The SPARK ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL is on through the weekend. Just like the industry here in town, the festival keeps growing and the highlight this year is the participation of one of the top creative types at Disney. Chris Buck directed the mammoth hit Frozen, and the soon-to-arrive sequel, Frozen 2 but on Saturday he’s bringing the one that won him an Oscar, Tarzan, for a 20th anniversary screening.
In another session the work of another Disney artist, the famed Ub Iwerks, will be discussed by his son and granddaughter.
Among other highlights there’ll be a screening of The Butterfly Affect. This one is interesting because it’s completely local and the first result of a program to promote gender equality in animation. Five women were chosen last year, mentored and given financing to create a film, which they’ll premiere Saturday afternoon.
There’s much more. You can see the whole schedule at http://sparkfx.ca
Down below I’ve got a guide to this year’s horror films for Halloween and these reviews:
Monos: 3 stars
Parasite: 4 ½
The Lighthouse: 3 ½
Western Stars: 4
Black and Blue: --
Countdown: --
MONOS: I missed a few films when I was away last week but this one I wanted to catch up on. It plays again Monday at the VanCity Theatre. It’s highly involving and beautifully crafted but it’s up to you to figure out what it is. It’s not another Lord of the Flies to which it refers a few times but maybe a cousin. The youths are older in this one; they’re a small troop of soldiers, disciplined and organized by a drill sergeant on a mountain somewhere. We don’t know where, but most everybody speaks Spanish and the director, Alejandro Landes, is based in Brazil but originally from Columbia. It’s from such bits of data that you try to make it out.
The eight teens have a hostage, an American played by Julianne Nicholson. We don’t know why or what they’re supposed to do. They’ve taken names like Rambo, Swede, Bigfoot and Smurf and spend their time playing, swimming and shooting their guns for fun. They have a strange birthday celebration (they whip the guy). The sergeant gets orders on the radio from something called The Organization so we know there’s somebody in charge. But the radio gets destroyed in a fit of anger and the hostage gets away. They have to go after her. So there is a story line even if the explanations are missing. Maybe it’s enough just to expose the shameful exploitation of child soldiers. It does that and the sharp direction, music and sound design help tremendously. It won a big award at Sundance. (VanCity) 3 out of 5
PARASITE: There’s a reason why you’ve seen so much written about this film. It’s one of the best of the year. It’s a comedy (initially), a social commentary about class differences (all throughout), a delightful story about a clever deception and finally, after a sudden twist, a ghost and a horror story with some bloody action. Surprisingly it all fits together and doesn’t feel contrived. But as a caustic view of modern society anywhere, not only in South Korea where it’s from, it provokes and entertains. It’s won awards at film festivals, including the top prize at Cannes and the People’s Choice at Vancouver and Korea is sending it to the Academy Awards.
Basically, we’re watching two families, one poor, the other nouveau riche and annoyingly entitled. A son from the first gets a job tutoring a daughter of the second and sets in motion a scheme to get a job there for every member of his family. Some of that is easy while it takes some complex (and very funny) machinations to replace the housekeeper and the driver. The rich family is clueless and self-absorbed; the poor ones are clever and feeling so pleased with themselves that they imagine they can take over the whole house. Then the twist: the housekeeper returns, says she forgot something and reveals a complete underside to the story. It changes everything and yet feels right. Deft directing and co-screenwriting by Bong Joon Ho makes it all work tremendously well. You’ll remember him from his other hits, The Host, Snowpiercer and Mother. (5th Avenue, International Village) 4 ½ out of 5
THE LIGHTHOUSE: A crusty veteran (Willem Dafoe) and a new guy (Robert Pattinson) aggravate each other and go mad together in this spellbinding film. And where better for that to happen than in that symbol of claustrophobia, a lighthouse. They’re stuck with each other, isolated from the rest of the world, unable to leave and they get on each other’s nerves. Not right away. They’ve signed on for a month’s duty and the young one doesn’t chafe when he’s told to address the older one as “Sir.” He’s a Canadian, it takes a while. But when he gets loaded with all the hard jobs, painting the lighthouse, emptying the pots and pushing a wheelbarrow even in a downpour he starts to grumble. The story is set in New England, but filmed in Nova Scotia.
