McCabe and Mrs. Miller returns. The Illusionist, The Mechanic, Casino Jack, The Company Men and The Rite

Several worthy films tackle important themes among this week’s newcomers. But one old film has a special place in Vancouver’s history. It tops my list.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller: 4½ stars

Breathless: 3½

The Illusionist: 3½

Casino Jack: 3

The Company Men: 3

The Mechanic: 2½

The Rite: 2

McCABE & MRS. MILLER: No, it’s not new. It played in Vancouver in 1972 and has been brought back by the VanCity Theatre as its own contribution to Vancouver’s 125th anniversary celebrations. It’s been called a key film of the 1970s and one of Robert Altman’s best. But for us, there’s more. When you hear about Tom Cruise, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart coming here to make films, you can easily make the case that McCabe and Mrs. Miller started our Hollywood North adventure.

Altman brought two of the movies' hottest stars of the time, Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, to Cypress Mountain to a freshly built gold-rush era village called Presbyterian Church to act out a tale of small versus big business, vindictive religion and thorny love.

Beatty plays McCabe the gambler who sets up a casino and brothel and enlists Christie, the opium-smoking and more business-smart Mrs. Miller, as a partner. They run afoul of a mining company, which is just as topical today as when the film was made and the time in which it was set. There’s an elegiac and moody tone set by the changeable weather and underlined by several of Leonard Cohen’s dreamy songs. To me, that tone perfectly captured the relaxed and graceful Vancouver of the time. Beatty and Christie are wonderful. Several local actors and many craftspeople got a career boost in the film. Since it was a hit, both with the critics and with the box office, Vancouver got bigger on Hollywood’s radar.  And hey, James Franco was just here making a movie, wasn’t he?  (4½ out of 5)

Also at the VanCity this week...

BREATHLESS: This ultra-violent item from South Korea may just be what the term “han” is all about. Apparently, people there use the word to refer to an unease that many feel and can’t explain. In extreme cases it leads to violence.

Yang Ik-June directs and stars as an enforcer for a loan shark, collecting debts, breaking up student demonstrations and now and then beating up guys who hit their girlfriends, as well as the girl for taking the beating. He’s surly and inexplicably volatile. Along with the violence, there’s foul language that starts with the very first sentence and rarely lets up. It actually doubles when Yang meets an equally foul-mouthed schoolgirl who stands up to him. There’s a serious subtext here. The film is really about domestic violence and how it seeps down through the generations to produce these characters. The intricate plot unspools with a casual lightness and has won major awards at home and at several festivals. (3½ out of 5)

THE ILLUSIONIST: The least-known of this year’s Oscar nominees for animated features carries more than a little nostalgia. It’s not high-octane like the others. It’s a beautiful film with a simple story rendered in the old hand-drawn style that has been all but displaced by computers.