The American Thanksgiving films are here. That why suddenly there are so many highly-rated ones in theatres. Here, top-notch and lesser, is this week’s list.
Frozen: 4 stars
Nebraska: 4
Philomena: 4 ½
The Armstrong Lie: 3 ½
Broken Circle Breakdown: 3 ½
A People Uncounted: 3
Oldboy: 2 ½
Homefront: 2 ½
FROZEN: Disney’s latest animation harks back to special films like Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid but, as with Tangled, goes modern too. Kids should love it as long as they know it’s far from the fairy tale The Snow Queen that it is ostensibly based on. The story is now about two sisters, princesses both; one (voiced by Kristen Bell) always eager to play and sad that the other (Idina Menzel) has isolated herself. She’s done that because everything she touches turns to ice. However on the day she’s crowned queen, a fit of remorse sends her running off to the mountains and bringing on eternal winter. Her sister goes looking for her along with a humble ice cutter, a reindeer and, in a wide divergence from the original, a comic snowman named Olaf.
In another change, a single line in the original about wolves becomes a frightening, snarling chase sequence in the forest and snow. It’s done in very effective 3-D, as are ice patterns, snowfalls, looming staircases and more throughout the rest of the film. Most notably female empowerment is elevated from a brief mention to a major theme. We have strong sisters, one rescuing the other and dumping a weakling prince. It’s all shaped by a woman co-director, Jennifer Lee, a first for Disney animation. The songs, by the way, are good but only one, “For the First Time in Forever”, is really memorable. Still, a film that entertains, with terrific, if a little too-hyper, animation, and storytelling. (International Village, Dolphin and suburban theatres) 4 out of 5
NEBRASKA: Bruce Dern has been getting heaps of praise for his performance here. And it’s all deserved. He plays a cranky, doddering old man and, with no showiness at all, succeeds at portraying him as just a human being. He won best actor at Cannes and stands to get honored again. Even more noteworthy about this latest film by Alexander Payne: it is stocked with many other outstanding performances.
I especially liked June Squibb as his nattering wife. She had a brief role in a previous Payne film, About Schmidt, which has some other similarities to this new one. In both an old man gets on the road, stops in with relatives, and by extension visits his own past and one facet of America. Dern’s Woody Grant thinks he’s won a million dollars and is determined to travel several hundred miles to collect. His son (Will Forte) reluctantly drives him and then watches bemused as relatives and old friends welcome him, tell old tales in a taciturn drawl, and then try to hit him up for part of his supposed winnings. Stacy Keach plays an especially insistent former business partner. The film is often funny but also an elegiac vision of the rural mid-west, appropriately presented in crisp black and white. There’s an aura of truth in the script by Bob Nelson of Suquamish, Washington. He who used to spend summers in a small Nebraska town and has written what he knows. (5th Avenue Cinemas) 4 out of 5
PHILOMENA: This one could have spurred the tear ducts more than it does. The material is there and the story is true but it would invite a “too melodramatic” label. Restraint was a wise choice for director Stephen Frears and the lead actors, Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, who also co-wrote the script. The events are emotional enough.
An unwed mother sees her son adopted away from her and years later tries to find out where he went and what kind of man he turned out to be. A serious journalist, ex-BBC and just laid off from a spin doctor job with the British government, agrees to help her because he needs money and is willing to stoop to writing a “human interest” story. Dench and Coogan make an amiably-contrasting and often very funny pair. He’s cynically ironic; she’s down-to-earth and uncomplicated. “Do you believe in God?” she asks. He waffles. She says a succinct “Yes.”
The nuns at the Irish orphanage don’t help them but a tip from a pub keeper sends them to Washington, D.C. where, rather too easily to feel true, they find the answers they’re after. He gets new reasons to rail against the church. She still refuses to hate. That’s the message of this movie, even after it uncovers a long history of less-than-godly behavior. Dench’s remarkable performance captures that decency and innocence perfectly while visually she’s so plain and frumpy at times you hardly recognize her. This is a very good film, not a downer at all and the best from Stephen Frears since The Queen. (International Village, The Park and a few suburban theatres). 4 ½ out of 5
THE ARMSTRONG LIE: A furious drive to win, a steel-tight lie and a glib explanation when caught out. That’s the story arc in this enthralling documentary by Academy-award winner, Alex Gibney. He was making a film celebrating Lance Armstrong’s return to competitive cycling after defeating cancer. He had won the Tour de France seven times, was working towards an 8th and the air oozed out. Old rumors of cheating with performance-enhancing drugs re-surfaced. Gibney had film of Lance saying right to his face that he never used them and then saw Lance admit all to Oprah Winfrey on TV.
