Two big movie happenings this week. West Vancouver got a theatre again. The 11-auditorium Park Royal opened while the charming six-room Esplanade in North Van shut down. Big wins again.
On Tuesday big crashed the Cineplex website. That was the day tickets went on sale for the next Marvel Studios film, AVENGERS: ENDGAME. It opens April 25 and pre-sales are already massive. So many went on line to buy Tuesday that the site couldn’t handle the rush. Some reported waits as long as four hours; many couldn’t get through at all, not even for showtimes and info.
While you wait, note that there’s a worthy superhero film among the many others on today’s list.
Shazam: 3 ½ stars
Pet Sematary: 2 ½
3 Faces: 4 ½
Araby: 4
Carmine Street Guitars: 4
Diamantino: 3 ½
Sunset: 3
Acquainted: 2 ½
SHAZAM: This is how to do a super hero movie. Acknowledge right off the top that it’s just a silly fantasy and have fun with it. Don’t give it a leaden and serious tone. And don’t have a super villain who wants to destroy the earth or, gasp, the whole galaxy. (The Avengers will be back on that track in three weeks). The villain here, played by Mark Strong, just wants to enhance his personal status. That’s plausible; you can believe in an ambition like that. He’s in a funk because he didn’t get chosen when a wizard (Djimon Hounsou) started looking for someone to pass his powers on to. He wasn’t pure enough of heart. An orphan boy (Asher Angel) got the honor along with the power to call up an alter ego, an adult super hero (Zachary Levi) by simply saying the word “Shazam.” It’s both a name and an acronym from six heroes in Greek mythology. Billy has all their powers but spends much of the early going discovering them. Being surprised by them. Those scenes are very funny.
Strong comes back though and as wealthy physicist Dr. Thaddeus Sivana tries to get those powers for himself. He has help from several of the deadly sins that have materialized into living creatures. Yes, it’s fantasy and at times (certainly in the wizard’s lair) with quite a bit of a Harry Potter vibe. It also has some of the feel of the Tom Hanks classic Big, notably in a scene with giant piano keys. The end brings an extended action sequence. The film, from DC comics, Marvel’s rival, is very entertaining; fine for kids and if you recognize the TTC subway and other sights, you’re right. It was filmed in Toronto and Hamilton. (The Park, Scotiabank, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 3 ½ out of 5
PET SEMATARY: This is how not to do a Stephen King movie. It’s not very scary, plods along and lacks style (the bar on horror movies has risen far above this in the last few years). I didn’t see it but am assured the original version 30 years ago was far more tense and chilling than this re-make. It’s macabre but that aura is undercut by the appearance of all the horror movie tropes you expect. Creaky sounds in the night. Noises out in the woods. Blood on the porch. A festering wound. And that old favorite: furtively inching down into the cellar to see what’s going on. It feels so deliberately assembled and that makes it harder to commit to the impossible plot.
A city family moves to a country house and find a cemetery on their land where the area kids bury their pets. Beyond that, there’s an old native burial ground that’s closed off because whatever gets buried there comes back alive. Different though. The family cat is first and changes from gentle to a biter. Then, Ellie, the 8-year-old daughter, dies under a speeding oil truck. (Note to readers: yes that’s not as the novel has it but even the trailer gave away that change). The father (Jason Clark), a doctor and therefore supposedly rational, thinks she can be brought back too. A kindly neighbor (John Lithgow) had told him about it but also warned against it. Mom (Amy Seimetz) is too beleaguered by flashback memories of her sister’s death to get in the way and Ellie does return. A young actor named Jeté Laurence exudes sweetness and then mean anger in a strong performance. The novel discussed death and grief. The film does too, for a while, before resting on mild and run of the mill horror. (5th Avenue, Scotiabank, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 2 ½ out of 5
3 FACES: Jafar Panahi, the Iranian director who is not allowed to make films but manages to do them anyway, has another good one to savor. This time he and his wife Behnaz are in the lead playing basically themselves, a director and an actor. They receive a cell phone video of a young woman committing suicide but since it’s not clear if it actually happened or how it ended they drive out to the country to find out for themselves.
They do find the answer but along the way see and show us a great deal of what life is like in rural Iran. Tiny villages are neglected by the central government. The roads are sometimes country paths with only one lane that’s apt to be blocked by livestock or, in one scene, a dying bull. The society is fully patriarchal. Old men tell rambling stories about the need for strict rules. They forced the young woman to rebel and that made her family, and her whole village, lose face. It’s an intriguing portrait of the society, beautifully presented, both visually and in the dialogue, critical sometimes and in at least one sequence absurdly quaint. It’s a simple story but entirely captivating. It won a best screenplay award at Cannes. (VanCity Theatre) 4 ½ out of 5
ARABY: No Arabs here. The title only pops up in a story somebody tells about a job that grows bigger than you expected. That tale, not the title, reflects the pessimism that oozes around in this affecting film from Brazil. “There are no miracles” one character says and the film piles on the evidence through one man’s quite ordinary life.
