A lot has been said this week about the Golden Globes failing to nominate a woman director. Definitely an error but not rare. In all their 78 years they’ve nominated only five women directors and awarded one. I think there’s another big omission: Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life (which arrives in Vancouver next week) isn’t anywhere on the list but should be.
Interesting that Netflix got more nods than anybody –17—including three of the five in best drama. That’s how the times are changing right now..
Meanwhile, next week, the VanCity Theatre starts showing its choices for the best films of 2019. The 15 titles include seven directed by women, one set in Vancouver, one--The Nightingale--a Vancouver premiere, several that do have Golden Globe nominations and an extended cut of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood. This one is 10 minutes longer, not hard to imagine actually. The first edit was almost an hour and a half longer.
You can see the whole schedule at https://viff.org and, right here, my notes on new films in town.
The Two Popes: 4 stars
Richard Jewell: 3 ½
Jumanji The Next Level: 3
That Higher Level: 4
The Kindness of Strangers: 2
Black Christmas: not previewed
THE TWO POPES: This high-toned and very reverent film about faith and church politics has got four Golden Globe nominations (best picture, screenplay and lead and supporting actor). That’s as it should be because it’s literate, intelligent, devout and yet more than enough entertaining to put it among the best films of the year. It’s also a lively acting summit between two experts: Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce. The former is Pope Benedict, a German, a loner, an academic who won the job in a conclave that placed Pryce, as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, second. Eight years later the Latin American cardinal is summoned to Rome, asks to be allowed to retire but is surprised to hear that Benedict wants to step down from the top job.That leads to a series of conversations between them about the future of the church (both say it needs to change but differ on how), about personal faith and even pop culture.
Jorge whistles ABBA and loves football. Benedict plays classical piano and has to be coaxed to watch the World Cup. Jorge tells of his biggest regret, his conduct after the coup in Argentina, when he thought co-operating with the military government would protect the priests. Flashbacks tell only part of it. The Pope has some garbled regrets about his youthful politics. The film has them focused much more on the future: how to fix the church which is losing members. Surprisingly, all their talk--the whole film actually--is lively and often humorous, thanks to the writer, Anthony McCarten, and the director, Fernando Meirelles, both with Academy Award nominations in their background. It’s a Netflix film but worth seeing on a big screen thanks to the fine art direction, including a meticulously re-created Sistine Chapel. Filming is not allowed in the real one. (VanCity Theatre) 4 out of 5
RICHARD JEWELL: This is a true story drawing on a magazine article about the man who was a hero (briefly) in the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and then a suspect (for three months). But is it also a Trump-like screed mounted by director Clint Eastwood who is noted for conservative views? Several have written so. I don’t see it that way. It seems to be like many films we’ve seen about somebody wrongly accused and the police forces haunting him. This film adds the news media, usually the good guys in the movies, to the oppressive side and does a good job of portraying the “media lynching” that fell upon this guy and his mother.
Paul Walter Hauser and Kathy Bates are tremendous as the hapless security guard and his protective mother. He still lives in her house, has a gun collection and dreams of a job as a police officer. Just the kind of guy who might set off a bomb thinks the FBI agent played by Jon Hamm, who, armed with a phoned-in tip, goes after him. He also trades information and sex with a newspaper reporter (Olivia Wilde). That, 23 years later now, has arguments and threats of lawsuits flying. Incidentally, she is shown picking at the facts in the FBI case, so the film seems to be trying to be fair. Sam Rockwell is a low-rent lawyer but it’s Jewell himself who helps himself the most in a dramatic FBI tribunal. Hauser rises far above what he’s done before (I, Tonya and Super Troopers 2, are best known) with this very real portrayal of a loser who finds his self-respect when he needs it. This is an absorbing film. It’s typically Eastwood-- crisp, efficient and economical—and a potent slap at misuse of power . (International Village and 2 suburban theatres: North Van and Richmond. ) 3 ½ out of 5
JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL: A smash hit two years ago brings us to this, up a notch in video game terminology but a little less in movie practice. The mission was to do it all again, only different and in that this film strains too hard. It takes away some of the fun to constantly feel the mechanics of scriptwriting that brings the four teens from the last film together again, introduces new characters and restores the video game that was smashed back then. It doesn’t help that there’s a long slow start before the real action gets going. Then we get clever switcheroos and amazing spectacles, albeit with little thinking about the bigger issues the story hints at.
