Daily Archives: September 11, 2018

The Old Man& The Gun – Director, David Lowery

Comedy, Drama, Loved it, TIFF 2018, Uncategorized

After a series of films with political overtones it was really relaxing to see this one that just tells a very nice story about three old guys robbing banks. That is a bit unfair. The cast is great with Robert Redford, Danny Glover and Tom Waits as the Over the Hill Gang, Sissey Spacek as the love interest and Casey Affleck as the cop who is reluctantly chasing them down. Not really a comedy and not really a romance but just a nice telling of a mostly true story of life long bank robber Forrest Tucker and his last run after escaping San Quentin prison. The story is understated, no violence, great subtle acting and really relaxing. Not sure I can say a great deal more about it. I suspect it will not show up at the Academy Awards but this is not a reason for you not to track it down when it is released at the end of the September. With all the evil news we deal with every day it seems take an hour and a half to just calm down with Redford and gang.

American Dharma – Director, Errol Morris

Documentary, Good, TIFF 2018, Uncategorized

Errol Morris has made some amazing and important documentaries that have focussed on some of the most evil people in American government. Two of my favourites are The Fog of War which is an interview with Robert McNamara and The Known Unknowns, an interview with Donald Rumsfeld. In both these films Morris does not directly confront the subjects about their crimes but rather let the men hang themselves with their own words. He tries the same tactic with Bannon but perhaps to a somewhat less successful outcome. While all these men are very smart and defend their actions with smooth words and eloquence, Bannon is perhaps the most devious and satanic of the three. Some of those who saw the film with me were disappointed that Morris was not more confrontational, but I am not so sure that would have worked and Bannon would likely not have made the film. We do however get great insight to a man who sought to twist the American electorate and successfully steered Trump to victory in 2016. He manages in the film to hide the reality of his far-right agenda while arguing he is for the little guy, the traditional American middle-class worker but I think the film does expose him as the evil that he is. The two earlier films were done as straightforward interviews but his one plays with Bannon’s love of classic war films including Gregory Peck in Twelve O’Clock High and Alec Guinness in The Bridge over the River Kwai. In fact the setting for the interview is a Quonset Hut like the ones in Twelve O’Clock High. We also learn that Bannon is very well educated and quotes Lucifer from Paradise Lost, and Falstaff from Henry V. He does however misinterpret their roles and speeches to justify his own worldview. He is clearly very intelligent and I think believes he has turned the film into a tribute to himself. It is not however and while you do want to jump up and punch him in the face, I think Morris has given us an important portrait of a man who has hurt American badly and who is now trying to do the same to Europe. His impact is not over and maybe this film was made a bit too early to sum up his career as did Morris’s earlier portraits of McNamara and Rumsfeld, but things move more quickly these days and it good to know your enemy. Worth a look this one.

22 July – Director, Paul Greengrass

Drama, Good, TIFF 2018, Uncategorized

On July 22nd, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik, a lone right-wing gunman, killed 77 people in Norway as a protest for what he saw as a threat to white supremacy and European purity. While he argued in his later defence that he was part of a world-wide movement he clearly acted alone but his attack was well planned and one of the most devastating terrorist actions of our time. This film is a powerful dramatization of the event itself but much of its power comes from following the aftermath including the trial, the impact on the survivors including one family in particular and on the country as a whole. It is a long torturous run. The recreation of the two attacks is graphic and had the audience gasping with shock. Breivik started by planting a massive bomb near the offices of the Norwegian prime minister to kill as many members of the Labour government as he could. Due to some poor timing he managed to kill only 8 people but his real target was a summer camp 40 km north of Oslo where many of the children of Labour Party members were spending a weekend. He arrived dressed as a police officer and then methodically killed 69 children, teenagers and staff before he was stopped. Once we were through with this as an audience we were then shown the emotional impact of these attacks on family, lawyers, police and government members. The major focus in on the family of a Labour party mayor from a small far northern town. Her younger son manages to escape being shot but the older boy is badly wounded and suffers physical and mental anguish that is portrayed powerfully and really hits the audience in the gut. I confess I found the film almost too much and might well have left but this is not because the film was bad but because it was almost too real. The acting by an all Norwegian cast is superb and the portrayal of the far-right agenda and the suffering caused by Breivik’s actions is brilliantly presented. The TIFF programmer who introduced the film apologized that the film makers were not able to be there for a Q and A after this showing and then said “Please enjoy the movie” “Enjoy” was hardly the word to use. 22 July  will be released on Netflix in October. I cannot promise you will enjoy it but you will be educated and be treated to some great film making.