You can start drawing up your wish list for the Vancouver International Film Festival. The printed program guide should be available today.
The online version is already up (at viff.org) but I find it cumbersome to use, certainly for the delicate and demanding process of compiling a personal schedule. You have to scroll film by film when what you need to see is an entire day’s grid.
VIFF starts at suppertime Sept 29 with these films screening concurrently: The Yard, Maudie, The Complexity of Happiness, The Bacchus Lady and Two Trains Runnin' which may be the most interesting of the five.
This week’s new films are:
Sully: 4 stars
The Wild Life: 2 ½
Hieronymus Bosch: 4
The Academy of the Muses: 3 ½
When the Bough Breaks: --
SULLY: Don’t expect to see this one on an airliner any time soon. The splash landing by this airplane is gripping and realistic. The aftermath is freezing as people end up in the mid-winter water in New York’s Hudson River. The lead-up is nail-biting and tense because we know what’s going to happen and the efficient direction by Clint Eastwood and the snappy editing build our trepidation. Not only that, we get the incident three times, with different details emphasized each time. And if that’s not enough there are four other airplane troubles shown, either in flashbacks or anxiety dreams. This is a true thriller.
And it’s more than that. It celebrates cool thinking and professionalism. Tom Hanks as the U.S. Airways pilot Capt. Chesley Sullenberger says he’s no hero. He was “just a man doing his job” when he ditched that plane. The engines were out; he couldn’t have reached an airport and he had to protect the 155 people on board.
The press called it “the Miracle on the Hudson” but he had to defend himself before the Transportation Safety Board which had a different slant on it from the plane manufacturer. “I eyeballed it,” he says. Hanks plays him like the classic decent American we used to get in the movies. Aaron Eckhart is his co-pilot and Laura Linney his wife, a thankless role because she’s only on the phone to him now and then. The movie is as involving as a good and terse documentary. (5th Avenue, Scotiabank, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres. It’s worth the extra cost to see it in IMAX at Riverport) 4 out of 5
THE WILD LIFE: Strictly for your kids, if you’re willing. The problem is how much the classic story of Robinson Crusoe is mangled here. It’s told not by him, but by the animals he encountered on that island he was stranded on for 28 years. It’s easier to list the difference than the similarities.
For instance, Crusoe comes off as a bit of a wimp and inept, not the resourceful Englishman Daniel Defoe intended him to symbolize. He can’t build a shelter that will stand up. He needs the help of the animals, including a goat, a pig, a tapir, a lizard and a kingfisher. In this version he lands on that island twice, which makes no sense. There’s no Friday, though there is a Tuesday, a parrot who narrates the tale. There are no cannibals, just pirates, and cat lovers beware, a couple of mangy felines who are the chief villains and cited as “the real monsters.” Worse, there’s nothing of the loneliness that’s such a big theme in the original story. This is very thin children’s entertainment with one plus on its side. The animation is excellent and the 3-D is superb. It’s from a studio in Belgium that pioneered its use. The voice actors in this English version are not big names. (International Village, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 2 ½ out of 5
HIERONYMUS BOSCH, TOUCHED BY THE DEVIL: His paintings shocked many it seems, although I can remember a few dopers who used to love staring at the tiny scenes in his Garden of Earthly Delights, perhaps musing on the admonishments there between Eden and Judgement Day but probably just tripping on the images.
Bosch died 500 years ago and his hometown in the Netherlands, which doesn’t have any of his paintings, held a memorial celebration this year. As a first step, they struck a research group (three art historians, a restorer and a photographer) to go and inspect every one of his paintings (only 25 or so still exist), verify that it is real and try to borrow it for their event. This film by Pieter van Huystee follows them on the whole tour. Sounds dry and academic. Nothing of the sort.
This is a fascinating film first for the information we get about the painter and his art. Then about the people we meet, including some sniffy museum types at the Prado in Madrid, which has the largest collection of his paintings, in Venice and at a monastery. Some feared their pieces would be discredited, although a curator from Kansas City was ecstatic that a drawing he has was pronounced genuine. The group took high resolution photos and that allowed them, and us, to get much closer than we could even if we were standing right at the actual paintings. They pointed out the many owls in them, compared ears and other details and x-rayed to study any underdrawings. Their leader displayed an impish sense of humor which added some light fun to the art lesson. The Prado never did lend any pieces but the show went on. (VanCity) 4 out of 5
THE ACADEMY OF THE MUSES: This one is perfect for back to school time. It’s erudite, infused with discussions of classical myths, poetry, love and the creative process and offers a sly take on a situation that would produce firings and shocked headlines out of UBC. Most of it takes place in a lecture hall at the University of Barcelona where philology prof Raffaele Pinto (playing himself) offers his theories on poetry and music (“the birth of civilization”) and his advice to his mostly female students to conduct themselves like muses.
Some agree and some denounce it as a scheme of the patriarchy. One says poetry itself created the concept of love to deceive women. He comes back with “Without poetry we would be walking dead”. The back and forth is lively, sometimes impassioned, and slowly, over weeks of classes, it becomes evident that he’s using it to seduce at least one of his students. When his wife suspects something his retort is "Teaching is seducing" and “What you call my double life is my research.” No actual hanky panky is shown, just strongly suggested, even on a field trip to Sardinia where singing and poetry-writing shepherds add weight to his ideas. The film was directed, written, produced, edited and shot by Spain’s José Luis Guerín. He managed to get authentic performances out of his non-professional cast, a potent final scene and a learned gloss on the entire movie for us. (VanCity Theatre) 3 ½ out of 5
Also now playing …
WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS: The studio didn’t preview this one for media, so here’s all I know. A couple (Morris Chestnut, Regina Hall) desperate to have a child but unable to conceive, hire a young woman (Jaz Sinclair) as a surrogate mother. When she ends up on the street and a victim of domestic violence, they take her in. But she develops a dangerous fixation on the husband and runs off when he doesn’t respond. The law won’t help them get the baby back. They’ll have to do it. (International Village and suburban theatres)