Everything to do with films!
All the news that is news or at least all the news that I found interesting. That’s called "curation" folks. Let’s dive right into what was going on this week, shall we?
Animation is a medium. It’s a weird thing to have actually to write down, but to many when you say you’re about to watch an animated film, they make a number of assumptions, but they all basically boil down to the thought that animation is a genre with its own tropes and conventions, but that’s not really the case, is it? Animation is a medium through which we often tell children’s stories, but it’s actually perhaps the most expressive film medium and perfectly capable of telling adult stories.
White Snake exemplifies this fact, an animated epic from China with a soft, whimsical animation style and a dark, violent, and occasionally erotic story to tell.
Continue reading “VIFF Review: ‘White Snake’ is an epic, adult, animated adventure”
Antonio Banderas and Pedro Amaldóvar are two of Spain’s biggest film exports and have worked together numerous times. It fits then that in Pain & Glory, the story of an ageing filmmaker in a creative rut who needs to address some unresolved issues from his past, Banderas is basically playing Amaldóvar.
He’s not, of course. Not exactly. Banderas is Salvador Mallo, a respected director who was a maverick in his youth and who has settled into more soulful work in his later years who is suffering from debilitating pain and illness. So he’s basically Amaldóvar in this semi-autobiographical film. He’s also transcendently good in the role.
Continue reading “VIFF Review: ‘Pain and Glory’ is Amaldóvar’s most deeply personal film”
This week we have new posters for Bad Boys for Life, Burning Cane, Free Guy, The Gentlemen, Waves, I Lost My Body, No Time to Die, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Primal, and Doctor Sleep.
The Film Festival is a busy time, and I want to make sure that every film gets its due, so in an effort to catch up, here are quick reviews of four films I saw at VIFF but hadn’t had enough time to write about.
Continue reading “VIFF Quick Reviews: Guest of Honour, In the Tall Grass, Burning Cane, and Hard-Core”
When Pope Benedict XVI resigned, there was a ripple of disbelief. None had resigned the papacy in 700 years. There was concern that he was being forced out due to his traditional and hardline stances. That his health was failing, or worse yet, his mind.
Enter Jorge Bergoglio, a Cardinal from South America who was concerned with the poor and reforming the church. Bergoglio had commanded a few votes at the previous papal election, and he and Benedict disagreed on almost everything, but ultimately it was Bergoglio who would next be elected and made Pope Francis.
The Two Popes retells the story of Bergoglio’s life, as he tells it to Pope Benedict in the year leading up to Benedict’s resignation. It’s a charming movie, with more than a few good laughs and two master thespians playing off one another for nearly two hours. In other words: you should definitely see it.
Continue reading “VIFF Review: The Two Popes is fun and funny”
Another week, another mess of trailers. More than I anticipated this week, but in a good way. Heads up there’s a red ban trailer in the mix this week as we look at Ordinary Love, I Lost My Body, The Wolf Hour, Eli, 6 Underground, Free Guy, Birds of Prey, The Personal History of David Copperfield, The Gentlemen, Richard Jewell, The Good Liar, 1917, Zombieland: Doubletap, and Parasite.
Let’s dive in!
In the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, after Eurydice is bitten by a snake and dies, Orpheus is advised that he can head to the underworld to retrieve her. He is told that he must lead her back to the surface world but must not look back for her until they are safely returned. As Orpheus crosses the threshold back to the surface, he relents and turns back, but Eurydice is still below and is then doomed to stay in the underworld forever.
This story is at the heart of the theme in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a film as concerned with memory as it is with love. As the three principal women discuss in the film, is Orpheus a fool for looking back when he knows that will seal his love’s fate? Or is he a fool for love who wants to catch a final glimpse of his love exactly as she is in that moment, exactly as he loves her, and forgo putting them both through a second painful death?
Continue reading “VIFF Review: ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ is one of the most beautiful films you’ll see this year”
The loss of a loved one does many things to many people. Some turn quiet and introspective, some get angry and abusive, and some are broken by the experience and become self-destructive.
