Silberman.  He did not like the name Silberman and wanted something Wilder.  I\Fate has it that in 1963, Wilder was cast in a leading role in Mother Courage and Her Children, a production starring Anne Bancroft, who introduced Wilder to her boyfriend (and later husband) Mel Brooks. A few months later, Brooks mentioned that he was working on a screenplay called Springtime for Hitler filmed as THE PRODUCERS with Zero Mostel, for which he thought Wilder would be perfect in the role of Leo Bloom.  Wilder won an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Wilder’s comic inspirations (and I am proud to say are also mine), were Danny Kaye (a clip of Kaye’s brilliant act in UP IN ARMS is provided), Jerry Lewis and Sid Ceasar from YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS.

What the doc also achieves is exposing the real character of Wilder - revealed as a genuine human being.  The man went through more than most, with the death of his first wife, comedian Gilda Radner, that the doc devotes quite some time for.   The doc also allows the audience to laugh and cry as clips of Wilder's best films are shown.

Director Frank keeps the atmosphere of the doc bright and cheerful with a fairy tale ending similar to the spirit of Wilder showing that dreams can come true, thanks to fate, as Charlie the boy experiences in WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.

The film opens on April 5 in Toronto at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema.

Trailer: 

THE TEARMAKER (Italy 2024) ***

Directed by Alessandro Genovesi

 

Everyone loves a listen to a good fairy tale when one is a kid and sometimes even more so as an adult if there is an adult fairy tale.  THE TEARMAKER, a Netflix original from Italy is an adult fairy tale.  This wonderful tale is based on the 2022 phenomenon book of the same name written by Erin Doom.  Doom also wrote the script for the film.  This is a world where the world’s young women and men want stories that analyze their feelings, including love and friendship. They also want to cry. To produce tears.

The film begins in a fairy tale atmosphere with a car driving in the country.  A daughter kisses a mother’s cut better.  The daughter sees a wolf and despises the creature while the mother tells her that the wolf is not evil, but only always depicted as evil in fairy tales.  Then because of the wolf, the distraction causes a catastrophic car crash.

Within the walls of Grave, the orphanage (order, respect and obedience - the only three rules of the strict orphanage) in which Nica has grown up, stories and legends have always been told by candlelight.  The orphanage is appropriately named Grave. The most famous one is about the tear maker, a mysterious craftsman with eyes as clear as glass, guilty of having manufactured all the fears and anxieties that dwell in people’s hearts.  But, at the age of seventeen, the moment has come for Nica to leave all these dark childhood stories behind. Her greatest dream is about to come true. Mr and Mrs Milligan have begun the adoption procedures and are ready to give her the family she’s always wanted. However, Nica is not alone in the new house. Rigel, a restless, mysterious orphan, is also taken out of Grave, and he’s the last person Nica would wish for as an adoptive brother. Rigel is intelligent, and astute, plays the piano like a bewitching demon and is mesmerizingly handsome, but his angelic appearance conceals a dark temperament. Even though Nica and Rigel share a past filled with grief and deprivation, living together seems impossible; especially when the legend comes back to haunt their lives and the maker of tears suddenly grows increasingly real and draws nearer. Even so, gentle and brave, Nica is ready to do anything in order to protect her dream, because only by facing the nightmares that torment her will she finally be able to soar freely like the butterfly after which she was named.

People cry for fear, anger, anguish and despair  But in the world of THE TEARSMITH are hollow shells as they are unable to cry.  Truthfully, a good cry brings out a lot of emotions and makes human beings feel better,  This is the premise of the imaginative adult fairy tale of THE TEARMAKER, the stuff of legend and stories told from the grave that eventually, the audience is told become bedtime stories.

THE TEARMAKER is an Italian Netflix original film that opens for streaming on April 5th.
Trailer: 

WICKED LITTLE LETTERS (UK 2023) ****
Directed by Thea Sharrock

  

This period piece, supposedly based on a true story that few have heard of till perhaps now, is set in the 1920s when there was a scandal brewing in Littlehampton, England.  Littlehampton is a charming seaside resort town and civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England.  Residents there have started receiving anonymous, poison-pen letters, really vulgar ones brimming with curse words and scandalous prose.  The film has these letters explicitly read, so audiences should be forewarned of the really foul language used.  

Who is writing them and how can they be stopped?  Edith Swan (Olivia Colman) — pious and respected (if not well-liked) — is one of those residents.  The letters assassinate her character in the most blue-tinged language imaginable and, when they stack up, her autocratic, scripture-quoting father Edward (Timothy Spall) insists the culprit be found. With law enforcement reluctantly investigating, Edith bandies a pet theory that her neighbour Rose (Jessie Buckley) might mean her harm.  Rose is the opposite of Edith: loud, brash, a lover of spirits and dancing, and unapologetic about all of it. When the police arrest her in the letters case, assuming her guilt because of her “loose moral character,” it doesn’t sit well with Police Officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan). With her superiors unwilling to listen, Moss gathers a group of unlikely yet resourceful female volunteers to get to the bottom of the mystery.   

This wicked little film blinds the fine line between good and evil.  While working like a whodunit, it does not take a genius to correctly figure out the culprit of the letters.  But that is not the point of the film that sneaks quite a few messages of racial prejudice, suffrage and religion into the storyline.  

Olivia Coleman delivers another Oscar-worthy performance, one able to get a laugh of loud or two amidst all the drama.  Veterans Gemma Jones and Eileen Aitkins have cameos amongst heavyweights Coleman and Timothy Spall.  A real gem and surprise at TIFF last year where it had its world premiere. 

WICKED LITTLE LETTERS opens April 5 in Toronto (Varsity & Varsity VIP), Vancouver (Fifth Avenue) and Montreal!

Trailer: 

 

 

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 24 March 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

 

AUTUMN AND THE BLACK JAGUAR (Le Dernier Jaguar) (Canada/France/Germany 2023) ***½

Directed by  Gilles de Maistre

 

If the director’s name sounds familiar, AUTUMN AND THE BLACK JAGUAR is the third film from Gilles de Maistre and Prune de Maistre following the hit family films MIA AND THE WHITE LION and THE WOLF AND THE LION.  It marks another successful wild animal and human adventure story.

