There are so many new movies this week, I haven’t able to catch them all. (See which ones below). But with two four star films and a couple close behind, you’ve got quality to chose from.
Here’s the whole list:
A Bigger Splash: 4 stars
Nice Guys: 3 ½
The Angry Birds Movie: 3
Rams: 4
High-Rise: 2 ½
The Man Who Knew Infinity: 3
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising: --
League of Exotique Dancers: --
Men & Chicken: --
A BIGGER SPLASH: This terrific psychological thriller is the movie of the week for me. It’s sexy and lurid, funny and completely engrossing. It rests on a quartet of fine performances. Tilda Swinton plays a rock star resting her throat while vacationing on an Italian island with her boyfriend (Matthias Schoenaerts) and surprise-visited by Harry, a former boyfriend played with real gusto by Ralph Fiennes. He’s the kind of Englishman who knows Italy, a bit of the language, all of the food and has stories and advice about everything. He’s brought along a teenage daughter (Dakota Johnson) he didn’t know about until a year ago. She exudes sensuality. You know this vacation isn’t going to be calm.
Sexual tensions boil, and sometimes burst. Most everybody gets nude in the hot sun, sand and swimming pool. Harry goes on about the days he produced Tilda’s records (we get some flashbacks) and rips off what’s on the turntable to put on something he favors, including the Rolling Stones song Emotional Rescue. Tilda, under doctor’s orders not to talk, manages to keep up with Harry’s garrulous behavior through facial gestures alone and occasionally a croacked whisper. Matthias, also an old friend of Harry’s, is getting increasingly annoyed. Since the film is by Italian director Luca Guadagnino, working with Swinton for the fourth time (though for the first time in English) you might expect slow and moody philosophizing like in a famous trio of films by Antonioni from the 1960s. Not so. This is speedy, not very deep and all about the plot. When it’s over you’ll be musing on exactly who did what? Great scenery too. (5th Avenue) 4 out of 5
THE NICE GUYS: Who expects Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe to get funny in a movie? They’ve done a little bit of comedy in the past but it’s not what we know them for and yet here they are in a lark of a film that’ll have you laughing a lot. Gosling is the better of the two at it, and apparently the inspiration for turning up the humor. Crowe is his usual gruff self. The story he’s in makes him funny.
They’re a mismatched pair of private detectives, not particularly successful, but compelled to work together in the case of a missing woman. Gosling is hired to look for her. Crowe is hired to stop him. Joining up to find out what is really going on seems the most logical thing to do. The story gets overly complicated and involves a rebellious daughter, the death of a porn actress, an environmental protest and collusion between law enforcers and the car industry. You follow the unraveling story but it’s secondary to the buddy comedy, co-written and directed by Shane Black whose experience with this genre goes back to Lethal Weapon which he wrote. Here he goes after corruption and sleaze in 1970s Los Angeles. The mood he creates is like in L.A. Confidential , helped by Kim Basinger’s and Crowe’s appearance in both films. The difference is that comedy overlay. Gosling’s detective is a bumbler; Crowe gets irritated. Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy they are not, but their back and forth banter is very entertaining. Caution, though: there’s also a lot of gunplay. (5th Avenue, International Village, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 3 ½ out of 5
THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE: It was quite a coup two years ago when Sony announced that this one would be made in Vancouver. Even Christy Clark got in on the congratulations. Then some doubts surfaced. Yes we’ve got the skilled animation artists but very few movies made from video games have been any good. How could this one beat the odds? Results coming in now show that a few high profile critics like the film, but more do not. One blustered that he feels like punching this film in the snout.
I’m not like him. I had a pretty good time with the constant stream of jokes –as many for adults as for kiddies—and the endless sight gags. And most all the buoyant perkiness of the storytelling, which by the way requires little familiarity with the video game itself. Flightless birds propelled by slingshot at egg-stealing pigs and their city? The film saves that for a climactic battle and spends most of its time showing what came before. A serene land where the birds live in peace, and volatile ones like Red (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) are sent to anger management class, is suddenly threatened. Pigs arrive on ships claiming to be benign. Only Red sees them as raiders, like in colonial times. He sees them carry off a ton of eggs and organizes a war party to get them back. The animation, including the extended assault, is crisp and colorful. The voice actors include Bill Hader, as the pig leader, Peter Dinklage, as a tired eagle deity, Maya Rudolph as the anger therapist, Sean Penn, mostly just grunting, and Josh Gad who was Olaf in Frozen. A lot of the humor is cheeky like on the Simpsons or in some of the better animated features. So beware of some rude jokes that most kids won’t get. Also beware of the message: sometimes you have to get angry. (International Village, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
RAMS: It’s been over three months since this film was supposed to return after playing the film festival last year. So, it’s been a long wait to tell you about it. It’s quirky, eccentric and totally involving, though drama among Icelandic sheep farmers may not be on your must-see list. The film didn’t get to the finals at the Oscars but did win a major prize at Cannes last year.
