It is hard to understand why this amazing film is heading to Netflix rather than the big screen. I guess partly because they optioned to produce it in the first place, although I’m sure that it would be very successful (other that the fact that it is partly subtitled) in a theatre run. It is every bit as well made and relevant as Twelve Years A Slave. It will undoubtedly be an Emmy contender and is worthy of an Oscar nomination. This is the second great Netflix film I’ve seen at this year’s festival, both strong social commentaries. Good on them!
I was extremely impressed with the photographic direction and the actual direction of the film. It is a richly shot film with all kinds of effects that one would expect from the same director responsible for the first season of True Detective. This is the screen adaptation of the book of the same name by Uzodinma Iweala, about the abduction and service of a young boy as a child soldier. Its big name star is Idris Elba who plays the ruthless and manipulative Commandant, but the real star is the boy soldier played by Abraham Attah, who won the best actor award at the Venice Film Festival. The movie is so intense that people around me in the audience were visibly shaken, cringing and averting their eyes. It is a naked look at what it means to be a child soldier in Africa (or probably in the Middle East as well). This film has it all, from strong action scenes to great acting performances, to a depth and empathy of the political situation. It works on many levels.
I would give this film an A. One way or another when this is released you have to see it, even if it makes you uncomfortable.
PS: For those of you with an Integral Theory leaning, you will find this film very enlightening in showing the ways in which Amber controls Red and Orange controls (though not always successfully) Amber. …It made me think of how possibly Green controls Orange.
This documentary covers the three months of protest against the government leading to the flight of President Yanukovych. It bears truthful witness to the struggle, although critics might say that it is somewhat one sided. Little is said about the pro-Russian side. However, the film gives testimony to the betrayal of the people by the government and the inhuman police brutality. There is little disputing that. It is a testimony to commonplace heroism. A comment from the audience after the showing was that every politician should see this film to remind them that they are responsible to the people. After the film was screened it was announced that Netflix picked up the movie and will be making it available on Oct. 9 of this year, -a fantastically quick delivery time. Well worth watching. B+
It is difficult to come up with a new, original story about WW2, but Land Of Mine sheds light on a chronicle that has previously been shrouded. In the middle of the war Hitler was convinced that the allies would invade Germany through Denmark, landing on the west coast of that country and moving south. To prepare for this he directed German troops to bury thousands of land mines on the beaches of western Denmark. Of course the invasion never landed there and at the end of the war these landmines still littered the beaches. After the war, German POWs, who in Denmark were mostly older teenagers, were conscripted to clear the mines. That is the context of the movie, but the film is more about the evolution of one hard nosed offices who hated the Germans developing respect and compassion and coming to realize that everyone deserves to be treated as human beings.
The film was made in Denmark in German and Danish languages, with the director saying that his goal was to shed some light on the darker episodes of war in that country. It is a gruesome film. When people are diffusing mines, they sometimes get blown up. Very well acted and shot. A great film worth watching but it’s one of those foreign films that you’ll probably have to hunt to find, and may eventually appear on Netflix or the History Channel in several years. I would give it a B++ rating.
I thought that I might catch the new movie, Chappie, sometime this weekend, or ever perhaps today (the opening day), seeing that it was playing in some places at 1 p.m. A quick look at the listings revealed a commercial opportunism that I’ve seen building over the past year or two, but never to the degree that currently seems to be prevalent.
If you want to see a new movie in any of the larger theatres, expect to pay extra. I’m not talking about the IMAX or 3D surcharges. Those, at least, make some sense to me. You’re paying for a notably better experience, and you usually have a choice in whether you want to avail yourself of this premium experience or not.
No, I’m talking about the other, recently imposed, fake premium tickets such as the VIP or the ULTRAAVX arrangements. IN the ULTRA situations you pay a surcharge of several dollars for what they claim is superior video and audio, -although I’ve never really noticed any difference. You also get the privilege of choosing your seats before going in to the theatre, although you really don’t have full choice as there are limitations on what seats you can choose. The result in a low use time is having a small group of people lumped into a small area in the middle of the theatre. There is no point in this seat selection. In high use times, you get to choose at the box office between a variety of poorer seats, -something you could just as easily do walking down the hall and entering the movie. In low use times, you get to choose among lots of seats, just like you’d be able to do if you just walked in and sat down. The difference is that with ULTRA you get to pay a surcharge for the privilege, which usually doesn’t do much other than slow down the ticket line. Even if you were the only person in the room, or one of a dozen, you would still pay this premium price. (If they wanted to impose a surcharge for choosing a seat on the Internet, which I personally think is totally unnecessary, then, fine, do that for those taking advantage of that extra service, but don’t make the people in the theatre line have to pay for it.) For today and the following week, the movie “Chappie”, along with several other new releases, are only available in most theatres using the ULTRA option. It is nothing less than a surcharge for seeing a new release wrapped in a thin veneer of crappy extra services.