Growing up in the Amazon rainforest gave Autumn (Lumi Pollack) the rarest of friendships - a lost jaguar cub she discovers named Hope.  When a tragic event forces Autumn to leave Hope for the unknowns of New York City, she dreams for years of going back to the rainforest and her friend.  Aged 14, and having grown accustomed to city life, Autumn discovers her childhood village is under threat from animal traffickers and decides she must return to the Amazon to her beloved jaguar. Anja - Autumn's endearingly clumsy biology teacher (Emily Bett Rickards, providing some slapstick humour) - unsuccessfully tries to dissuade her from this reckless plan. Joined by Anja, Autumn embarks on a journey to reunite with Hope and save her from those who seek to destroy the rainforest and its wildlife.

This is a decent family film, entertaining while having a solid message on the environment and the saving of endangered species.

Some excitement is provided as well, as in one scene where Hope the jaguar fights off a menacing snake.  The encounter between the jaguar and the snake is more exciting than the silly-looking battles in GODZILLA X KONG.

The issues covered in the film include deforestation in the Amazon which is huge and out of control.  There is also animal trafficking like almost nowhere else in the world. Our films often come from a message that is more optimistic, taking a child’s point of view. and the film will speak equally to children from France, Colombia, China or Morocco. As in the Whitney Houston song "The Greatest Love of All”,  the lyrics go:  Children are the future, and they will lead the way. …. The director has made documentaries dealing with childhood for 40 years, and especially child suffering.

There are two real jaguars used in the film - no CGI.  The filmmakers retrieved two baby jaguars from Mexican breeders (animal trade is legal there) and the animal coordinators immediately took care of them and their well-being.  Jaguars are on the verge of extinction, mainly due to deforestation.

The film has a few sappy moments.  For example: Autumn is told by her mother activist before she is gone: that she is to say the words: “I will always be loved.  There is nothing to be afraid of.  There is nothing I can do wrong.”  To this effect, Autumn decides at the one-third mark of the film to leave NYC and travel back to the Amazon to save the black panther.  “My father doesn’t understand me.  You do not understand me!  I know it is dangerous.  My friend is in danger and I have to save my friend.”   She says to her biology teacher who ends up trailing her.

AUTUMN AND THE BLACK JAGUAR opens in theatres on March 29th.

Trailer: 

FEMME (UK 2022) ***

Directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping

 

With his performances as a drag queen at a London gay club, performance name: Aphrodite Banks, Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, CANDYMAN) has a place among London’s celebrated drag artists.  One night after a show, Jules steps out to get some cigarettes and is brutally attacked by a man (George MacKay, 1917), out with a gang of his friends.  Although Jules recovers physically, he withdraws from the outside world, traumatized.  Months later, he recognizes his attacker by chance in a gay sauna.  Without make-up and wrapped only in a towel, Jules is able to approach the other man incognito and find out who he is. He begins an affair with the closeted Preston, with a plan to take his revenge.

Actor Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay are both excellent performers who carry this sexually charged revenge drama.  The dark and seedy atmosphere of the gay London clubs where bare walls showing bricks are reminiscent of the real gay clubs in London.  Wherever there is a venue available, the gays will gather and party. Directors  Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping keep their film on track as a steamy thriller though a few flaws exist in terms of credibility.  The main one of Preston not recognizing Jules is one main factor.  There is even a segment where Preston notices a scar from the bashing on his head.  Jules dismisses it as a scar from a fight which Preston believes totally.  “Give me a name and I will fuck him up,” is Preston’s response to Jules.

The film features both Preston’s friends (if one can call them friends, as they are just hang-outs) and Jules’ as well.  These characters build up the world around the two main characters.

The villain of the piece, Preston, the gay drag basher is depicted in the film as totally despicable with zero redeeming qualities.  This makes him too easy a target as a villain in the story.  Preston admits that he has a short temper.  Preston is manipulative, always angry, rude, demeaning, untruthful and of course, violent.  He is also shown as a drug dealer and a showoff, driving his uncle’s BMW half the time.  He is violent in both sex and behaviour.   The only change in behaviour is shown as a change from dominant to a little submissive for the purpose of sex.   If Preston had a few redeeming qualities, the revenge would not only be more difficult to plan out but create a more interesting story.

Actor George MacKay, best known for his performance in 1917, does a marvellous job as Preston.  MacKay has donned many different types of roles to enhance his career, this one, one of his boldest.  His portrayal of this explosive and volatile character makes the movie, though his conversion from dominating to submissive does not quote work, though this is not totally MacKay’s fault.

FEMME premiered at the 2023 Official Selection, Berlin International Film Festival where it received a standing ovation and was picked up by Elevation Pictures and opens at TIFF Lightbox on March 29th.

Trailer: 

GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE (USA 2024) **

Directed by Adam Wingard

 

GODZILLA X KONG is the sequel to the largely successful 2021 epic GODZILLA VS. KONG.  The latter film is set five years after the dragon-like extraterrestrial King Ghidorah awakened the monstrous "Titans" around the world and was defeated by Godzilla.  Kong is monitored by Monarch within a giant dome on Skull Island, which has been taken over by the storm that previously kept it hidden from the world.  Kong is visited by Jia, the last Iwi (Kaylee Hottle) native and young adopted daughter of Kong expert Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall).  Jia is deaf and communicates with Kong via sign language.

In the new film, Kong and Godzilla now unite together against a mysterious Hollow Earth threat known as Skar King, an orangutan-like kaiju. The film also focuses on the previously untold origins of the Titans and Skull Island, which in reality is a complete bore on screen.  The battles in the origins are depicted in a segment that looks out of place with the rest of the movie, confusing as it was not announced that it was a flashback.

 Last year’s Japanese GODZILLA MINUS ONE is the better movie, a film that won an  Oscar for Best Visual Effects.   It had a more streamlined story and was more controlled and made more sense than this latest nonsense.

GODZILLA X KONG is all over the place and a basically emotionally hollow experience.  The plot includes some mumbo-jumbo about Dr. Andrews and her adopted daughter Jia not being able to belong.  It seems that this inconvenience is just put in the story for some human effect in the film, but the cliche-ridden ploy does not work.  The film’s climax is the big battle between the monsters, all done with special effects, which means it is a complete emotionless bore again, with exploding pyrotechnics that mean nothing.

The film includes a short tribute to GODZILLA MINUS ONE (2023) with a shot of the ground bursting beneath Godzilla's footfall for the film's Rome sequence

Comic relief is provided by two actors, Dan Stevens who has worked with director Wingard before in the horror film THE GUEST and Brian Tyree Henry as podcaster Berbie.  The latter wins more laughs than Stevens who is a more serious actor.  Stevens plays a veterinarian called Trapper who specializes in Titans.  In a red Hawaiian shirt, Aviator glasses and a goofily charming grin, Stevens could have been Dr. Andrews’ romantic interest. 

