Some movies come with endless publicity (Hi there, Lion King). Super 30, which is playing at four theatres around here didn’t have any that I saw, and yet it has a big BC connection. It started with a story in the Globe and Mail about a mathematician in India who educates underprivileged students to get into an elite school usually only available to rich kids.
Dr. Biju Mathew a psychiatrist in Maple Ridge read it, invited him over to speak at a fundraiser, visited him in India and wrote a book about him. It became a best-seller there and now a movie with a big star, Hrithik Roshan, in the lead. The fans like it a lot; the critics are mixed and here in BC: I haven’t seen any word yet. It’s playing in Richmond, Mission and two places in Surrey (Guildford and Strawberry Hill).
And these are also new, starting with the BIG one:
The Lion King: 3 stars
The Farewell: 4
The Art of Self-Defense: 3 ½
Push: 4
Rojo: 3 ½
Peterloo: 2 ½
THE LION KING: It’s new but not improved. It’s wonderful if you haven’t seen the 1994 original but how many people haven’t. It’s the 4th biggest grossing animated film ever (get that? Ever) with a long afterlife in various video formats and a re-release only a few years ago. This new one doesn’t have the same depth of soul, at least partly because the main effort went into making it look so photo-realistic. Talking and singing animals work better when they’re animated. It’s a bit distancing when they look this real. The film feels like a wildlife nature feature much of the time.
The story and the dialogue are exactly the same. It just takes a half hour longer to get them out. Simba, the lion cub, is caught between his dad, the king, and his scheming uncle. Scar causes the king’s death and makes Simba feel responsible and run away. Years later he returns at the urging of a couple of comic sidekicks to re-claim a kingdom gone to waste. And his childhood friend Nala to be his queen. The dramatic scenes about betrayal and guilt are even more Shakespearean. The vistas and the action scenes—the wildebeast stampede for instance—are bigger and more thundering (especially in 3-D). But some of the characters don’t impress as much as their forerunners. Jeremy Irons exuded much more menace than Chiwetel Ejiofor does and I really miss Nathan Lane’s exuberance. Donald Glover grows his anger well as Simba, James Earl Jones is back and still regal, Seth Rogen is his gruff usual and for all the publicity she gets, Beyonce doesn’t really get to say that much. The new song she contributes isn’t memorable but the new versions of the Tim Rice/Elton John songs are good. So, a mixed result overall. Enjoyable but not special. (Playing everywhere: Dunbar, 5th Avenue, Scotiabank, International Village, Marine Gateway and many suburban theatres. Even a Mandarin version at Riverport) 3 out of 5
THE FAREWELL: Here’s the best new film of the week. It’s heartfelt, moving, funny and informative at the same time. And it’s true, or as the message on screen says, it is “based on an actual lie.” Lulu Wang wrote and directed this film about an event that really happened in her family. She’s represented here by Awkwafina, the rapper who made such an impression in Crazy Rich Asians. Billi, as her character is called, is a writer in New York not quite sure whether she’s American or Chinese. She gets a chance to reflect on that when her grandmother back in China is diagnosed with a terminal disease and the family gathers to be with her one more time.