When I went to see “A Theory of Everything” about a month ago, I chose to see it at the Varsity Theatre in Toronto. It wasn’t playing at anything but a few downtown theatres at that point as it was prior to the awards season. Admittedly, I didn’t look carefully enough at the listing, or I would have noticed that it was only playing in the VIP theatre. I didn’t realize it until they asked for $20 for the movie ticket. I had gone all the way down there and there wasn’t any opportunity to move to another theatre (-there was only one other in town playing it at that time-) so I took the hit, cursed myself for not looking more carefully, and saw the movie. For the additional cost, I enjoyed the privileges of having a slightly more comfortable seat (and I mean slightly), being offered over priced theatre food by annoying waiters and seeing the movie on a relatively small screen.
Theatres, especially the larger chains such as Silver City, are using the pretext of the “premium service” to simply fleece their customers of a little extra cash. It is not enough that they sell popcorn for a price that calculates to $66 a pound, a price that is twice what you’d pay for a fine steak in a good restaurant, and which rivals quality caviar. (I actually calculated this as a Math/Science activity with my Gr. 7 class.) Now they are trying to convince us that their meagre enhancements are worth charging us even more for the actual movie. It’s all smoke and mirrors. If I lived close to a small theatre like the Carlton, it would have all of my business. In the meantime, if theatres want to complete with on line services (and pirating) they would do well not to exploit their customers.
I feel that it was a very lean year for movies. A lot of the films that are garnering award nominations seem to be coming from desperation and would not get that kind of recognition in other years where stronger films were more prevalent. Films like “Into the Woods” and “Foxcatcher”, …and even “Birdman” don’t seem to be of the kind of calibre that deserves recognition, and “American Sniper” hadn’t even been released when the nominations were announced.
“Birdman” seems to be a favorite this year. While it was well produced and directed, the story seemed hollow to me. The filmmakers did an excellent job of telling a very jumbled and largely irrelevant story. It didn’t really speak to me at all in spite of the fact that it was well crafted. “Selma” is probably an excellent film (…I haven’t seen it…), but I have to say (and may be criticized for it) that after “The Butler”, “The Help” and “12 Years a Slave” civil rights issues just might be getting a little overdone. I’m sure that those most directly affected by civil rights issues don’t agree with me, …although the Academy does seem to agree with me as “Selma” got a mention for best film but nothing else.
There are several movies that I do feel deserve award mention.
“Boyhood” is a classic Linklater film. He does a very good job of making a film about nothing in particular. I appreciate the scope of the task and think that it was a novel idea, but the opportunity presented by the film was, in my opinion, squandered. The story didn’t live up to the overall accomplishment. In spite of that, I feel that it is worthy of award nomination as a film, although none of the individual performances were particularly noteworthy.
The two films that I think are on top of the heap are “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “The Imitation Game”. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” came out early in the year, a rare January release of an Oscar worthy movie. It got my attention immediately and is an original, funny and well crafted movie. “The Imitation Game” is a far more serious film about Alan Turing, with many layers of story and significance. They are totally different films, but both had fantastic acting performances and were very entertaining.
“The Theory of Everything” comes close to “The Imitation Game” in telling a deeply significant biographical story, but the latter, in my opinion, is just a hair better both in acting and story. There is no doubt that Eddie Redmayne playing Stephen Hawking takes on a very difficult task in portraying Hawking’s disability, but personally I think that an excellent performance of a normal person trumps an excellent performance of a person with a handicap. (Don’t misunderstand this. What comes to mind is Meryl Streep’s performance in “August: Osage County” where the melodramatic portrayal of the crazy, alcoholic mother was very deep, but none the less melodramatic. –Not that Redmayne’s performance is melodramatic. It’s actually quite masterful.) “The Theory of Everything” tackles a complicated character and manages to bring a special humanity to it, while still tackling the science that made Hawking famous.
Best actor should go to preferably Benedict Cumberbatch, but Eddie Redmayne would be fine.
Best actress seems to be a thin category with many of the nominations coming from peripheral films. I can only speak to Felicity Jones, in “the Theory of Everything”, who did a very good but not exceptional job.
“Interstellar” deserved some recognition beyond the music nod. Perhaps it was a little too “out there” for the Academy. Films that made my top 10 that aren’t on the Oscar list include, “Chef”, “The Internet’s Own Boy” (for documentary), and “Night crawler”. Movies like”Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Dawn of Planet of the Apes” never get the recognition that they deserve.
Finally, it is disappointing that “The Lego Movie” didn’t get any recognition, other than a music nod for “Everything is Awesome”, which I hope it gets. It clearly deserved a nomination if not a win for Animated Film.