The best King Kong/Godzilla movie remains the 1962 Japanese classic entitled KING KONG VS, GODZILLA.  As a young kid, my parents brought me to see it several times.  The night segment in which a train travels through the mountains where a monster appears remains the most frightening in a child’s (my) memory.

GODZILLA X KONG is less a movie than a video game in which the players are someone else.  The film proves that two actors in Godzilla and Kong costumes can provide more entertainment and two CGI-generated tag team monsters.  Despite all the expense and effort (the production reportedly costs $150 million), the ‘movie’ should have been better than it turned out.

GODZILLA X KONG opens in theatres everywhere on Easter Friday.

Trailer: 

 

HEART OF THE HUNTER (South Africa 2024) ***

Directed by Mandla Dube

 

The film is based on the book of the same name by Deon Meyer.  This book was dense and complex, exploring historical, political, racial and cultural divisions as tangled as described in other police stories from the country of South Africa.   The book earned rave reviews, being named one of the best thrillers of 2004 by the Chicago Tribune, and long-listed for what's now known as the Dublin Literary Award. 

Tiny Mpayipheli, a giant man with a gentle demeanor, once earned his living as a government gun for hire.  Tiny (named for irony?  He is supposedly 6 ft 5 inches in the book) was once a feared assassin and freedom fighter, trained by the Stasi and KGB. In post-apartheid South Africa, he's happily working in a garage.  The film disposes o the name Tiny for Zuko.  Now leading a quiet, ordered life in the countryside, he is reluctantly summoned back into the game when a trusted old friend is kidnapped. With just seventy-two hours to deliver the ransom, with an army of security forces deployed to stop him, and with a diabolical double agent perilously close to assuming absolute power, Tiny races a hijacked motorcycle across the wilds of backcountry Africa in a thrilling epic adventure.

The fight scenes are done with a wry sense of humour.  One fight scene at the start of the film takes place in an abandoned upper floor of a building, the two fight with just one piano in the background.  The piano is obviously there for dramatic effect as they fight and bang against the keys, making plunking sounds.  Why else is the piano there and one except for no other reason?   More humour is provided in the dialogue, especially in the use of overused cliched sayings like Sometimes a few will suffer so that many can benefit.  To make an omelet, it takes to break a few eggs.  And another:  The stone that the builder refuses eventually becomes the cornerstone.  Another really silly line brings out laugh-out-loud humour.  “I tell you not to give him her son) sugar early in the morning. “The mother says Zuko.  “You’re my sugar,” he says humorously to her.  These bits enhance the film’s entertainment value and lend a lighter touch to an otherwise serious action film.  And another piano appears in another part of the film.

The film has a good build-up in terms of story, plot and suspense, one assuming that the film follows the book closely.  Zuko is also retired and living with a woman and her son, which gives the story a romantic slant,  The romance is well executed with strong Chemistry between Zuko and his woman, the woman who is then kidnapped for interrogation by the bad guys when Zukogoes off to do his job.

Zuko is supposed to fight for the Alkebu-lan though he says he is doing this for his new family and not for the Alkebu-lan shit, it being the ancient name of Africa meaning “mother of mankind’s ‘Garden of Eden”.     HEART OF THE HUNTER is an above-average international (South African)  action thriller, full of thrills, action, suspense, romance and colourful locations, not to be missed.  The film opens for streaming on Netflix on Easter Friday.

Trailer: 

REST IN PEACE (Descansar en paz) (Argentina 2024) ***

Directed by Sebastián Borensztein

 

REST IN PEACE is an Argentinean crime drama that plays like a true story as it blends a real-life terrorist attack, the largest one in Argentinian history to its story,  The drama surrounds the protagonist, by the name of Sergio who is heavily in debt.  He figures there is no way out, until…..

It is all about debt and desperation,  “Do you love yourself?  Do you love your family?’  asks the debtor to Sergio.  Sergio’s worried look tells all.  “I want all the money by Monday,” the debtor adds.  The threat to the family begins with photographs taken of Sergio’s wife and daughter.

The first 30 minutes of the film are dedicated to illustrating Sergio’s desperation.  He has kept it from his wife till a thug from a borrower shows up at his daughter’s bar mitzvah.  “You cannot afford to pay back your debt but you throw parties?”  asked his biggest lender.  A family party almost disintegrates into fistfights as Sergios’ father and brother.

Then a bombing is heard on the news  - the AMIA bombing,

The AMIA bombing occurred on 18 July 1994 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and targeted the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA; translates to\:  "Argentine Israelite Mutual Association"), a Jewish Community Centre. Executed as a suicidal attack, a bomb-laden van was driven into the AMIA building and subsequently detonated, killing 85 people and injuring over 300.  To date, the bombing remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentine history.  In 1994, Argentina was home to a Jewish community of 200,000, making it the largest in Latin America and the sixth-largest in the world outside of Israel.

Sergio, cornered by debt, decides to take advantage of a coincidence and an unpredictable circumstance to disappear.  After many years of living away from his country, he moves to Paraguay, under a false identity, a chance discovery provides the irresistible temptation of wanting to know how the people of his town have moved on in his absence. The question becomes an obsession: Can an entire life disappear and be forgotten? Can you start from scratch and never look back?

The film concentrates more on drama than the crime itself, though the film is described as a crime drama.  The drama is that of Sergio as the film is divided into three parts.  The first is Sergio's debt, the second is his new life in Paraguay under his new identity with his new life and the final part of the re-unification of his family.  The three parts are quite different but interesting enough as an entertaining film.

The script also blends into the social media platform Facebook.  As Sergio tries to hide his identity, he discovers Facebook.  The film is set in the time when Facebook was first reduced and becoming popular,   For anyone wanting to disappear, Facebook poses a threat.  Sergio enquires about Facebook at one point in the film.

REST IN PEACE is a Netflix original film from Argentina that opens for streaming on March 27th, 2024.

Trailer: 

RYUICHI SAKAMOTO | OPUS (Japan 2023) ***

Directed by Neo Sora

 

The word OPUS means work: especially: a musical composition or set of compositions usually numbered in the order of its issue.

The film is the work of Ryuichi Sakamoto (January 17, 1952 – March 28, 2023).   Sakamoto was a Japanese composer, pianist, record producer, and actor who pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto influenced and pioneered a number of electronic music genres. 