The old guy spouts orders, invective and long stories. A battle of wills develops and eventually a madness much like cabin fever. Watching that progress is creepy and fascinating, perfectly acted by the two men and staged in chilling black and white by director Robert Eggers. He made a big name for himself three years ago with another eerie film, The Witch. This one isn’t horror, just a psychological duel with haunting echoes of Robert Louis Stevenson and Herman Melville. It’s bad luck to kill a seabird. Pattison’s character starts seeing a mermaid and listen to Dafoe bellow when the inevitable storm arrives and all but shuts the light down. The previous keeper went crazy because he grew to feel “some enchantment” there. This film is edgy, atmospheric and hypnotic. (5th Avenue, International Village, Coquitlam and Langley) 3 ½ out of 5
WESTERN STARS: Bruce Springsteen is not touring to support his new album, his 19th and his first in seven years. Instead, he performs all 13 songs (plus a bonus number) for a small audience in a huge cathedral-like barn and for us in this film. It’s a terrific show; he, his wife Patti Scialfa and a trio of backup singers are in good voice and a small orchestra with a rousing string section adds grandeur and power to a flood of images and personal ruminations about “the American journey.”
It’s always been a competition between the solitary and the communal, he tells us early on. The songs back that up with tales of men on the road (“lost on the highway of life”), risking everything, regretting the connections they didn’t make, celebrating those they did. It’s an elegiac collection full of metaphors that evoke the mythology of the old west and then finds cracks in the nostalgia. These characters have regrets, suffered setbacks and are looking for a way to change themselves, “to have a life.” For every song, Springsteen tells us exactly us what he’s getting at. As co-director of the film, he’s added in home movies, western landscapes and scenes of driving the open road to illustrate. And it’s not often that you get a pedal steel guitar and a cello playing at the same time. The songs aren’t profound but they do come alive in this concert. (Scotiabank and suburban theatres) 4 out of 5
HORROR FOR HALLOWEEN: As usual horror movie fans get served extra portions this time of year. Here’s a rundown of what I’ve noticed on offer over the next few days, including classics, favorites, gross outs and one brand new one.
The Cinematheque has rounded up what they call British Folk Horror, starting with one of the greats, The Wicker Man, the 1973 original, Night of the Demon, from 1957, and Kill List from just eight years ago. They play Sat, Sun and/or Halloween night. See more at https://thecinematheque.ca/
The VanCity Theatre has got a gross out double bill on Oct 30 (Re-Animator and Society, which they call “disgusting and subversive”) and a John Carpenter double (Halloween and The Thing) on, naturally, Halloween night. For more visit https://viff.org
The Rio has several days of it, from The Rocky Horror Picture Show late tonight, The Witch and The Blair Witch Project tomorrow to Psycho on Sunday and The Exorcist on Halloween night. www.riotheatre.ca
And there’s also the Vancouver Horror Show Film Festival on at the York Theatre Sat and Sun evening. Its inaugural fest last year sold out and it’s back with 32 short films and one full-length Vancouver original. Puppet Killer is about a Christmas gone wrong after one man’s tales of a malevolent toy. Director Lisa Ovies and her cast and crew will be there for a Q&A. There’ll also be awards handed out and a screenwriting contest. See https://www.vancouverhorrorshow.com/
And these two films are now playing but weren’t available to preview:
BLACK AND BLUE: Sounds like a promising and timely story but no previews got the word out around here. Naomie Harris, a one-time Oscar nominee, plays a rookie New Orleans cop who sees a couple of other cops kill a drug dealer. She’s immediately a target for both the killer cops and the dealer’s friends. It’s said to be a “fast-paced thriller.” Said, to be.
COUNTDOWN: Also not previewed is this bit of paranoia about both technology and death. Elizabeth Lail, known from a few TV series, plays a nurse who downloads an app on to her phone that can predict the exact time she will die. It gives her two days. She does what anybody would do; she gets a new phone. But then the app installs itself on there too. How do you get out that? A few theatres around here will know.