Isle of Dogs is my lead film this week for very good reasons but here’s something else you should know about it. One of the people who made it is coming to town and giving workshops about what he does. Jay Clarke, from England, was the lead storyboard artist on the film. He worked on the early drawings and right on to the end of production. He talks philosophy as well as craft and got high praise for it in a recent article in The Hollywood Reporter.
The workshops are being held on April 12 and 13 at the Annex, the theatre on Seymour connected to the Orpheum. The cost is $28. There’s more information at viff.org. Search by date.
Meanwhile, these are new in town:
Isle of Dogs: 4 ½ stars
Ready Player One: 3
The China Hustle: 4 ½
Shut up and Say Something: 3 ½
C’est La Vie: 2 ½
Young French Cinema
Montparnasse Bienvenue: 3 ½
Wùlu: 3
ISLE OF DOGS: Here’s a super treat for both dog lovers and fans of Wes Anderson’s movies. Two significant constituencies in our world. They get rewarded with a neat fable in support of their favorite pets delivered in the same bone dry wit and laconic tempo we’ve seen in other Anderson films like The Grand Budapest Hotel and Fantastic Mr. Fox. This one is just as clever and entertaining. Even the title has a double purpose. Sound it out.
In a fictional city in Japan, the mayor expels all the dogs because, he alleges, they carry a canine flu. He has them quarantined on an island filled with nothing but trash, starting with a sad-eyed mongrel named Spots. He, we later learn, was the beloved pet of the mayor’s nephew, a 12-year-old boy who arrives piloting his own plane to find him. Five dogs join the search.
There’s a gentle absurdity spinning out as we meet these animals. Chief, voiced by Brian Cranston, is a volatile stray (“I bite); Rex (Edward Norton) is a sensible leader, Bill Murray is Boss, a former baseball mascot, Bob Balaban’s King used to promote a doggy food and Jeff Goldblum’s Duke has rumors to cite for every occasion. The cast list goes on and on: Scarlett Johansson, as a slinky showdog, Tilda Swinton, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, co-writer Kunichi Nomura and even Yoko Ono, briefly. What they’re up to is dryly funny but with some serious ideas underneath. The treatment of animals sure, but also autocratic political leaders, official lying, stolen elections and fake news. It only looks like a children’s film. (5th Avenue and International Village) 4 ½ out of 5
READY PLAYER ONE: Remember the 80s? Even if you don’t, but especially if you do, here’s a razzle dazzle trip back to wallow in the cultural artifacts of the time. Sonic the Hedgehog, the DeLorean car from Back to the Future, even a glimpse of Chuckie are here, along with Rubik’s cubes, The Iron Giant, an extended homage to The Shining, and much more. How Steven Spielberg has brought them all together makes for great fun, but not, curiously, a lot of involvement beyond that. The story, from a popular young adult novel, is drained of all that because we hardly connect with the characters in it. And bigger ideas that the story implies? Don’t look for them. A twist at the very end is a nod to them, but only a nod.
We’ve got two worlds in this film, set less than 30 years in the future. Cities look like a junkyards. People live in stacked homes, like the modular housing sprouting up around here, but already looking run down. But they have an escape. They spend a lot of time in a virtual reality world in which they can be whatever they imagine. Hence, all the sights from the 1980s. The place is called “Oasis” and it has become home to a frantic contest. Before he died, the inventor (Mark Rylance) left clues to an “easter egg” inside. Whoever finds it gets his game and his entire fortune, said to be of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs magnitude. Naturally corporate interests are after it (Ben Mendelsohn, plays the leader) as well as a herd of individuals called “Gunters” among whom we find our hero. Tye Sheridan plays him and, with Olivia Cooke as a sort-of girlfriend and various associates and rivals around him, tries to figure out three clues. They require intricate knowledge of-- you guessed it-- the 80s. (A few references go further back, to Citizen Kane and others and King Kong makes a surprise appearance in a spectacular car chase). The film takes us in and out of the fantasy world as we follow the characters here and their avatars in there. It’s speedy and a trip. A visual effects marvel. (5th Avenue, Scotiabank, Dunbar, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres everywhere) 3 out of 5
THE CHINA HUSTLE: Can you take some more hot-under-the-collar talk about financial shenanigans? The story this film tells is not well-known but should be. It’s about a scam that some promoters pulled off immediately following the great financial meltdown of 2008. It was supposed to be a way to recover from it. Now it looks like it was just another fraud. At least that’s the argument here, laid out carefully and simply by the stock market watchers, participants and short sellers that filmmaker Jed Rothstein got to talk.