With regards to his contribution to film: as a film score composer, Sakamoto won an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Grammy, and two Golden Globe Awards. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) marked his debut as both an actor and a film-score composer; its main theme was adapted into the single "Forbidden Colours" which became an international hit.  His most successful work as a film composer was The Last Emperor (1987), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, making him the first Japanese composer to win an Academy Award after which he continued earning accolades composing for films such as The Sheltering Sky (1990), Little Buddha (1993), and The Revenant (2015).  He was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the Ministry of Culture of France in 2009 for his contributions to music.

On March 28th, 2023, legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away after his struggle against cancer. In the years leading up to his death, Sakamoto could no longer perform live. Single concerts, not to mention sprawling global tours, were too taxing. Despite this, in late 2022, Sakamoto mustered all of his energy to leave the world with one final performance: a concert film, featuring just him and his piano.  This is the film.

Curated by Sakamoto himself and presented in his chosen order, the twenty pieces performed in the film wordlessly narrate his life through his music. The selection spans his entire career, from his popstar Yellow Magic Orchestra period to his magnificent Bertolucci film scores, to music from his meditative final album, 12.  Intimately filmed in a space he knew well, surrounded by his most trusted collaborators, Sakamoto bares his soul through his music, knowing this may be the last time that he can present his art.

RYUICHI SAKAMOTO | OPUS  a film shot in black and white with just the maestro and his piano with the opus heard on the soundtrack is a celebration of an artist's life in the purest and unadulterated form, serving as Nakamoto’s definitive swan song.

The film screens at the Ted Rogers Hot Docs Cinema in Toronto as well as other cities across Canada on March 29th.

Trailer: 

SOMEONE LIKE YOU (USA 2024) **

Directed by Tyler Russell

 

Based on the novel by #1 NYTimes bestselling author Karen Kingsbury, SOMEONE LIKE YOU is an aching love story. After the tragic loss of his best friend, a grieving young architect launches a search for her secret twin sister.

The film begins with a C.S. Lewis quote: “If you love deeply. you will hurt badly.† C.S. Lewis was an Irish-born scholar, novelist, and author of about 40 books, many of them on Christian apologetics, including The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity. 

The film is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Karen Kingsbury,  Kingsbury who co-wrote the film and also produced it, is a #1 New York Times Bestselling novelist who writes Life-Changing Fiction(TM) and has been called America's favourite inspirational author.  There are more than 25 million copies of her award-winning books in print, including several million copies sold in the past year. Karen's last dozen titles have topped national bestseller charts.

Architect Dawson Gage fell in love with London Quinn in high school, even though she told him not to. Ten years later, the two are still best friends when tragedy strikes. Now, the grieving Dawson is compelled to do one final act of love for London. He launches an impossible search for her secret twin sister, twins separated during their parent's procedure. 

States away, And Allen has no idea she was adopted as an embryo. The news rocks her world and sends her into a spiral that culminates in her leaving home to meet her biological parents. But what will happen when Andi walks through the door of the parents she never knew? All while she’s missing the parents who lied to her? 

With one set of parents grieving the loss of a daughter, and the other set grieving the truth they never told, only Dawson can show Andi everything she missed about her twin sister. But neither of them imagined the attraction they would d feel for each other. Except maybe the audience of this film.  Now can Dawson help Andi make her way back home, even though he has fallen desperately in love with her?

At its worst, this is one of those annoying films that is filled with lyrics of songs that dictate how audiences should feel throughout the film.  The film tries its best to stay away from being goody-goody Christianity-based,  But still, it cannot help but have to add a few segments like Andi suggesting to say grace at the dinner table at her new parents.  The abandoned adopting parents also say: it takes a lot of faith to believe, though God is never mentioned.

After a slight argument with the couple London and David about attending church in which London says she will likely never go there, David is clearly annoyed which indicates that this could be one of those Christian faith movies. The script contains quotes from the Bible as in the scan during the final where St. John’s Gospel is quoted.

A mixed bag of tricks. SOMEONE LIKE YOU is at its worst, too sappy and faith-based, though it covers a good bit of a far-fetched story on forgiveness and the surprises that life can offer.

 SOMEONE LIKE YOU opens theatrically across Canada beginning on Tuesday, April 2nd.

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STOLEN TIME (Canada 2023) ***½

Directed by Helene Klodawsky

 

STOLEN TIME is a documentary about unsung hero Melissa Miller.  This unsung hero fights battles in a different type of battlefield.  She is a personal injury lawyer for the most vulnerable - the elderly.  From the very start of director Helene Klodawsky’s documentary, she gets the audience all riled up at the injustices committed by the conglomerates who earn big profits at the expense of the elderly in nursing homes.

The audience hears of unspeakable acts.  There is no nurse working in one nursing home for 100 days.  A change in medication cannot be realized for a substantial period of time.  Elderlies are sedated without consent to the point that they cannot eat, drink, or move.

This is a compelling call for justice, as the film follows charismatic elderly rights lawyer Melissa Miller as she takes on the corporate for-profit nursing home industry—an industry notorious for its lack of transparency and accountability. As the legal battle unfolds, families, frontline caregivers and change-makers chronicle an urgent crisis with ramifications—and inspiration—for us all.

The film chronicles Miller’s most challenging case yet: a mass tort representing hundreds of families fighting some of the world’s most powerful long-term care corporations. 

Her adversaries stand accused of neglecting their vulnerable charges as they reap huge profits. Booming elderly populations worldwide add urgency to holding these corporations to account.

In STOLEN TIME, desperate families turn to the courts as a last resort.  The audience witnesses shocking testimonies and images from researchers, advocates and, most notably, frontline caregivers whose work is often undervalued but disproportionately blamed for what goes wrong.  The film is a rare and required inside look at a crucial legal battle and an emerging elder justice movement.

Much insight is provided regarding the litigation.  The insurance companies are the ones that will be paying out and the staff is normally blamed.  The corporations that made lots of money from the homes run off scot-free.

The film also deals with the Pandemic.  The government passed a legislature to protect the homes from lawsuits.

Caregivers are also given the spotlight.  They are overworked, frustrated and underpaid.  Nursing homes can be joyful places and sometimes, there are.  The system has been set up for failure.  Up to this time, Melissa’s mass tort is still continuing,  The film chooses for its climax the wins of Melissa’s court cases, in which a monetary settlement is awarded to the plaintiffs.

STOLEN TIME asks the question how far would one go to protect our loved ones?  This shocking eye-opening doc on the abuse of the elderly in nursing homes can hardly be called entertaining for what it reveals on-screen.

Playing  in Toronto:

Tuesday, April 2, and Wednesday, April 3, at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema in Toronto

Presented as part of Doc Soup, a screening series from Hot Docs.  A bonus is filmmaker Helene Klodawsky and elder rights lawyer Melissa Miller being in attendance, with a Q&A on both nights.   In addition:

Doc Soup will also be streaming Stolen Time online for subscribers.