One teen (Alex Wolff) goes back into the game to make up for some dissatisfaction in his life. The others (Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner and Ser’Darius Blain) go in to find him and inadvertently bring along a grandfather (Danny DeVito) and his estranged old friend (Danny Glover). But the avatars they appear as are all mixed up. The nerd isn’t the muscleman (Dwayne Johnson) this time; the grandfather is. (Johnson does not do a good DeVito impression). The football player, not one of the girls, is now inside the map expert (Jack Black) and most amusingly Kevin Hart is hosting, and brilliantly channeling, Danny Glover. Only Karen Gillan’s avatar is the same as before and Awkwafina is a new one. Whatever form they’re in, they go on adventures in the desert (against a herd of ostriches), in a malfunctioning blimp, on drifting suspension bridges (chased by wild baboons) and in a Game of Thrones look-alike scenario with a veteran of that series, Rory McCann, playing Jurgen the Brutal. Individual parts are excellent; the whole, not so much. (Scitiabank, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
THAT HIGHER LEVEL: It only played here once, back in Sept, and now it’s available again, FOR FREE. It’s streaming on nfb.ca and YouTube. Hooray. This film can inspire young musicians and educate the rest of us. It lets us watch the 100 or so musicians in the National Youth Orchestra at work, in rehearsals, getting instruction and then follow them on a tour across Canada culminating in a final concert at the Chan Centre at UBC. We get a generous excerpt from that one.
We see them work on their art. It’s thrilling when a violin girl is advised she’s playing too hard and then gets it right. We learn something too when an instructor explains the background for the main piece they play, Death and Transfiguration by Richard Strauss and when the students talk about the emotions it raises in them. For many this is an early step to a professional career. As a trumpet boy puts it: “This is what I’m doing now. This is it.” The enthusiasm is infectious. The film’s director, John Bolton from here in Vancouver, understands. He’s been a viola player. 4 stars out of 5
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS: Yes, it fits the season, this message that kindness can overcome adversity with acts of love. The expression of it here though is clumsy and maudlin. These people don’t impress you as authentic. They’re types, conveniently imagined by writer-director Lone Scherfig who is from Denmark, has set them in New York and filmed them in Toronto. There’s Canadian money in this co-production.
Zoe Kazan plays a young mother who runs out on her abusive husband in Buffalo to New York City, with two sons and no resources except a car in which they sleep. She scrounges food from hotel functions and meets a variety of other needy people between a soup kitchen and a friendly Russian restaurant which all the characters at one time or another enter. Bill Nighy is in charge and puts on a Russian accent for the customers’ sake. He seems to be the only person in the whole film having any fun. He’s out of place, then. He hires an ex-con, who comes dining there with his lawyer (Jay Baruchel), as his head chef. Both men also attend a self-help group run by a sad-eyed nurse (Andrea Riseborough) who also runs a soup kitchen. Another guy, said to be “bad at just about everything,” shows up there for a meal but is mistaken for a server and put to work. The message, that we have to care for each other, is good; the stating of it here is heavy-handed and calculated. (International Village) 2 out of 5
Also now playing …
BLACK CHRISTMAS: Not so much into the spirit of Christmas movies? Then how about a slasher film?. This is the second time this Canadian cult-favorite has been re-made. The original was filmed in Toronto, the second here in Vancouver and New Zealand hosted this new one. The story is the same: sorority girls at a university are one by one killed off around Christmas eve. Several things are new this time: there’s a woman director (Sophia Takal), a contemporary plotline (the women refuse to be victims and fight back) and a peculiar change. The killer may be part of “an underground college conspiracy”. Maybe the biggest change: a milder rating: PG-13 in the US; 14A for most of Canada.