The pretext is a hastily-organized wedding. That way they can avoid telling her the bad news but debates over sharing or withholding the facts pop up repeatedly through the rest of the film. So do many other details of life for Chinese people, whether at home or abroad. The importance of family is the biggest. Respect for elders, attitudes towards death, money, education and living in other countries. They’re all there, in brief or in full. The question is put to Billi: where is it better China or America? She’s non-committal, probably because she’s not entirely sure. The film carries that ambiguity with a sprightly pace, much more humor than you might expect and very good acting. Awkwafina is a standout showing both spunk and doubt and two veterans, Zhao Shuzhen as her grandma and Tzi Ma as her dad, are warm and dignified. (5th Avenue) 4 out of 5
THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE: The preview articles indicate this is a spoof of toxic masculinity and something of a hybrid of films like The Karate Kid and Fight Club. Yes it is for most of the way, and very funny at that. And then for no reason I can understand with any certainty, it takes a turn. In the last 20 minutes or so, the droll humor is gone; the film gets violent and sinister. Maybe the writer/director Riley Stearns needed a quick way to wind it up. Maybe he’s saying that’s what inevitably follows from what came before. Yet, it’s that clever and very entertaining earlier part that’s the most interesting,
Jesse Eisenberg, at his most nebbishy, plays a meek accountant. He’s ignored by the guys in the lunchroom and respected only by his dog. Not man enough, he fears and a beating by some bikers confirms it. He orders a gun but comes across a martial arts studio first and joins up. “I want to be what intimidates me,” he tells the leader (Alessandro Nivola) who teaches karate with the maxim “Everything should be as masculine as possible.” Everybody follows it, even the lone woman (played by Imogen Poots, who also teaches a children’s class. The humor is in the little details about Jesse’s life outside the class and the philosophy and competition he’s exposed to inside. It’s America in a mirror. Most of it. (International Village) 3 ½ out of 5
PUSH: Sales are down, prices are easing but don’t think the housing crisis around here is ending. This film by Fredrik Gertten of Sweden and featuring a Canadian working for the United Nations explains why you can’t expect that. Housing a now a commodity, sold, bought and flipped for profit by big corporations, pension funds and rich investors. The affordability problem is everywhere. Toronto, Valparaiso, Barcelona, New York, London are just some of the cities the film visits. People can’t afford to live in them; rents are sky high, reconvictions happen and houses are bought and sold by financial entities like the Blackstone Group (which incidentally has been buying up commercial property around here including the Bentall Centre).
Companies like them grew in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The film explains the connection and also has also a short, nifty explanation of how money laundering works to add to the cost of housing. Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz is one of the speakers and Leilani Farha gives the film’s central message. She’s Ottawa based, works as a special rapporteur for the United Nations and says repeatedly as the film follows her to meetings and conferences that housing must be treated as a human right. A review in the Globe said the only solution is to build more. That’s a tired argument if you follow the implications of this stimulating film. (VanCity) (Tonight’s screening will be followed by a panel discussion) 4 out of 5
ROJO: It means red in Spanish and various things in this film, including communist, anti-communist, guilty and embarrassed. Such are the multiple ideas floating round in this film from Argentina that seems to be portraying a country that has lost its sense of right and wrong. It’s set in 1975, which we and Argentinians know is not long before yet another military coup. Almost everyone is corrupt in some way in this story which works as both a straightforward film noir or an allegory.
A house is being looted. A patron in a restaurant is harassed by a man who wants his table. Later, outside in the dark, the man shoots himself and the patron, who also happens to be a lawyer, disposes of his body. Later he’s invited into a shady real estate deal while a TV-famous detective comes snooping around about the missing man.There are more inter connections, some of them improbable, but they make an intriguing puzzle, criminal investigation and mystery. Can the lawyer avoid incriminating himself? Can the detective get anything out of him with only a vague suspicion and no hard facts? The story is subtle, the direction is crisp. Both are by Benjamin Naishtat, a name to watch. His film leaves a lot unsaid but satisfies anyway. (VanCity) 3 ½ out of 5
PETERLOO: It’s the story, the information, the history, not any movie elegance or flash that will come through in the latest film from Mike Leigh. The content was all new to me and as a history buff I found it thrilling. The acting, not so much. It’s mannered and stagey. A prince talks like a buffoon about “great satisfaction” and “tranquility” (of which there is none in the climax.) It’s an outrageous scene of carnage as soldiers attack some 60,000 people attending a democracy rally in Manchester, England just about exactly 200 years ago. It was in St Peter’s Field, not long after the battle of Waterloo; hence the title.
The film spends most of its time explaining the stakes, in detail. Soldiers were back from the war and forgotten. The economy was stagnant and there were wage cuts at the factories. Voices were raised about the owners (“fat leeches down in London”) and a delegation was sent to appeal to “the fat prince.” This was the regency period. The rally was organized to demand basic rights, including the right to vote. An eminent speaker (Roy Kinnear) was brought in from London and before him the film listens to a lot of debate on both sides. Some protest leaders were willing to turn to violence and business leaders were debating how best to break up the demonstration. The talk is long and dry but the soldiers’ charge when it finally comes is directed with passion and will make you angry. You might be a bit tired by then, though. (VanCity Theatre, Sat, Mon and Thurs ) 2 ½ out of 5