More info: hotdocs.ca/whats-on/films/ds-stolen-time

 Trailer: 

 

 

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 04 March 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

 

24 HOURS WITH GASPAR (Indonesia 2023) ***

Directed by Yosep Anggi Noen

 

The 24 hours of the title refers to the 24 hours left Gaspar has left to live, as predicted by his doctor after a malfunctioning mechanism that keeps his heart working. Gaspar has a heart condition with the heart on the left side of the body.  (Writer’s note:  I know someone with this condition, heart on the left side of the body,  who functions perfectly normally without any contraption.)  Question:  Does Gaspar have one hour more or less if it is daylight-saving time?  The film countdowns the number of hours left starting from the 24 count, and with the sound of the heartbeat on the soundtrack,

24 HOURS WITH GASPAR is essentially an action film set in a futuristic dystopian society of Jakarta, Indonesia.  Laced with heavy voiceover throughout talking about philosophy and how human beings should react, the film tries to be a worthy adaptation of Sabda Armandio’s 2017 novel ’24 Hours With Gaspar’.   To the director and his D.P.’s credit, the film has a seedy and depressing dystopian atmosphere, a look that appears characteristic of all films in this genre.  The explanation given is the spread of some plague, which is likely inspired by Covid-19 that the real world is still recovering from.   When the film begins, the characters hang out in a FIGHT CLUB setting, where fight after fight is carried out with a winner eventually becoming a loser and so on.

There are two stories on display in the film, the two stories however linked.

Gaspar (Reza Rahadian), a somewhat punk amateur detective, investigates a government-involved mass slaughter case.  During the process, he stumbles upon clues about his friend who disappeared without a trace during childhood and traces a human trafficking villain. However, due to a malfunctioning artificial heart, Gaspar has only twenty-four hours left to live. With little time remaining, aided by friends Agnes and Kick, he seeks to exact revenge.

This gloomy-looking present is contrasted with the bright sunlight and pastel colours of repeated flashbacks where 11-year-old Gaspar (Ali Fikry) is a lonely lad who makes a cherished friend Kirana (Shofia Shireen).  Of all the wishes in the world, the lonely boy wishes for a friend, so he becomes obsessed with her when she goes missing after he returns from a procedure at the hospital regarding his heart.

The action set-pieces are exciting enough, though nothing as spectacular as in some Martial-Arts or Hollywood action films.  The narrative, however, is blurry and more clarity would help the story along.  There is more voiceover and less character dialogue in this film compared to other films in this genre.

24 HOURS WITH GASPAR had its world premiere at the 28th Busan International Film Festival on 6 October 2023, competing for Kim Jiseok Award.  The film was scheduled to be screened in Indonesian cinemas in 2024. However, the plan was altered with Netflix acquiring its distribution rights, releasing it on 14 March 2024.  The film premiers on Netflix streaming beginning Thursday 14th of March.

 

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THE ANIMAL KINGDOM (LE REGNE ANIMAL)(France/Belgium 2023) ***½

Directed by Thomas Cailley

 

Films of the dystopian genre often have one parent and one daughter or son escape from predators while etching out survival in the country.  THE ANIMAL KINGDOM puts a bit of spin on the genre with a father and son left alone in the dystopian futuristic society in which the mother had turned into an animal.

Set in the near future, Thomas Cailley’s The Animal Kingdom (La Règne animal) is a trippy French thriller about a mysterious phenomenon that is gradually transforming parts of the population into human-animal hybrids.

There is a disease unexplained (the film avoiding to offer any clues) that turns humans into animals.  Mother is supposed to be recuperating and getting better.  But the son is transforming.  The father tries his best to protect his son.

When humans start sprouting things like feathers, beaks, wings, or scales, these “critters” – as they are derogatorily called – are considered dangerous.  In fact, they are sent to specialized centres in an attempt to stop their mutations and control their seemingly violent tendencies.  When his afflicted wife is sent to such a facility in the south of France, François (Romain Duris) moves with his teenage son Émile (Paul Kircher) to be near her.  But a convoy carrying mutants (including his wife) crashes, scattering the occupants into the forest.  As François searches the wilds for his wife, he loses his grip on Émile, who himself has started to transform.

  Also in the mix are a policewoman (Adèle Exarchopoulos) who is at odds with her colleagues, Émile’s school friend (Billie Blain) who has overcome issues of her own, and a bird-like mutant (Tom Mercier) who opens Émile’s eyes to the humanity of the creatures in the forest.

The film’s impressive most intimate moment occurs when father and son are searching in the forest for their transformed mother.  The father is playing the mum’s favourite song, cheesy though he admits it may be, while both are screaming her name “Lana” in the car as it whizzes by the forest.

Though not a comedy, director Thomas Cailley captures a few laugh-out laughs with his superb timing - either dramatic or comedic.  When Emile’s wound from a supposed dog bite, is stitched up at the hospital, the nurse tells him, that if happens again, he has to be put down.”  “The dog, not the boy,” he says in what is a rare lighter moment in an otherwise serious movie.

The film was shot during the pandemic which makes the incidents in the film - the unknown disease and the scramble to contain and understand the disease all the more relevant.

The film runs a bit over 2 hours with a few stretched-out parts.  The film could have been shortened and made more efficient.

THE ANIMAL KINGDOM is more of an emotional drama of relationships set in a sci-fi setting rather than a sci-fi dystopian thriller.  It succeeds well with director Cailley bringing his roller-coaster emotional ride to a satisfactory climax.

THE ANIMAL KINGDOM opened Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2023,  winning many awards, including five at the 2024 Césars(Visual Effects, Sound, Cinematography, Costume Design, Original Music) and New Voices New Visions at Palm Springs 2024.

THE ANIMAL KINGDOM opens on March 15in Toronto (TIFF Lightbox) and Vancouver (VIFF Centre)!

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THE ART OF LOVE (Turkey 2024) **

Directed by Recai Karagoz

 

Directed by Recai Karagö and written by Pelin Karamehmetoglu, THE ART OF LOVE is a combination of art heist and romantic comedy which explains the title of this Netflix original light comedy.  Original in concept it might be, or parts of it, but the film is a total dud.

For one the chemistry of the two leads just isn’t there for the making.  The actress and actor both prance around as if they are the best-looking human specimens on the planet, attitudes included.  The result is two arrogant characters that the audience will not care for. 

