A few movie notes for you:
The Rio theatre is showing all four Mad Max movies tomorrow back to back. It’s a marathon to raise money to help with relief after the destructive bushfires in Australia. Doors open at 3:30 and first film starts an hour later. There’ll be door prizes, trivia, a 50/50 draw and a costume contest. Incidentally, that’s on the eve of Australia’s national Day. There’s more info at http://riotheatre.ca/
Over at International Village, the Japanese anime film Weathering With You, which arrived with little fanfare last week, is doing so well, often selling out, that’s it’s being moved into the theatre’s largest auditorium. Makes up for the first show last week that had to be cancelled. Somebody had to go tell a full-house that technical difficulties were the reason. Human error was the real cause but probably not mentioned. People weren’t happy considering the frightful weather they had to endure to get there.
And this week we have:
Les Misérables: 4 stars
The Gentlemen: 3
Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin: 4
Cunningham: 3 ½
The Last Full Measure: 3 ½
Color Out of Space: 2 ½
The Turning: not previewed
LES MISÉRABLES: No, not the Victor Hugo novel or the musical, but quite related anyway. It takes place in the same Montfermeil suburb of Paris but in modern time and as one character says, “Things haven’t changed.” This riveting film gives a full picture of what he means: the poverty, the bustling street life, the sketchy people who wield influence and the little details of how people survive there. There’s a collection of immigrant groups. The Muslim Brotherhood has stopped the drug trade but prostitution, run by Nigerians, is growing. A self-styled “mayor” rules but a shawarma shop operator is the moral authority. Director, Ladj Ly, originally from Mali, depicts the neighborhood, where he’s lived for years, as a powder keg.
What sets it off seems improbable, but he says it actually happened. A boy steals a lion cub from a circus. A group of gypsies waving baseball bats demand it be brought back and a trio of plain-clothed police have to find it, or else. They do, but accidentally ignite an uprising, and a debate. What’s the use in rioting, one character says. In 2005 all it produced was burnt-out cars and smashed bus shelters. “What if voicing anger was the only way to be heard?” is the answer that comes much later. It’s a logical result of the casual racism and harassment by police, the ethnic competition and the angry-at-the-world teenagers we’ve been watching. The film is as vibrant as any Hollywood product and has an Academy Award nomination. (International Village) 4 out of 5
THE GENTLEMEN: With Aladdin and King Arthur done and gone, Guy Ritchie returns to his best field of play: England’s classy (or not) criminal underworld. It’s on an upscale level this time, although the language is surprisingly rough. A name for a female body part has all but replaced another popular word containing the letter “u”. That indicates clearly what you’re in for, in tone anyway. There’s a very engrossing story around it but try and make sense of it. That’s hard to do, though in general it plays out with great style and fun.
Most of it is told in flashbacks by Hugh Grant as a skuzzy private investigator sent by a tabloid newspaper editor to get the goods on an American (Matthew McConaughey) who has built a thriving marijuana growing operation on the estates of cash-strapped nobles. He tells what he knows to an associate (Charlie Hunnam) hoping to extract some blackmail money. McConaughey meanwhile is trying to get out of the business and is negotiating with two potential buyers, a rich Jewish-American (Jeremy Strong) and a Chinese gangster (Henry Golding). A group of teenage athletes almost scuttle the deal and their boxing coach (Colin Farrell) has to get involved. A noble’s daughter has to be rescued from a junkie pad and later some Russian oligarchs show up too. See, how complicated it gets? It’s brisk and even at times witty though and Michelle Dockery, over from Downton Abbey, adds some glamour as a classy wife. (5th Avenue, Scotiabank, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
NOMAD: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF BRUCE CHATWIN: Werner Herzog delivers a lovely tribute to his friend the travel writer who died over 30 years ago and through it reveals that they were kindred spirits. Chatwin mourned the loss of nomadic cultures and searched for the origin of objects he saw in museums. Herzog has made films on every continent and with a clip from them here and there demonstrates how similar the two men were.
Bringing along a rucksack that Chatwin gave him, Herzog follows his trail to many of the same spots he visited, starting in Patagonia, of course, the subject of one of his books, on to Africa, Australia, Wales where his widow lives and Avebury, the site of Stonehenge-like rock circles in England that inspired his quest for unique adventures. (That scene delighted me because I’ve been there too). Friends and observers and explain his talent which Herzog describes as “turning mythical tales into voyages of the mind.” He embellished the truth when he wrote, or, according to his biographer, wrote the truth and a half. On his personal life, his widow says she would never consider divorcing him even though he brought his lovers home with him. It’s a fascinating portrait. (VanCity Theatre) 4 out of 5
CUNNINGHAM: First name, Merce, was one of the innovators of modern dance. His choreography, he insisted, was not to interpret anything, just to present. It was visual, to show what the body can do, how far it can be pushed. This film by the Russian director Alla Kovgan shows what he meant by re-staging, in part, 14 of his key works, sometimes with dancers who actually worked with him. He died 20 years ago after a 70-year-career that started with schooling in Seattle and grew in New York, drew accolades in London and rotten tomatoes in Paris. All that comes through in this lively film.
