This is a week for movie junkies. There are ten new ones just arrived-- I couldn’t get to see two of them—and the Cinematheque is holding its annual 24-hour movie marathon. The films are kept secret but there tend to be 13 or 14, ranging widely through the decades and genres. There are nibblies between and a major food break along the way. It all starts at 10 Saturday morning and tends to be very popular with a hardy crowd.
Sunday night on CBC, you can see the Canadian Screen Awards celebrate our country’s best. Quebec as usual is well-represented. I’d vote for Genesis if I had a chance and you’ll find reviews of two other contenders here today.
They’re somewhere in this list:
Dumbo: 3 stars
The World Before Your Feet: 4 ½
Ghost Town Anthology: 4
Giant Little Ones: 3 ½
Firecrackers: 3 ½
Through Black Spruce: 2 ½
The Mustang: 3 ½
The Beach Bum: 2 ½
Hotel Mumbai: --
The Aftermath: --
DUMBO: The jive-talking crows are gone in this re-make of the beloved animated film from 1941. That’s good; they’d be culturally incorrect these days. But much of the emotional connection has been dropped too in this live-action Tim Burton version that goes for spectacle instead. There are fires and crowd surges and tent collapses and power outages and panic and an explosion. Once those kick in, there’s no stopping the rush.
Before that we get the charming story of the baby elephant with ears big enough to let him fly. He’s watched over by a one-armed World War I vet (Colin Farrell) and his two children inside a failing circus run by Danny DeVito. His celebrity attracts a New York huckster (Michael Keaton) who buys the whole circus and absorbs it into his theme park, Dreamland. (Sort of like an early Disneyland). A glamorous trapeze artist from France (Eva Green) gets to ride him on a tense and thrilling flight over giant crowds inside a huge tent. Then things start going wrong. The ultimate money man (Alan Arkin) wants more box office. The circus staff are fired. Dumbo’s mother is sold and he once again feels separation anxiety. (Small children cry every time it happens). It’s a frantic, noisy and tense sequence that corrects things. The film is beautifully visualized but low on what it really needs lots of: poignancy and whimsy. Purists will note that “Baby Mine,” the songs that won an Oscar for the 1941 version, is sung this time too. (Dunbar, International Village, Marine Gateway and many suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
THE WORLD BEFORE YOUR FEET: This is a terrific film; don’t miss it. It’s funny, captivating, informative and eccentric. It’s for people with a sense of curiosity about the world right in front of them. If you’ve ever just wandered a street or a neighborhood to see what you can find, on vacation in another city for instance, this film will speak to you.
Matt Green is on a marathon walking tour of New York and all its boroughs. Over six years or so he’s covered 8,000 miles of streets, lanes and paths and says he’s not finished yet. A few years ago he walked across the entire US and hasn’t gone back to his engineering job since. With a bit of money he saved, a small income from work as a cat sitter and endless couch surfing at friends’ places to sleep at night, he lives on and spends very little. But you’ll delight as he shows you sights he’s encountered: Houdini’s enormous grave for instance; Basquiat’s modest tiny one, the site on Wall Street where New York’s slave trade was centered, a corn field in Queens, many 9-11 memorials and “the puddle that never goes away”. And many more sights and a lot of history. He can’t explain why he does it except that most of these things he’d never see if he was driving. There’s a buoyant mood in this film and the encounters with people along the way are friendly. A real treat. (VanCity Theatre) 4 ½ out of 5
GHOST TOWN ANTHOLOGY: There are ghosts in this film but they’re not mainly what it’s about. Dying communities, emptying out, that’s what Quebec filmmaker Denis Coté has on his mind. That and how people either live with or ignore what’s happening to them. The fictional village of Irénée-les-Neiges only has 215 people since the mine closed. One more, a young man, dies in a suicide car crash because, as one person theorizes, he just got fed up with the town’s slow death. The mayor is trying to argue it’s not dying. She talks about “resilience.”
The film shows a variety of responses among the people. Some despair, one wonders if “there’s something bigger than us”, one is resigned (“the law of nature”), some resolve to “live life as usual.” But people start seeing ghosts, both individually (the dead boy’s brother sees him) or in groups standing out in a bleak snowy field. They’re not threatening; just showing themselves. Allegorical for sure. That’s reinforced by a revelation about a long-abandoned house and towards the end the film does turn into more of a qhost story.
It’s not scary, just creepy and mysterious. An artful meditation on grief and losing a community. (VanCity Theatre) 4 out of 5
GIANT LITTLE ONES: Sure, adolescence is a baffling time as you’re trying to figure out your approach to sex. More than ever these days, because the choices are wide open. There’s no one path; fluidity is accepted and teens are likely to have to struggle to settle on their orientation. This film has an unusually understanding and perceptive view of all this, including the contradictions people show.
A couple of long-time pals end up drunk and in bed one night and exhibit completely different reactions when word gets out at their high school. One (Darren Mann) turns homophobic, even to the point of hitting his friend. The second (Josh Wiggins) starts wondering if he’s gay. It would explain why he’s been avoiding his girlfriend’s sexual offers. Also his dad (Kyle MacLachlan) recently left to live with a man. He gets advice from both dad and mom (Maria Bello), from a lesbian friend at school and his former pal’s sister (Taylor Hickson) whose reputation gets her the world “slut” marked on her locker. Taken together there’s a wide spectrum of attitudes revealed here and that amounts to a very relevant discussion about teens and sex. A couple of jumps in the story are jarring but don’t damage the film. Keith Behrman, who wrote and directed it, used to live here and is well-remembered for his first film, Flower &Garnet, which made 17 years ago. (International Village) 3 ½ out of 5
FIRECRACKERS: Two points of triumph to cite about this movie. First, it’s up for four prizes at the CSA awards Sunday. (Directing, editing, costumes and best first film). Second it’ll satisfy anybody hoping for more participation by women in making movies. The director, Jasmin Mozaffari, and most her crew are women and the story is about two others. It is intense, angry and real, and without stating it so obviously, a picture of life for young women in a patriarchal society.