After learning that the art thief, Guney (Birkan SokulluHakan) Alin (Esra Bilgiç) has been chasing her ex-lover, an officer working for Interpol concocts a plan to catch him red-handed.  How she discovers and convinces her boss that billionaire Guney is the thief is beyond belief.  The reason they have broken up is not revealed at first, not that anyone cares.

Apart from a  few stylishly shot scenes, (there are lots of use of reflections), there is nothing particularly exciting or interesting about any of the film’s parts.

After a third of the film’s running time, one can surely predict where the film is headed.  Unfunny and not really romantic, the film ends up a boring dud.

THE ART OF LOVE opens for streaming on Netflix on Thursday, March 14th.

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CLUB ZERO (Austria/UK/ Germany/Denmark/France 2023) ***½

Directed by Jessica Hausner

 

CLUB ZERO is often a pitch-black horror film added with deadpan humour and a bit of satire on food consumerism.

The club of CLUB ZERO refers to the group of students led by their teacher of the course called Conscious Eating that leads towards removing the need to eat.  At an international boarding school, an unassuming, yet rigorous, Miss Novak (Mia Wasikowska) joins the teaching staff to instruct a new class on “conscious eating.” Her impressionable teenage students each have their own reasons for joining the class – to improve fitness, reduce their carbon footprint, or get extra credit. Although early lectures focus on mindful consumption, Miss Novak’s discussions soon become increasingly disordered and extreme. A suspicious headmistress, concerned parents and the failing health of her students lead everyone to question the inscrutable Miss Novak’s motivations for teaching the class. As a few devoted pupils fall deeper under her cult-like tutelage, they are given a new, even more sinister goal to aspire to – joining the ominous CLUB ZERO.

Director Hausner’s film competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year.  She is known for her earlier films such as LITTLE JOE and HOTEL.

Words on the screen warn at the film’s start that there is disturbing behaviour control and eating disorders displayed.

At the time of the writing of this review, CLUB ZERO had attained a Rotten Tomatoes Rating of only 57%.  Who really cares about whether the film really comes together as a cohesive whole or whether it is satisfactory?  This film is so compelling in its viewing that many would just be mesmerized by where the events in the story would lead to.

The film is to be praised for its creation of atmosphere, fear, dread and anticipation.  The pounding new-aged sounding soundtrack, and the weird art decor in many of the wealthy homes including the school are all to be praised.

There was a complaint years back that there have not been enough female-represented films.  The opposite seems to be true these days as this film emphasizes the strength of the feminine gender.  The protagonist is female and most of the pupils’ mothers have an important say.  The protagonist also prays to the Almighty Mother, a female God who guides her through (though not necessarily correctly) her daily routines and goals.

The dialogue is also deliberately ambiguous and mind-boggling titillating.  Take a sample of the film’s dialogue lines many of which create much audience anticipation;

• The parents pay a lot to send their children to this school.  They expect not to be bothered.
• You have been chosen to follow the great path.  Once chosen there is no turning back.
• It is not easy to do the right thing.  You don’t have the slightest idea of what you are capable 

The film contains good irony.  It is realized that the parents of the children who had stopped eating because of Miss Kovacs now need to trust her to convince their children to continue eating,  Will the parents get her re-instated after she had been fired and if so, will she convince the children to resume eating?

CLUB ZERO opens theatrically on March 15th.

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FRENCH GIRL (Canada 2024) ***

Directed by James A. Woods and Nicolas Wright

 

Sweet Gordon (Zach Braff), an affable English teacher in Brooklyn, has beaten the odds; a French Girl, Sophie Tremblay (Evelyne Brochu) has fallen in love with him and he’s fallen even harder back. But their future is thrown into limbo when she interviews for an executive chef position in her hometown of Quebec City.  It is a variation of MEET THE PARENTS.  But another threat is looming.  To Gordon’s dismay, her future boss (Vanessa Hudgens) also happens to be her former lover, a celebrity Chef with oceanic eyes and a hit TV show.  Can love survive the odds of a possible breakup?  All fans of romantic comedies will easily die you the answer.  So, Gordon Kinski follows his girlfriend and chef Sophie Trembla\NCto her hometown of Quebec City where she is testing for the Michelin 3-star restaurant of super-chef Ruby Collins.

Firstly the title of the film should be QUEBEC GIRL.  There are distinct differences between France and Quebec, in terms of culture, language and practices.  At least all the actors playing

Written and directed by James A. Woods and Nicolas Wright, both of whom are from anglophone and francophone parents put their experiences of their parents into the conflict of cultures in the romantic comedy.  The credibility is a major plus and the film has sufficient set up quirky incidents to both keep the film moving and to keep the interest of the story going while keeping boredom and cliches at bay.  Most romantic comedies do not have a villain, but this one has in the form of Sophie’s ex-lover, Ruby whose evil motives are revealed at the end of the film.  The gay ex-relationship between Ruby and Sophie is taken as a given and is accepted as the same as a straight relationship, even with a farming family.  This updates the film to the present where gay relationships are no longer frowned down upon.  A host of solid Quebecois actors join the cast led by the famous Lucy Card who pays Sophie’s father.  It is the Quebec French. that is spoken throughout the film and not the French French.  The swear words heard in the dialogue are ‘tabernacle’ instead of ‘putain’, for example.

The one flaw of this romance comedy is the hilarity that is lacking.  The humour is amusing at best and there are too few if any laugh-out-loud moments.  At the Q&A after the promo screening, the two writers/directors when asked where they got their jokes from, confessed they took it from A.I.  They might be joking but the jokes in the film often fall flat.  One that is unfunny is the running gag of the family goose that keeps chasing Gordon around the farm.  The comedic set-up piece of Gordon kicking out his future father-in-law by accident in an MMA match generates a few laughs as well, though it moves the plot along.

FRENCH GIRL is a satisfactory entertaining rom-com that is interesting for its different set pieces and different premise but lacks the edginess and hilarity that is often missing in this film genre.
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HIGH & LOW (UK/France/USA 2023) ****

Directed by Kevin Macdonald

 

Kevin Macdonald is a top Scots director who has astounded the film world with his excellent documentary films like ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER in 1999 and TOUCHING THE VOID in 2003, docs that made my Top 10 List of those years.  HIGH & LOW does not fall behind and tells the highs and lows of the controversial design celebrity of the House of Dior, John Galliano.