Two aging brothers live on the same farm but don’t speak to each other. A dog carries notes back and forth. They’re rivals too in an annual ram competition. When one wins, the others resents it and sneaks around to take a closer look. He discovers a trace of scrapie, a livestock disease that requires they slaughter both their herds. One complies, one tries to hold out. After all, the animals are descendants of a line that goes back generations. A major sibling rivalry plays out, marked by deadpan comedy, deeply- felt pride and heartbreak and primarily, humanism. To some the film by Grímur Hákonarson is a pure statement of the Icelandic character trait of stubborn independence. The acting by Sigurdur Sigurjónsson and Theodór Júlíusson is first rate. This is an unexpected gem. (VanCity Theatre) 4 out of 5
HIGH-RISE: British novelist J.G. Ballard liked to pepper his bleak views of modern society with gross exaggeration. Build a roadway near his house, you get Crash, which David Cronenberg filmed. Consumer society sparked Kingdom Come. A number of fears about modern life figure in High-Rise, societal collapse for one, the “special type of behaviour” required for living in condos (you have to be compliant) and since the film is set in England in the 1970s: Thatcherism. There’s even a clip of Maggie at the end to make sure you get it. You want callous attitudes, here’s a whole building full, built by Ben Wheatley, the director of previous ferocious film like Kill List and Sightseers.
Tom Hiddleston, first seen roasting a dog (we later learn why) plays a medical professor (we see him carve up a cadaver’s head) and, if you’re still in your seat, you’ll see him move into a new apartment building that an architect played by Jeremy Irons has envisioned as a progressive development. Huh? Sure there are shops, cafes and other amenities. But the class structure is unchanged. The super rich live at the top, the less well-off below, and the poorer ones below that. Irons is at the every top. His wife has a horse to ride up there and complains that the poor are always obsessed with the money they don’t have. So what happens when the elevator breaks down and the power and other amenities fail? Anarchy. Orgies. Violence. Depravity. Rebellion. People only looking out for themselves. It’s funny to a point. Then it gets too much. We Get It. We Get it. But there’s more. Visionary filmmaking, it’s been called. Excessive, I say. (VanCity) 2 ½ out of 5
THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY: Imagine this, a feel-good film about mathematics. And with hints of racism, colonialism and elitism too. Writer-director Matthew Brown brings them forth so gently that nothing grates too harshly. You might wonder how true it is, but you’ll probably enjoy it as a first introduction. There’s just enough about math in it to feel authentic while the main focus is on two men.
Jeremy Irons (much more noble than in High-Rise) plays a Cambridge professor who in 1914 brought a young amateur mathematician from India, S. Ramanujan, played by Dev Patel, to England and worked with him to develop his theories. He demands proof for every theorem, not just intuition. Bertrand Russell, played by Jeremy Northam says “Let him run. Don’t stifle him.” But theories that arrive in dreams from a god can’t be published. Much of the film contrasts the two academic styles. Problems with others at the university boil up but they’re not so much about racism but that Ramanujan was untrained and had no degree. All of this is conveyed with good acting, good locations including for the first time Trinity College at Cambridge but a rather mild script. The two endings that follow are consequently not as tear inducing as intended. (5th Avenue, International Village) 3 out of 5
The new films I haven’t seen …
NEIGHBORS 2: SORORITY RISING: Sorry Seth Rogen I didn’t get to your latest movie yet. I know the first was a huge hit, the highest-grossing original comedy of 2014. But the preview for this one conflicted with another. Hope you do well though with what most reviewers seem to feel is pretty well a repeat of the first, not only in the basic story line, but with many of the jokes. You and Rose Byrne, playing your wife, had a loud-partying fraternity move in next door just as you were expecting your first child. You won out over them. Now, expecting a second child, you get a sorority moved in because they’re not allowed to party on campus. One of the frat boys comes along to mentor them, and apparently later switches sides to help you out. No matter. The core group of actors is reassembled. Reviews range all the way from super-high to oh so-low. (Scotiabank, Marine Gateway)
LEAGUE OF EXOTIQUE DANCERS: Many people have given this Canadian-made film high marks (e.g. 4 out of 4, said the Globe and Mail) for its amusing and informative visit with a group of former strippers. Director Rama Rau found them at a burlesque hall of fame in Las Vegas, now in their 60s and 70s, full of stories and proud of what they used to do. Their era was long before lap dancing and porn took over. They saw their work as a form of female empowerment. Iffy? Rau says they’re “some of the strongest and most interesting women I've met.” Sounds like a good bet. (Rio Theatre, Fri, Sun and Monday)
MEN & CHICKEN: This Danish film with Mads Mikkelsen is described as an “outrageous, philosophical farce (that) crosses Hamlet with The Island of Dr Moreau … a wildly unorthodox comedy which couches some deep thinking about genetics, nature vs nurture, and bestial behaviour in slapstick pratfalls, dumb and dumber jokes, and good old fashioned sibling rivalry.” Oh, and it’s extremely funny, for certain people. Mads and a brother search out their real father and find three creepy brothers to boot, acting vile in a sanitarium. The director, Anders Thomas Jensen, has had Oscar nominations for three short films and won once.
Friday’s show will be preceded by a Paul Thomas Andersonfilm, Radiohead's Daydreaming in its original 35mm form. It’s a 6-minute video for the band’s new single.