Michael Jackson's This Is It Hits Town: Reviews of New Movies for October 30th

THIS IS IT: These last scenes of Michael Jackson performing bring up two main thoughts. There’s nothing here that backs up the rumors that he was depressed. He’s energetic, singing and dancing well, taking and giving direction easily and looking happy. And second: this looks like a terrific show that he was creating for his comeback tour. The film is edited seamlessly from hours of rehearsal footage. The effect is almost like a concert, interrupted now and then with glimpses of  the work that went into it. Some of these 17 songs come with giant pyrotechnical effects; one re-imagines Thriller as a graveyard scarefest  and one puts Michael into an old movie being chased and shot at by Humphrey Bogart. Black and White dazzles with a dueling guitars sequence  and Beat It has a simulated street fight plus Orianthi Panagaris of Australia taking over Eddy Van Halen’s famous guitar solo. It’s as if Michael was trying to create live videos for the stage. There’s also a rainforest sequence with a message. Michael intones “The planet is sick. Like a fever,”  And stay through the end credits for a few extra clips. (At theatres all over)  Rating: 4 out of 5  

AMREEKA: The immigrant experience gets a more accurate representation than usual in this charming film. There’s humor and humanity here, when there was ample opportunity to get loud and strident.  A Palestinian mother and her teenage son end are fed up with border guards and restrictions in the Middle East and jump at the chance to emigrate to the U.S. They land in the Midwest but  nobody calls them terrorists and the immortal line “Why don’t you go back where you came from?” is spoken only once. Instead we get real incidents that actually happen to immigrants, a brief schoolyard fight for him, a money crisis for her, a growing generation gap for both. Although educated, she’s stuck flipping burgers and still manages to stay cheerful. The director knows her stuff. Her own parents came to the U.S. from Palestine. She made the film in Ramallah and Selkirk, Manitoba. (5th Avenue Cinemas)  3 out of 5.  
   

VANCOUVER JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL: Not surprisingly this 21st annual edition also touches on Palestinian issues, directly in a TV production called Arab Labor. It’s a comic look at Arabs living inside Israel, a fast-growing sector. There’s also a documentary about Isreali soldiers shaking off the tensions the accumulate working the Palestinian border by unwinding in India, largely through drug taking. There are over 50 films screening from now until Nov 11, including comedies, documentaries and as the organizers put it “films that make you think”.. There are eight about the Jewish experience in France and four from Latin America. The Australian comedy Hey, Hey, It’s Esther Blueburger  looks interesting. It’s about frantic times leading up to a young girl’s bat mitzvah and stars Toni Collette and Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider). There’s more info at  www.vjff.org.

BEAU JEST: This is not part of the Jewish Film Festival but the Ridge Theatre has programmed it seven times close by. It’s a mild, warm-hearted comedy about family, loyalty and respect. A young Chicago woman has been secretly dating a non-Jewish man. For a visit to her parents house, she hires an escort but finds out only on the doorstep that he’s not Jewish either. Luckily he’s an actor who’s been in Fiddler on the Roof. He’s so convincing  the parents want to see him again and again. How long can he keep up the pretense? Close calls follow, especially at a Passover Seder, and eventually bring on a tear-filled showdown. Lainie Kazan and Seymour Cassel are the parents, and the best performers in this fairly-funny movie based on a popular stage play. (Ridge Theatre Fri., Sat. and Nov. 6, 7 and 12). Ratings: 2 ½ out of 5

HALLOWEEN AT THE MOVIES ….You can celebrate with the unsettling chills of Paranormal Activity, last week’s box office leader,  or take a tour of horror films gathered from almost 90 years of mayhem. Here’s your menu.

VAMPYRE WEEKEND: The VanCity Theatre has a tremendous line up of films about vampires for Halloween. The 11 titles range from demented to artful, and  from the 1920s to just last year. That’s the celebrated Swedish film “Let The Right One In” in which a lonely boy is attracted to a new neighbor with a bloody secret. In “Vampire’s Kiss”  Nicholas Cage is a literary agent who goes completely mad and thinks he’s become a bloodsucker after he’s bitten by Jennifer Beals. “The Hunger”  is a stylish moody film with Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie. Bela Lugosi himself stars in “Mark of the Vampire” and early films by David Cronenberg and Kathryn Bigelow also screen Fri. to Sun., Oct. 30 - Nov. 1. Find details, times and descriptions at www.vifc.org.
 
NOSFERATU: The Vancouver Symphony is celebrating with a one-night showing of, and listening to, the first Dracula picture ever made. Max Schrek gives a creepy performance as Count Orlock in this 1922 silent film from Germany. He’s not a Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee but a living corpse. His mannered poses look quaint today; back then they were scary and macabre. The real attraction, though, is the music, the original score, reconstructed and here conducted by Gillian Anderson, an American musicologist who specializes in old film scores. She has restored the music for some 34 silent films and also conducted a recording of the Nosferatu score. Saturday, 8 p.m., Orpheum Theatre. Details at vancouversymphony.ca.

The harder stuff  for Halloween …

THE COLLECTOR: A recent contribution by some of the creative people behind the torture porn of the SAW films. (# VI is currently playing). This film drops any excess storytelling (pretty well all of it) in favor of unencumbered brutality. An ex-con breaks into a country house and finds that another crook has already done the same. Only he’s rigged a series of deadly traps that kill. That’s it. Extreme fare for, as one fan wrote, people who are tired “of all the watered down PG-13 so-called “horror” movies of late”. (Granville Theatre).   

SUSPIRIA:  The Pacific Cinematheque has this 1977 classic of gore and bloodletting. It’s  from Italy’s Dario Argento but largely filmed in Germany. Jessica Harper arrives from the U.S. to join a ballet company run by Alida Valli and Joan Bennett.  She encounters strange noises at night, bizarre events and a coven of witches. Critics overlook the film’s awkward story telling and praise its striking visual style. One called it “a sadistic Eurotrash torture chamber.”  Playing Fri. and Sat, twice each night. Details at www.cinematheque.bc.ca.

Also playing …(and not a horror film)

MORE THAN A GAME: A documentary about basketball superstar LeBron James. The film follows him for seven years from highschool to superstar with the Cleveland Cavaliers. It’s said to be very good about his family and the inner city life in Akron, Ohio he came from. But hey, isn’t it too early for this? It’s still baseball season. The World Series is on. And even basketball fans, wouldn’t they rather watch a game than a biopic? LeBron, by the way, is going to make a real movie next year. He’s starring in a comedy about, yes, basketball. (Tinseltown)