The plan made sense. Get in on China’s economic miracle; buy their stocks; watch the money flow in. But how do Chinese companies get listed on American stock exchanges? A financial services company in California found a way. All they had to do was locate a company already there but inactive and merge with it. Some 300 of these “reverse mergers” happened and suddenly some of China’s biggest companies (alleged) were selling stock to Americans. It was like a gold rush until a few critics exposed it. A “huge” paper company, for instance, only had a field of rotting cardboard. A “major” agricultural company had only one truck and few employees. Coal and energy companies were hyped. American investors lost billions. They didn’t know what they were investing in because neither Chinese nor American regulators watched out for them. The film notes that Donald Trump is reducing the powers of the stock market watchdogs even more. One of the highlights is Gen. Wesley Clark, saying he did nothing wrong when he ran a financial house that engineered reverse mergers. He stomps out of the interview. (VanCity Theatre) 4 ½ out of 5
SHUT UP AND SAY SOMETHING: The most popular Canadian documentary from last fall’s film festival is finally back and boasts a second plus in its reputation. Grown men were moved to tears watching it. I didn’t go that far but I was moved by a couple of heavily emotional scenes when Shane Koyczan, the spoken word artist and slam poet, met the father who had disappeared from his life. He was only 11 at the time, grew up friendless, bullied and searching for acceptance.
He pours all his doubts, insecurities, hopes and world-view into his poetry which he recites as if it was spontaneous but is really carefully crafted. Remember his performance at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in 2010?The film shows part of it and several other performances, typically rising from casual to intimate to intense and back down. “I’ve got a black belt in the martial arts discipline of emotionally stunted,” he says in one. In interview segments he tells his story, dad and mom out of his life, raised by grandparents, he looking for affirmation and then for answers from dad. Why did he leave? Melanie Wood, the director, along with Stuart Gillies, Shane’s friend and collaborator, take us right in there close when he asks and again later when he lets his dad hear his response. It’s a potent film, beautifully shot and edited and affecting. Melanie will be there for the first show Friday to talk about it. (VanCity Theatre) 3 ½ out of 5
C’EST LA VIE: It’s a pretty generic title for a French film, although better I guess than the original which translates as “the meaning of the party,” whatever that means. It’s a comedy, naturally, and a pretty funny one though so light it seems minor. The directors Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano made something more substantial with their last one, The Intouchables, which became a big hit. This time they stage a wedding through the perspective of the wedding planner and caterer played the dignified, sometimes excitable, Jean-Pierre Bacri.
He’s got a mishmash of a staff working for him, including pining-for-love Julien, bossy Adele, the photographer Guy contemptuous of the iphone picture snappers, an egotistical singer, two Sri Lankan dishwashers and others, all with eccentricities. One flirts with the bride; another with the mother of the bride. And a third one, played by Suzanne Clément from Quebec, has the boss’s attention but prefers to flirt with a young server. All this while the groom insists the wedding must be “sober, chic and elegant” (sure) but then bores everybody with a long-winded and smug speech. The jokes and situations are pretty easy to take and the film moves along apace. It’s amusing and non-demanding entertainment. (VanCity Theatre) 2 ½ out of 5
YOUNG FRENCH CINEMA: This series coming to The Cinematheque offers another take on films from France by highlighting several new young filmmakers. If there are more as good as the two I’ve seen so far, it’s going to be a great mini-festival. It runs in two sections, April 5-8 and 13-15 and all the films are Vancouver premieres. You can find out more at thecinematheque.ca/
Both of these films play on the first day, Thurs. the 5th.
MONTPARNASSE BIENVENUE: There’s a future for sure for director Léonor Serraille judging by this debut feature and definitely for actor Laetitia Dosch who has already been in a few independent films. This one is intense, moving and above all natural and credible in telling the story of an aimless young woman drifting around Paris. She’s just broken off from a 10-year relationship with a photographer, has stolen his cat and is searching for a new life for herself.
The problem is she’s too impulsive to get there in a straight line. “Stability is boring,” she says and lives to illustrate it. She crashes at a pregnant friend’s place but gets told to leave over some unwise words. She gets into a friendship based on a misunderstanding and loses that. Two jobs don’t work out well either but she carries on, floating with optimism and at times downed by depression. It’s a thrilling acting performance. You’ll swear you’ve met people like her. Also notable is that almost all the people who made the film are women. The director was pregnant at the time. There are a few story problems but they did a fine job of portraying this young woman. (Apr 5 and 6 and again for a longer stay starting on the 27th) 3 ½ out of 5
WÙLU: This one is particularly relevant because it’s set in Mali, the African country we’re sending peacekeepers to. It collapsed six years ago, partly, as a postscript at the end of the film says, because of the international cocaine trade that came through. The movie shows life before collapse. A young man, barred by nepotism from a job as a taxi driver, starts running drugs for a dealer instead. He and two friends drive marijuana across the border to Senegal, and later Guinea, and bring cocaine back. For a while it works. They make money, buy nice houses and turn middle class. Naturally it doesn’t last.
Writer-director Daouda Coulibaly made the film as a co-production with France. He’s a Mali national himself and has shown his country’s vibrant life and its problems accurately and concisely. The top drug dealers are French; the runners are locals. The border guards are corrupt. The story is always involving although very familiar in the drug-trade genre. Al Quaeda show up in this one though in their white Toyota trucks and black masks and waving rifles. Wùlu, by the way, means dog in one of the local languages and represents the final level in a person’s understanding of his place in society. (Cinematheque Apr 5 and 7) 3 out of 5