Director Madonald’s film begins with the December 2010 encounter at a Paris bar one evening when a drunken Galliano insulted a group of Italian women in Paris with antisemitic slurs, which was caught on camera.  The video resurfaced in February 2011, just before Paris Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2011/2012. Facing public and legal scrutiny, he was fired from his role as creative director at Dior.  What did the man say?  At the Paris bar La Perle, he was quoted as saying: "I love Hitler... People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers would all be fucking gassed." The video is revisited after the halfway mark of the movie.  It is a powerful scene that obviously affected the life and career of Galliano.

Galliano dressed some of the most beautiful and prominent men and women in the world for almost 15 years at Givenchy and Dior and was widely recognized as one of the most successful fashion designers of the 1990s and 2000s. However, his career abruptly ended when he was caught on camera in 2011 hurling antisemitic and racist insults at bystanders outside Paris's Café La Perle.

The doc is not a biopic of Galliani though there is some mention (only briefly, of him being abused by his father) of his childhood.  But it does inform of his humbler begins studying at St. Marvin’s School in London.  It is not an easy watch as Galliano is often out of control with his alcohol, drugs and overwork.

HIGH & LOW showcases archive footage of the breathtaking haute couture and high-fashion runways of the period, and features extensive interviews with Galliano himself, alongside conversations with Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Penelope Cruz, Charlize Theron, Anna Wintour, Edward Enninful and more, this nuanced look at Galliano confronts the toxic work culture behind-the-scenes of the fashion industry. 

There are two excellent achievements from director Macdonald’s documentary.  One is the intercutting with Abel Glance’s French masterpiece NAPOLEON, the film whose costumes and look inspired the designs of John Galliano.  The intercutting occurs throughout the film and shows the influence the film had on Galliano.  The other is Macdonald’s ability to get Galliano to earnestly speak his mind. candidly on camera.  MacDonald asks pertinent questions to Galliano:  “Do you think you are racist?”  and also elicits important responses.  Macdonaald’s film is well constructed and well crafted and delivers in the same spirit both uplifting and gut-wrenching as Galliano’s mixed excess lifestyle.

The film opens in theatres on March 15th.

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RE: UNITING (Canada 2023) ***

Directed by Laura Adkin

 

The film follows Rachel, played by Michelle Harrison, who receives life-changing news, she secretly grapples with her mortality while playing host to her friends who have grown up and gone their separate ways since college. 

Director Atkins's film’s premise is nothing fresh, the subject is already covered well and very well in two films by inevitable comparison.  One is Lawrence Kasdan’s THE BIG CHILL (1983) in which a group of seven former college friends gather for a weekend reunion at a South Carolina vacation home after the funeral of another of their college friends.  Then there is Denys Arcand’s 1986 THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE (Original title: Le déclin de l’empire américain) in which sexual revelations emerge when a group of academics and their partners spend a weekend at a country retreat.  The former was nominated for 3 Academy Awards and the latter for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.  Director Adkin has tough shoes to fill.

` Adkin’s film is Canadian like Arcand’s and set in Bowen Island, British Columbia, Canada.  It is the story of six friends reuniting at a giant waterfront house 25 years after their college graduation.  Bowen Island is an idyllic destination in the middle of Howe Sound, just a 20-minute ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay, West Vancouver. Quiet and alluring, a short distance from Vancouver, it’s a welcome escape from the stresses of city life.  As the host of the reunion says: “Forget all the stresses of city life.  It is time to party.”

Director Adkin aims for a lighter version of THE BIG CHILL or THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE going for more humour and more quirky characters.

Among the six are the main character Rachel, the host of the perfect house, a loving husband (Jesse L. Martin), and happy kids, but seems to be carrying the weight of a secret.  Natalie is a neurosurgeon with a penchant for shooters. The male characters are made more complicated.  There is Danny, played by Adkin’s husband David James Lewis His character is the perennial party animal we meet naked in bed one morning (at the start of the film), still handcuffed to a one-night stand he may or may not recognize.  The film was shot during COVID-19 with all the prowls in place.

Laura Adkin, born and raised in Vancouver, BC, began her career almost 20 years ago as an actor then moved behind the camera as a producer, writer and director. Her directorial debut The Goodnight Kiss received the Bravofact grant and went on to play festivals around the world earning many awards.

The film plays in Toronto at Cineplex Cinemas Yonge-Dundas with a Q&A with Adkin on March 15th, in Vancouver at Cineplex Odeon International Village with a Q&A with Adkin and select cast on March 16th and at The Vic Theatre in Victoria with a Q&A on March 17th. In Toronto and Vancouver, the film will be screening until March 21st.

Trailer: 

UPROAR (New Zealand 2023) ***½

Directed by Hamish Bennett and Paul Middleditch

 

There is something to be said bout this rare gem from New Zealand that features a Maori teenager, an unknown but with acting experience in the title role, which means that he has to carry the movie on his own shoulders.  The Maori actor is to a hunk of great physique but looks are not everything.  Julian Dennison plays 17-year-old Josh Walker.  Dennison delivers another powerhouse performance after DEADPOOL2 and  Taika Waititi’s HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE.  There is one reading scene in the film that illustrates the fact, the one in which Josh ‘wow’s his teacher who invites him to go audition for a prestigious drama school.

The story is set in 1981, the year the South African rugby team toured New Zealand, sparking protests across the country about the government’s decision to let them play, given South Africa’s apartheid policy.  Mandela is in prison and there are protests to free Mandela.  While this battle for the nation’s identity rages, 17-year-old Josh Walker  (Julian Dennison) has to figure out his own place in the world.  Robert Muldoon was the then Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Within the first 10 minutes of the film, a lot of information is disseminated to the audience, so much so that one has to be totally alert.  The audience learns of Josh Walker’s family - his widowed mother, Shirley (played by Minnie Driver) and a disabled older brother Jamie (James Rolleston), who is in a numb stasis after an injury has kept him from continuing his rugby career.  Their mother Shirley spends most of her time working to keep the family afloat.  While rugby is on everyone’s mind at home and in school, one of his teachers (Rhys Darby) pushes Josh to audition for drama school. This opens up new ways of looking at the world, and soon he starts to see the activism in his community differently.

The film succeeds as a bright and funny coming-of-age story with a Maori teen trying to find his identity and place in a racist society.  A few feel-good moments will have many cheering in their seats.  On the more serious side, the racism examined exists in South Africa and New Zealand.  A lot of good people surround our young titular hero.  There is his drama teacher etching him on, his hard-working motor working as a cleaner in the school making ends meet for the family and mostly his disabled brother who offers him the best and most direct advice of all - that it is ok to be different as the world is different and to stand up in society.  The film contains moving moments as well.  Josh’s drama teacher admits that he is a coward.  He says in an intimate moment to Josh that he is against apartheid but is afraid to speak out of fear of losing his job  Yet, he does what he can on the side like forming his drama society known to the authorities.