Gibney re-shaped the film. He interviewed Lance again and got a repeat admission but not much on why he had originally denied it. However, from him, from observers and former friends, he did get a portrait of a man who needs to dominate and simply hates to lose. It’s a fascinating picture with real drama. The first and the second interviews are contrasted; deceived friends lament and race footage dresses up the talk. My only problem: there’s too much. Facts, figures, dates, tales and critical swipes comes so fast they’re hard to absorb properly. (International Village) 3 ½ out of 5
THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN: This was a big surprise hit at the Vancouver International Film Festival back in October. I mean who would expect a film about bluegrass music from Belgium to be worth watching? And with a rocky marriage and a young daughter dying of cancer also in the mix. Turns out it’s dramatic, emotional, life-affirming, injustice-railing, joyous and spirited all in one. With lots of music, songs like Wayfarin’ Stranger, Go To Sleep Little Baby and of course Will the Circle Be Unbroken, adding counterpoint.
A Belgian "cowboy" and banjo picker hooks up with a tattoo artist, brings her into his band as a singer and into his life as a lover. The daughter they produce is the girl with the cancer. The film nicely correlates the sadness of her trials, including chemo, with the pain in the songs. Tensions swell in the couple’s relationship. He rants at George Bush’s face on TV for opposing stemcell research and makes a rambling speech in a concert about the pope and God and "the imbeciles who believe in him." The film ends with one of the most emotional scenes ever, in a good way. (VanCity Theatre) 3 ½ out of 5
and starting Saturday, playing in tandem with …
A PEOPLE UNCOUNTED: This grim film reminds us that gypsies also died in the Holocaust. Some 500,000 of them, as far as anyone can calculate. Numbers aren’t easy to pin down because the Roma people, also known as Sinti in some parts of Europe, were outsiders, nomadic or marginalized. They came from India over 1,000 years ago and luminaries like Vlad the Impaler and Henry the 8th tried to drive them away. The Nazis, and often their lackeys in countries like Romania, sent them to concentration camps and then the gas chambers. This documentary has horrific stories from survivors. A woman decribes being taken to a chamber but then brought back because the poison gas had run out. It’s one of the mildest stories. A boy’s encounter with Joseph Mengele is one of the most harrowing. Toronto filmmaker Aaron Yeger also talked to Roma activists and historians in 11 countries to tell us about the people and their history, much of it bleak. (VanCity Theatre) 3 out of 5
OLDBOY: Has Spike Lee run out of ideas of his own? He used to explore civil rights and racial tensions in America as he saw them. Here, he’s re-made a popular Korean film all about revenge. He brought the story to the U.S. and toned down some of the bizarre craziness of the original. While it’s still twisted. engrossing and Spike Lee-stylish, it’s not that special anymore.
Josh Brolin stars as an adman, errant husband and neglectful father. After a night of drinking and barfing on the sidewalk, he finds himself in a motel room he can’t escape. Food is pushed in like into a prison cell. He’s got TV which shows him as a suspect in his wife’s murder. He’s confined there for 20 years and when he finally gets out, is obsessed with finding out who held him there and why. That puts him in contact with a young nurse (Elizabeth Olson), a man working for his captor (Samuel L. Jackson) and a mysterious Englishman (Sharlto Copley). Brutality, torture and a rampage with a claw hammer follow. They, and the over-cooked theme of guilt, worked better in Korea. (Scotiabank and suburban theatres) 2 ½ out of 5
HOMEFRONT: Fighting off violence with violence is the story in this one and several times I was reminded of Straw Dogs. A former undercover drug cop retires to a small Louisiana town supposing it’s a safe place to raise his daughter. We know it’s not though because he’s Jason Statham today’s smoothest action star. In no time his daughter punches out a schoolyard bully thereby infuriating the boy’s mother (Kate Bosworth) who just happens to have a brother (James Franco) who is the local meth cooker with ambitions to expand. He’s also got a sleek partner in crime (Winona Ryder), a former biker moll who is urging him on.
It won’t be long before a gang of bikers rides into town (intercut with the daughter’s birthday party) and we’re on the edge wondering just when will the boathouse that Statham booby-trapped finally explode. Sylvester Stallone wrote the script with all the brutality (a pitchfork?) and unsubtlety he’s known for. Adrenaline stirring stuff, if you need it. (International Village and many suburban theatres) 2 ½ out of 5
NOTE: The images are movie stills provided by the studios. They are the exclusive property of their copyright owners.