Michaela Kurimsky and Karena Evans play teens is a small Ontario town (the director is from one) who are anxious to get out. The film is superb at showing why and what’s in the way. They have a young man with a car who will drive them to New York. He stalls and dithers and then stands them up. There’s an ex-boyfriend who assaults, a mother who impedes, a church that beckons. Two guys offer to take them out west “where there are jobs”. It’s hard finding a way through all this and the script has the two women represent opposite ideas. One is a fighter, as seen in a vicious scrap early in the film. The other is more easy going. Both drink and swear and reflect real upsets that women sometimes feel they have to cause. Their plans aren’t well thought out and I guess that happens too. Overall this is an auspicious debut by the director who originally made it as a short in film school. (International Village) 3 ½ out of 5
THROUGH BLACK SPRUCE: The novel won the Giller Prize 11 years ago; the movie makes you ask what’s so special? This is a pedestrian adaptation that underplays a lot of powerful themes about indigenous people in Canada: missing women, culture clash and exploitation in the cities, isolation of remote communities, the menace of the drug trade there. Ironically the film is a victim of another hot issue: cultural appropriation. Although it’s co-produced by a Cree woman (Tina Keeper, who also has an acting role) it’s director and screenwriter, Don McKellar and Barbara Samuels, are not indigenous. The novelist, Joseph Boyden, has an arguable claim to be indigenous. Ok, that’s the baggage. What’s the film like?
Tanaya Beatty (who lives around here) stars as a young woman in a tiny community on James Bay who goes to Toronto to find her missing sister. Some drug dealers also want to find her, and her boyfriend too, because they think they ripped them off. So we have parallel stories. She visits the gleaming offices and studios where her sister was making it as a model. Her uncle (Brandon Oakes) is back home dealing with psychological issues left from years in a residential school. Also, the drug dealers come after him. There’s enough there; it should work but the two stories play out separately when they should be working together. Also, both stories plod along without building up much momentum. There are good actors in them though, including Tantoo Cardinale, Graham Greene, Oakes, who’s up for an acting award Sunday, and especially Beatty who conveys drive, determination and vulnerability. (5th Avenue and theatres in Langley and Mission) 2 ½ out of 5
THE MUSTANG: What do you get when you put a surly prison inmate to work training a wild horse? A metaphor, that’s what. Who needs taming? Who will learn from who? It’s all so obvious but in this nice little film it’s not at all trite. The journey of the violent convict played by Matthias Schoenaerts is absorbing to watch. He’s recruited into a program (that actually exists in the Nevada prison system) to work with wild horses. Apparently some 100,000 are running free out on the range. A few are caught, tamed and then sold for auction.
Much like the horse, Matthias is un-coperative and non-communicative but Bruce Dern, old, grizzled and aggressive pushes him on. The usual threats and plots among the prison crowd hamper him; his daughter visits and reveals why he’s there at all and a meeting led by a psychologist brings out his deep feelings of regret. One mistake that lasted only a few seconds got him 12 years in prison. The director, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre from France and new at the helm, tells his story with humanity and compassion. He doesn’t say much but conveys a lot. And we connect. (International Village) 3 ½ out of 5
THE BEACH BUM: This movie is great fun and entirely inconsequential. When it’s over, you’ll ask what was that about? Nothing really, just partying and smoking dope. All day. Everyday. Matthew McConaughey says it candidly when his character comes into some money. To him it means “We can do whatever we want, or nothing at all.”
The Oscar winner is having a merry time playing a perpetually-stoned would-be poet known as Moondog carousing in the Florida Keys. Snoop Dogg, Jonah Hill and Zac Efron are along for the ride as he crashes through life absolutely unconcerned what people think of him. “He’s from another dimension,” says his ex-wife (Ilse Fisher). “A great man … brilliant”, says his daughter, whose wedding he arrives at late and almost disrupts. Often seen typing away, always holding a beer and/or smoking a giant joint and predisposed to have sex anywhere, anytime, he’s another fantasy figure dreamed up by Harmony Korine. Spring Breakers, his film from a few years ago, was mean spirited. This film isn’t, except for a few incidents. It’s a mindless hoot. With lots of sun, good music and even an appearance by a real Keys character, Jimmy Buffett. (Scotiabank, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 2 ½ out of 5
Also now playing …
HOTEL MUMBAI: I regret not being able to get to this one yet because people who have seen it say it’s excellent. It’s a detailed and tense telling of the terrorist attack and siege of the Taj Hotel in 2008. Of the actors, Dev Patel and Armie Hammer are best known to us.
THE AFTERMATH: A British officer (Jason Clarke) arrives in Hamburg, Germany after the war to oversee pacification. His wife (Keira Knightley) and the German officer (Alexander Skarsgård) who houses them carry on a busy affair. Not made available for a preview here but Caryn James calls it “disappointingly lifeless.”