UPROAR premiered at the Special Presentation TIFF Next Wave Selects Section at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and opens in theatres on March 15th.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 02 March 2024

CANADIAN FILM FEST 2024

 

Canadian Film Fest (CFF) presented by Super Channel, the indie-spirited festival dedicated to celebrating Canadian filmmakers, today announced its lineup for the 2024 edition. New this year, CFF is extending the Festival to six days and expanding its shorts programming by screening six dedicated Homegrown Shorts programs, including a spotlight on Toronto filmmakers. CFF will return to Cineplex’s Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto, showcasing 11 features and 45 shorts and will take place March 18 - 23, 2024. Tickets go on sale March 4 and can be purchased at canfilmfest.ca.

CFF will transport cinefiles across Canada with feature films from Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia. The Festival will kick off with Ian Harnarine’s Doubles, about a Trinidadian street vendor who travels to Toronto to decide if he will help save his estranged father from dying. The film is adapted from Ian’s acclaimed short Doubles with Slight Pepper, which won Best Canadian Short Film at TIFF 2011 and Best Live Action Short Drama at the 2012 CSAs. Other festival highlights include Audrey Cummings’ Western Place of Bones starring Heather Graham and Tom Hopper about a bank robbery gone wrong in 1876; Anna Fahr’s compelling Valley of Exile, about two sisters seeking refuge in Lebanon after fleeing their home during the Syrian civil war; Winnipeg director Sean Garrity’s moving film The Burning Season chronicling an affair unfolding backwards in a reverse narrative; and the deeply personal documentary WaaPake (Tomorrow) where director Dr. Jules Arita Koostachin shares the impact and suffering of residential school Survivors.

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Capsule Reviews of Selected Films 

THE BURNING SEASON (Canada 2023) ***

Directed by Sean Garrity

 

Seasoned (sorry, had to use the word) Winnipeg director Sean Garrity returns with another adult relationship drama in a tale told backwards, except for the opening scene in which two youths watch a hiring shack promising each other to tell no one about it.  The film ends with a prologue that returns to this scene.  The film then begins with Chapter 7 in which Alena and Tom meet at JB and Poppy’s wedding only to have JB’s and Alena’s affair exposed.  The film then moves back chapter by chapter to Chapter 1 and then the prologue to tell director Garrity’s story.  The tactic works in the way a mystery unravels with the reasons behind each chapter revealed.  Actor Jonas Chernick has played in many other of Garrity’s films including their breakthrough film INERTIA which won the Best Canadian Feature at TIFF in 2001.  Garrity’s THE BURNING SEASON, as in his other films, is an adult drama that feels close to home, never forced and thoroughly entertaining.  The film has been chosen as the Closing Night Film of CFF.

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DOUBLES (Canada 2023) ***

Directed by Ian Harnarine

 

Chosen as the Opening Night Gala for the Canadian Film Fest, DOUBLES (the title deriving from a popular Trinidadian dish) is a heartwarming film about a son’s struggle to keep his family afloat and his dream of owning a restaurant alive.  The dream is a decent one but still one that has to be worked diligently on.  When the story starts, Dhani (Sanjiv Boodhu) is serving food as a street vendor with his mother while his father lives in Toronto, apparently according to Dhani, had abandoned them.  Dhani needs the land deed of the land signed over to him and his mother so that they can have a better life and so travels to Toronto, only to find the father in ill health and unwilling to sell the land, it being passed down generations.  That is much as the story, a familiar one goes.  The Trinidadian cuisine, simple but looking delicious is on full display here as the Trinidadian customs and practices.  Dhani speaks English with a Trinidadian accent. made light so that North American audiences can follow.

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LOOK AT ME (Canada 2023) ***

Directed by Taylor Olson

 

The film begins with a warning that the film includes strobing images, internalized fatphobia and an insecure male protagonist who many might find disturbing.  LOOK AT ME, the quote taken from the phrase made famous by actor Sir Lawrence Olivier is a fictional autobiography of Taylor Olson written and directed by Olson based on his play.  This is not his first feature and the sophomore effort shows.  He directed BONE CAGE in 2020  and one of his actors in BONE CAGE appears as Simon, Taylor’s male fling in this film.  Taylor is bi-sexual.  Taylor is a self-destructive actor who has an eating disorder matched only by his destructive nature in relationships.  Not a bad film, quite original in delivery but yet a difficult watch owing to its disturbing nature.  One does hope that things will turn outwell for Taylor for all his efforts but the film shows him his own worst enemy,

 

PLACE OF BONES (Canada 2023) ****

Directed by Audrey Cummings

 

PLACE OF BONES begins with the feel and atmosphere of a classic western.  An image of a grave is seen with a cross lying over it,  Nearby is the homestead of what is assumed to be the living quarters of the widow and his daughter.  The two women live in a harsh and unfair dangerous environment and have to protect themselves.  Mother and daughter argue as normal mothers and daughters do, but band together when danger lurks.  The first arrives in the form of a wounded man with two gunshots who lies near the grave.  A saddle bag of cash is found beside him.  The setting is 1876. A mother and daughter alone on a remote ranch fight for survival against a gang of ruthless outlaws.  Directed by a woman, this is a rare and excellent, brutal and exciting western complete with a HIGH NOON-styled showdown that looks at the western from a feminine point of view.  Taken with much humour and a pinch of salt, the women folk in the film are demonstrated to be much smarter than their male counterparts.  “Most men will not admit that the trouble they get into is entirely due to their doing,” is what the mother, tells her daughter, at one point.

 

WITH LOVE AND A MAJOR ORGAN (Canada 2023) **
Directed by Kim Albright

Written by Julia Lederer and directed by Kim Albright, this female-oriented film is a strange one - as strange as the art gallery that the protagonist attends, consisting of paintings with just a black spot or black rectangular shapes. The film is set in an alternate world where hearts are made of objects and suppressing emotions is self-care, a lonely woman rips out her own heart for the man she loves, only to discover that he has run away with it.  People are ruled by LifeZapp, an app controlling every detail: eating, sleeping, and whom they interact with, all except for their emotional well-being.  Hearts are removable objects that reflect our personalities, things we can dig out of our chests to make life less emotional.  I feel like trudging in my gut, she says at one point in the film after attending a self-help session. The film feels the same way, watching it a trudge of confused ideas. One wonders what the message (if there is one) is or where the film is leading. The dialogue is also laced with poetry that hardly makes any sense except maybe for the rhyming.

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