It’s an amazing idea, so I expected amazing things.
Boyhood took 12 years to film so that they could use the same actors playing the roles in a family, with the focus being on Mason, the son, who begins as a six year old and ends as an 18 year old high school graduate. It is an incredibly ambitious idea that has all kinds of potential, but falls a bit short of expectation. The novelty and the character development are both there, and all the actors are in good form, but the plot is a little flat. In fairness, I’ve never been a fan of Richard Linklater, finding many of his movies to be masterfully mundane. I know that many would not agree with me.
And yet there was enough there to keep me interested for the full length of the film, at just under 3 hours. And that’s quite a feat in itself. The family issues and the adolescent milestones are reasonably well portrayed, and the viewer is more invested in them because we’ve seen the boy grow up right in front of our eyes. But there’s nothing terribly notable in the whole thing. I kept thinking to myself that they could have done more with it. It doesn’t help that the character of the boy is relatively introverted and quiet. This gives rise to some interesting introspection and philosophy of life, especially with the somber, straight laced, psychologist mother on one side and the fly by night, wild father on the other. Watching these characters develop over the 12 years is a sidebar in itself. Also interesting is to see the technology and music imbedded in the film evolve over that period.
I was definitely of two minds about the film. On one hand I really enjoyed it, to the point that I might even watch it a second time. On the other hand it has Linklater’s brand of trying to glorify the ordinary, albeit this time with a unique twist.
I would give the move a B+ (with the plus stemming from the novety)
I’m not terribly fond of comedies, either on TV or on the big screen. But every once in a while an intelligent one slips through the cracks of mindlessness and really entertains me.
“Chef” was such a film. It oddly stars and is directed/written by Jon Favreau who directed all of the Iron Man movies. It’s refreshing, original and clever, with the plot centering around a famous chef who makes a move to a food truck. Actually it is more about him discovering a relationship with his son and also a relationship with himself and what he really is passionate about. It is a film that should engage everyone, young and old, male or female. It also taps into Twitter and the whole idea of how it can make or break businesses. The generational difference in the approach to social media is fun to watch.
If it has any flaw it is that it takes a little while to get revved up. It could lose about 15 minutes, but mainly in the first third of the movie. I wouldn’t touch the last two thirds and, frankly, I had no real problem with the first part.
I would give this film an A-.
Chef has been playing in limited engagement for a while now, so I don’t think it is going to make it to wider distribution, even though it has such actors as Dustin Hoffman, Robert Downy Jr., Scarlet Johannson and Sofia Vergara. Catch it while you can.
Response to the movie Maleficent has been strikingly mixed. I’ve seen top reviews for it and ones that pan it. Even on Rotten Tomatoes, the Tomatometer rating is 49% and the Audience rating is 75%. Quite the variance.
Maleficent, if you don’t know already, is a very wide interpretation of the Sleeping Beauty story, -and I do mean very wide. The character, Maleficent, played brilliantly by Angelina Jolie, starts off as a very positive, good character. After experiencing a cruel betrayal, she casts a spell on the newborn daughter of the king, condemning her to eternal sleep on her 16th birthday. (I don’t think I’m writing any spoilers here, as the basic plot outline for Sleeping Beauty is common knowledge.) But at this point the plot diverges sharply. Suffice it to say that the rest of the movie has Maleficent regretting her curse.
At face value, the plot seems to be a simple fairy tale. The movie, acting and special effects are well done, with a good dose of surrealism to perpetuate the fairy tale atmosphere. But if you take a moment to reflect on the story, it takes on a depth which goes far beyond a simple fairy tale.
I was encouraged to see the movie after listening to a podcast by Jeff Salzman (Daily Evolver #93) where he talks about the post-modern and integral slant of the movie. Generally he says that, unlike classic fairy tales, there is no absolute good and evil in this story. There’s a transcendent quality in the reworking of this story that shows deeper perspectives behind good and evil, and how they need to be resolved in order to have a positive outcome. That’s a post-modern view of things.
He also briefly mentions Shadow Work, which is the interpretation that I found most striking in this film. If anything, this is a classic tale of Shadow Work in both the Jungian and Integral sense. It can be traced almost plot point by point, through the happiness at the beginning, the betrayal and the separation that occurs, even to the point of the building of a wall, to the acts of pure love and acceptance that diffuse the Shadow and lead to the ultimate outcome of resolution and happiness. I’ve simplified it here so as not to ruin the discovery process for someone watching the film, but even the final kiss to waken the sleeping beauty was delivered by the only person who could do so to fulfill the analogy of Shadow Work. I was so overjoyed that the writers got it right.