After he’s severely injured on the job at an industrial facility, we learn his story. A young man starts reading it as he had written it in a plain notebook. He had started it as an assignment in prison and continued even though he felt there was nothing special enough about him to write. The film finds quite a bit and shows it. Not extraordinary, but everyman and anyday. Various jobs as he wanders around, road building, truck driving, even renovating a brothel. Taking on worker’s rights sympathies at an exploitative tangerine orchard. Society has become “naked and raw” he realizes but “Get 1,000 little dogs together and the big dog starts to look small.” He ponders fate and bad luck and personal responsibility and has an on-off relationship with a woman. “She’s the closest I ever had to a family,” he wrote. It’s an authentic portrait of a man, a class and an entire society. In subtitled Portuguese. (VanCity Theatre) 4 out of 5
CARMINE STREET GUITARS: It’s a small store and workshop in New York, full of clutter and a noble mission. Guitar maker Rick Kelly is keeping ideals of craftsmanship alive in building his instruments by hand, usually out of old wood rescued from demolished buildings. We watch him sharing his thoughts about that and about his love of music with the diverse group of people who stop in to play and talk.
He’s taken on a young woman as an apprentice (someone to pass his “lost art” on to) and his mother, now in her 90s, tends the books and throws in a comment now and then. And there are visitors all week. Jim Jarmusch, the film director, plays a bit; Bill Frisell, the jazzman, plays an entire surf guitar number. Charlie Sexton, from Dylan’s band, singer Eleanor Friedberger and many others chat and perform. It’s a relaxed and warm atmosphere that Toronto filmmaker Ron Mann has captured in this ode to the old joys of making things by hand. (Cinematheque) 4 out of 5
DIAMANTINO: Looking for a really fun, surreal, oddball treat? Try this. It’s at the Cinematheque through the weekend and played the film festivals both here and in Toronto last fall. It’s very funny, if you’re open to the absurd side of the spectrum.
Portugal’s top soccer star, Diamantino, played by Carloto Cotta, clearly patterned after Cristiano Ronaldo but prone to visions of giant fluffy puppies on the pitch, misses a penalty kick that would have won the World Cup. He’s in disgrace. His twin sisters are furious, but then, as he says, they’re always angry. They register him with a medical research project that unbeknownst to him, aims to clone his athletic talent. A couple of lesbians at the secret service investigate him for money laundering. When he learns about refugees coming across the Mediterranean in rickety boats and expresses a desire to help them, one of the lesbians comes to him pretending she’s a refugee. There are misunderstanding gags and lots of screwy humor, notably when he’s lured into a campaign to get Portugal out of the European Union. The commercial he films is hilarious, as is most of this entertaining film. 3 ½ out of 5
SUNSET: László Nemes, the Hungarian director, won an Oscar for his last one, Son of Saul. This one is easier to take but just as engrossing and has won some smaller awards. It’s a tale set in a particular era, just before World War I when the Austro-Hungarian empire ruled Europe. And it’s a mystery. Nemes draws you into it and never lets go. You might be perplexed at times what is going on. The main character is trying to figure that out too and you’re with her as puzzling events take place and answers don’t come easily. If ever.
Juli Jakab plays a young woman asking for a job at a high-class hat shot in Budapest. She’s met uneasily because her family used to own the store and her presence reminds of a turbulent past. There was a fire and more recently a murder. She grew up in an orphanage and now learns that she had a brother she never knew about and hears rumors that he may still be alive but hiding. Is he a revolutionary? Is he among the protest crowds that march? Someone tells her that he murdered a count. She sets out to find him and get the truth. I never did figure out exactly what was going on except that possibly disorder was the new normal at the time. The film shows that clearly, as it also beautifully re-creates the era, the bustling streets, the décor and the costumes. (5th Avenue) 3 out of 5
ACQUAINTED: Here’s a contemporary, young urbanite take on that old issue: romantic fidelity. Cheating, if you want to take a harsher view of it. Is it that, the script makes us ask, when two couples secretly wander for good reasons? Or, as I read in an interview, is it still “taboo?” Emma and Drew start it off. She (Laysla De Oliveira) meets him (Giacomo Gianniotti) in a bar, sort of knew him in high school and really gets to know him now. That’s even though they both say they’re “not single”. Not married actually but committed. He with Claire (Rachel Skarsten), with whom he’s bought a house in which he’s assembling IKEA shelving. She with a guy studying ceramics and planning a trip to Japan.
Do you stick with the person you’re with or follow your romantic urges? The film ponders the issue through bright dialogue and insight. Natty Zavitz the Toronto actor who wrote and directed it based some of it on a relationship he was part of. It plays as entirely possible and feels honest but moves along at a draggy pace. It should spark more. The actors have lots of TV credits (Gianniotti on Grey’s Anatomy) and one of the producers, Peter Harvey, grew up in Whistler. (International Village) 2 ½ out of 5