The dances are shot in 3-D (inspired by the same technique in Wim Wender’s film Pina). They’re thrilling and include artwork by Robert Rauschenberg, music by his life-partner John Cage and in one showy piece, floating pillows by Andy Warhol. Even though they don’t tell a story, even he admits that one piece, Winter Branch from 1964, with its dark stage and sweeping spotlights is about violence. Suite for 5 two years later is totally about random chance. His work isn’t ballet or modern dance, but combines both. “When it clicks it becomes memorable,” he says. Modern performances and old rehearsal films give a fine representation of his art. Not much about him as a person, though.(International Village) 3 ½ out of 5
THE LAST FULL MEASURE: The insanity of the Vietnam war is recalled in this true story. And it’s a compelling tale that shows how lies at the top (LBJ, his Defence Secretary and top General all said the US was winning) deepened the tragedy. That comes out clearly in the true tale of an Air Force medic named William H. Pitsenbarger, Pitts, for short, who sacrificed his life to save others but was denied a medal of honor as part of a cover up. Nobody wanted to draw attention to one of the most disastrous battles in the war or the man who ordered it. “Political Darwinism,” somebody calls it.
Friends (one played by William Hurt) lobbied for him for years and a Pentagon staffer (Sebastian Stan) is eventually assigned to investigate. Ed Harris, Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Fonda (in his last film role) and Christopher Plummer and Diane Ladd (as Pitts’ parents) tell the story. We see it in flashback clips. Pitts fills in for a medic who has been shot and then refuses to take a helicopter ride out when the fighting gets calamitous. The film blasts the US war leaders (their lies kept the money flowing, one GI says) and the conspiracy that denied Pitts the medal. It took 34 years and a vote in Congress to get him a posthumous medal. Why? I didn’t learn the whole reason but I did feel the film’s anger. An air force association now awards an annual scholarship in his honor. (Scotiabank and Silver City Coquitlam). 3 ½ out of 5
COLOR OUT OF SPACE: Connoisseurs of Nicolas Cage going mad on screen are well-rewarded in this one. It takes a while but when he goes, he’s manic and raging, driven to it by something from outer space. It’s not clear what it is but it arrives on a meteorite, reveals itself as a purplish color and drifts around a family’s rural, woodsy farm contaminating and mutating everything. This is from a very old H.P. Lovecraft story that supposes that whatever aliens eventually come down to our planet, they will not be understood or even detectable by us. So the film is a tightening web of unexplained anxiety.
A lot of it is downright silly. Cage as a farmer is raising alpacas. His wife (Joely Richardson) is a wealth manager, via the internet. His daughter (played by Madeleine Arthur, from here in Vancouver) is a wiccan who rides a white horse. There’s a hermit in the woods (Tommy Chong) who smokes dope (naturally) and thinks nature gone wrong is the cause of the problems. We know better: Nic gets a rash in the shower; his son detects an organism down in a well; his daughter cuts herself; electric sparks get his wife and his alpacas gets all icky and bloody with something. There’s also a large insect as the fear of the unknown swells and the film spins a psychedelic aura. Richard Stanley from South Africa wrote it and directed it in Portugal, his first feature since the laughable The Island of Dr. Moreau 24 years ago. You need a taste for the bizarre, creepy and comic to enjoy this one. (Rio Theatre) 2 ½ out of 5
Also now playing …
THE TURNING: This is the latest of many adaptations of the classic ghost or gothic story The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. It wasn’t previewed hereabouts so all I can give you is some background. Filmed in Ireland a couple of years ago, it stars Vancouver-born and raised Mackenzie Davis as the nanny who thinks there are ghosts about and Brooklynn Prince as one of the children she tends to. (Remember her charming presence in The Florida Project?) The director is part-time Toronto resident Floria Sigismondi who is famous for the rock&roll movie The Runaways and a couple of episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale. Joely Richardson is in it. She’s also in the Nic Cage movie (see above) and ironically the last filming had Michelle Dockery in her role. She’s in The Gentlemen (see above). Trivia has to suffice in cases like this.