This may be why the film has such mixed reviews. If you are unaware of the deeper elements, or are just not really concerned with them, the story is your standard, run of the mill, fairy tale, -perhaps even a little cliché. However, if you are sensitive to the deeper currents in the film, whether you fully understand them or not, I think the film becomes a truly mythic tale with a deep moral. The fact that it can be interpreted on multiple levels makes it a successful Integral level film.
Is it possible to have a film with just too many explosions? Transformers 4 answers that question with a resounding “YES!”. Usually these kinds of films can make up for weak scripting and acting with some decent special effects, making them just fun, even if they are fluff. However, after almost two and a half hours of non stop explosions, it just became tedious. Towards the end I was actually looking at my watch and wishing it would just be over. And I like these kinds of films.
No depth (which is no surprise). Lots of credibility gaps. The morphing scenes are neat, but fade in novelty quite quickly, as we’ve seen most of it before. Cliche lines that made me cringe.
I would give this film a D. It might have gotten a C if it had been half an hour shorter.
Years ago one of the few video games that successfully captured my interest was the original Max Payne. I loved the fact that if you failed a mission or got killed you could reset it to a preset time and try over and over again until you got it right. There was one point in the game where you were captured and held locked in a room, completely without any weapons. I must have tried that escape fifty times, each time refining the method a little until it was finally successful.
That’s the premise behind Edge of Tomorrow. The main character resets the day every time he gets killed, kind of like Ground Hog Day, but a lot bloodier. The acting and setting are both very well done. The beach landing rivals any other war scene that I can think of, including Saving Private Ryan. The special and military tech are realistically grungy and quite interesting.
But the main attraction of the movie is that it is very engaging. The idea of reliving the day and fine tuning your actions to try to achieve something specific makes you constantly think about what you would do in the same situation. This could take all kinds of unrealistic twists, but in fact it doesn’t. It is to the film’s credit that it can take such a far fetched premise and still remain fairly down to Earth.
The new X-Men movie fires on all cylinders. The cast, acting, story line, special effects, action, depth …everything comes together to make a first class film.
Several days ago I was involved in a FB conversation about education and how it is failing boys. I mentioned that I learned to read mostly from comic books. Not just basic reading, but mostly reading for depth, character development and theme. The Marvel comics of the late 60s and 70s were so far ahead of their time that they were often considered worthy of banning by those elements of society that always want to ban things. They were considered too violent and too controversial. And that was exactly their appeal. At the same time, DC comics tried to remain more sedate in their approach. Comparing the early X-Men comics to the Superman or Batman comics of the time is like comparing The Walking Dead to Little House on the Prairie. And DC eventually got the message, ramping up their style in the 80s to try to remain competitive. (Unfortunately, greed got the better of them all. While there are still some good stories being told, the comic book industry took to producing so many cross-over stories in the 90s that I just stopped buying them. It was clear that they were just trying to manipulate their customers, who were, all too often, kids.)
The point is that those early Marvel Comics had themes and story lines that were mature and relevant. They were about conformity, fear of the different and alienation, when it came to X-Men. Spiderman was about struggles with personal responsibility. The Punisher was about the nature of vigilanteism. Daredevil was about social conscience. The Avengers was often about patriotism and loyalty. While often mocked by my teachers, this reading material was full of well crafted characters and serious social themes, but presented in an accessible way. I’m sure that it contributed not only to my reading comprehension, but also my eventual interest in psychology and philosophy.
I’ve often said to teachers that, for adolescent boys, reading needs to be regarded as a subversive activity. That will engage them.
That was what I loved most about this new X-Men movie. It captures that depth that I recall in my old favorite comics. It is a film of substance, not just super heroes smashing things up. Well done.
If I read the book I generally see the movie, …sometimes regrettably.
The book, Divergent, is a YA book in the same vein as The Hunger Games. When I started the book I thought, “Oh, here we go again.” Teenage female heroine forced to fight against a corrupt government. However I was pleasantly surprised by the originality of Divergent, which presents a surprisingly mature examination of the theme of conformity. Also, the initiation into the exhilarating warrior class of her society, called the Dauntless, is exciting and really challenges a lot of traditional values. I enjoyed the book, although the two sequels tend to devolve into something resembling Twilight Teen Romance to a larger degree. (I’ve noticed that a lot in YA books. For example, the Mortal Instrument books start out strongly, but then shift to a more romantic theme in the later books. The Hunger Games books avoid that to a greater extent.)
The movie does a good job of following the book on a plot level, but the theme of conformity is less successfully communicated. It is there superficially, but the book, not surprisingly, does a far better job. It is not as hard hitting as it could be and as, for example, is more successfully achieved in the Catching Fire film. As I said, the plot of the film is mostly faithful to the novel, with the action scenes and those that reflect the mental fears, are well done. The acting is fair to good, – not amazing, but not distracting.
PW's Rants 