Daughter is the story of a man dealing with an immense personal loss and who happens to be one of these third types of people. Jim’s (John Cassini) life is in a spiral, a positive feedback loop of drinking and prostitutes and running away from his grief. He is estranged from his wife and friends and is barely present at his job, and all because he doesn’t have the courage or will to face his traumatic past.
That, my friends, is a hell of a setup for a movie. I wish the payoff were as good.
Continue reading “VIFF Review: ‘Daughter’ jumps headfirst into grief and self-destruction, but doesn’t quite stick the landing”
Let’s get this out of the way: I did not like this movie. Todd Phillips has made a movie about a horribly abused man who lives in a world full of assholes and who also has mental health issues and who also has a condition who also has some terrible impulses and through the course of the movie starts acting on those impulses, and places the blame literally everywhere but on him, but doesn’t really make a compelling argument about any of these ideas.
Joker is an essay without a thesis or a joke without a punchline. There’s a lot going on but no actual payoff. I couldn’t tell you who Joker is actually for, but I worry that one of the worst crowds on the internet is going to hold it up as inspirational.
In a word: yikes.
There wasn’t a ton of news I found totally interesting this week but Jordan Peele making more movies and Martin Scorsese having opinions about movies are certainly interesting tidbits. Let’s take a look.
Cristi (Vlad Ivanov) is a cop. You won’t know that immediately, but you’ll know it soon enough. He’s not a good cop. In fact, he’s as dirty as they come. He’s arrived on La Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, to learn an aboriginal whistling language to communicate right under the noses of the Romanian police.
I’m not going to go into the actual plot here because, as a slick neo-noir film, the plot has so many twists and turns that telling you anything might be giving something away. Suffice to say that there is Christi, and there is a femme fatale (Catrinel Marlon as Gilda), and there is a whole slew of bad people on either side of the law.
There’s just one problem: It’s kind of boring.
Continue reading “VIFF Review: ‘The Whistlers’ convoluted plot keeps it from engaging.”
One moment. It only takes one moment to shatter a person. Everyone has a different breaking point, but we all surely have one. For Tobias and Elin, theirs came whilst on a family holiday, during a routine meal for three with their daughter. It’s Elin who gets sick, swelling up and turning red and eventually, the reason they are airlifted to a nearby hospital. They stay the night and wake up early to sing happy birthday, only to be devastated to find their daughter has passed in the night.
To say this is a gut-punch would be an understatement. The film jumps three years ahead to the couple on their way to a camping trip. A few days away from their lives but isolated together with their mutual grief and self-loathing.
What follows is a surreal misadventure, one that leans heavily into metaphor and is —to put it mildly— difficult to watch. As they wake up in the morning, they are accosted by three individuals (a woman with a hunting dog, a unibrowed brute carrying a dead dog, and an old-timey carnival barker) who proceed to humiliate and murder them. And then it happens again. And again. And again.
Continue reading “VIFF Review: ‘Koko-di Koko-da’ is stuck in a time loop with self-loathing”
The opening scene of The Realm follows Manuel (Antonio de la Torre) from a quiet beach, through a noisy kitchen, and to a table full of friends enjoying wine and seafood. There is laughter and toasting and inside jokes, and a great time being had by all. It’s a joyous scene, but these men and women are no mere friends. They are all government officials, and their good time comes at the expense of the people they have been elected to represent.
This is the world of The Realm, one in which it seems that nearly all government officials are corrupt to some extent and Manuel –our hero– is perhaps the worst of them. He has been living the high life for the last fifteen years off bribes, kickbacks, and graft, but when some of said graft comes to light, his political party ousts him.
That’s a hell of a setup for a story but does the movie equal the potential? Yes, it mostly does.
Continue reading “VIFF Review: ‘The Realm’ is a fast-paced and satisfying political thriller”
So many new movie posters! There’s a new Disney Animated film, a new prequel in a fun franchise, a whole slew of character posters for a zombie movie, and a great poster for an upcoming war movie. Can you dig it? Let’s dive right in.
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