This reboot of the Mad Max franchise is a visual extravaganza with wonderful performances from Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron. While I enjoyed it very much and clearly so did the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, I am like many who saw the new Star Wars movie. Yes its great but…. The original was much more mind blowing if you were lucky enough to be around and see it for the first time in 1977. The original Mad Max with a very young Mel Gibson came out in 1979 and was a great sci-fi post-apocalyptic vision with a pretty low budget. It rocketed Gibson to international fame and its sequel Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) was a brilliant follow up. There is no question that this latest take directed by the same director but 35 years later is very good and very special but it’s a sequel and a reboot and it just didn’t grab me the way the original did. So that’s the perspective of a 66 year old movie reviewer. It is interesting that a movie like Mad Max can have a much greater impact when it is first released in the context of movies of the time then it can to younger fans who see it 10 or 20 years later in a world already influenced by those films. It is less of a thrill and less of a novelty and clearly no longer ground breaking since it already did that previously. I will riff on this a bit more in my review of the new Star Wars movie. But for all my reaction from the perspective of an old movie fan don’t get me wrong, this a really fun movie and a great ride just not the same one I was on in 1979.
Category Archives: Loved it
What We Do in the Shadows – Directors, Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi
As the movie poster suggests, this film is hilarious. It is a very low budget New Zealand mockumentary about a group of four vampires living in modern day Wellington New Zealand. The vampires vary in age from just under 200 years old to over 8000 years old. It chronicles the day to day… make that night to night travails and problems of being undead in contemporary Wellington. From arguments over who will do the dishes, making sure the drapes are drawn at dawn and waking up Peter the 8000-year-old guy who lives in the basement we follow them on various adventures around town. These include befriending a human who they decide not to kill themselves but who is ultimately turned into a werewolf and a new take on racism as the vampires realize that werewolves do not pee on everything and are actually fairly civilized at least when the moon is not full. I highly recommend this for a relaxing evening when you really can’t take anything very seriously and want to just relax in great satire.
It should be noted that director Taika Waititi is working on the new Thor picture due to be released in November 2017. A big reward for a talented young director who stumbled with Green Lantern in 2011 but I suspect will do much better with Thor.
The Hateful Eight – Director, Quentin Tarantino
If you like Tarantino, you will like this movie and if you don’t you won’t. Personally I am a big fan and loved this movie. Set in a single room for most of the 187 minutes it all hangs on the acting and that is top notch. Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell as the leads are very good but the best performance is turned in by the only major female character played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. The supporting cast are also all wonderful with great performances in particular from Tim Roth and Bruce Dern. The claustrophobic setting lends great tension to a movie that sparkles all the way through. I am tempted to look at my watch in any movies that extend past 90 minutes but not this time. One is never sure about the agenda of each character or who is going to die in some over the top violent manner until the final twist ending(s) and the script and timing keep you on the edge of you seat throughout. Great stuff delivered with skill and humour from Tarantino who continues to improve with each outing.
Very Semi-Serious – Director, Leah Wolchok
The subtitle for this HBO documentary film is: A Partially Thorough Portrait of New Yorker Cartoonists. I have to admit I am a New Yorker cartoon addict. I get the magazine every week and like the old Playboy joke – I do read it for the articles but first I flip through and read all the cartoons. To get a chance to learn how they get chosen, who draws them, and who the editor is, was a chance not to be missed. Best of all I saw it at the Bloor Cinema – home of the Hot Docs festival and the New Yorker’s cartoonist and cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff was there for a Q and A after the showing. The film took 7 years to put together and includes interviews with many of the better know cartoonists who are fascinating and often unusually strange people themselves. We learn a great deal about how the cartoons are chosen and how Bob Mankoff works with the contributors to improve and enhance their work including such factoids as: Mankoff goes through 1000 cartoon submissions a week to choose 15 to be published. He does this often by meeting with the cartoonists personally each week in his office to discuss and critique their submissions. He cares deeply about the art of cartooning and uses his job as editor to build and support the small group of active cartoonists. Cartooning is a slowly dying art with fewer publications publishing them each year. To ensure the continuance and renewal of the art Mankoff deliberately works with younger contributors who will hopefully replace the current old timers like himself. He has been remarkably successful. The Q and A after the film was brilliant with Mankoff being a sharp and witty in person as he is on the pages of the New Yorker. If you are a fan you can also read his book titled after one of his more iconic cartoon captions: How about never. Is never good for you?
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Director, J. J. Abrams
Okay this movie is likely to make more money than any movie in history and has had great reviews ranking in the 90’s on Rotten Tomatoes and generally could not miss as a hit. It is not 1977 however, and this is not Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope which set the stage for all the special effects blockbusters to follow. Those of us who were stunned and thrilled by the first movie will be a tad disappointed in this one but that is not to say it is not great fun. There is much to like and lots of nostalgia to enjoy. There is a real challenge with rebooting a franchise like this. Abrams did an awesome job with Star Trek but this was by far a bigger challenge. He has to deal with the old characters and old story, introduce the new cast and set the stage for the next 2 movies in the trilogy. That is a lot to do in one movie but I believe they were successful. I enjoyed every moment of it.
There a few plot issues like how the new lead star managed to learn how to do Jedi mind tricks all on her own and it worked and that is not the only one. Time to suspend disbelief dear readers and just relax. After the movie when my guests were discussing this scene in particular our youngest guest (9 y.o.) noted that “The Force is strong in this one”. Nuff said. Enjoy.
Women He’s Undressed – Director – Gillian Armstrong
This is a truly great documentary about Orry-Kelly who is perhaps the most influential costume designer of his time — the golden age of Hollywood. He was Australian from a small rural town and the most unlikely to end up where he did. As a costume designer he worked on over 250 films including Casablanca. Some Like it Hot, Irma la Douce and An American in Paris. He won three Oscars and worked for MGM, 20th Century Fox and Universal Studios. He dressed Marlene Dietrich and Betty Davis and Marilyn Monroe and of course did the gowns for Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Some Like it Hot. His sense of design allowed him to make the careers of many female stars of his time.
He was also gay and had a long term relationship with Cary Grant and shared the lifestyle with many other stars and artists of the time including Randolph Scott among others. However being gay was illegal and increasingly frowned upon by the industry leading to Grant and others having to abandon their obvious lifestyle and even getting married to cover the reality of their lives. Orry-Kelly was not so willing to cover his real life. It led to the end of his relationship with Grant but he moved on and found another lover who was not in the business and who he kept secret.
The documentary uses an actor to play the role of Orry-Kelly as a narrator which works very well as well as some great scenes from his movies and interviews with other costume designers, directors and film critics who know his work and aspects of his life. The Director, Gillian Anderson introduced the film and told us not to leave before the credits run since she inserted a final scene in the middle of the credits. The last scene of the film before the credits tells us that Orry-Kelly wrote a tell all memoir that has been repressed and prevented from publication by Cary Grant. The manuscript was lost. However Gillian Anderson made a great effort to track it down and in the final final scene inserted in the credits we learn that the manuscript was with his mother in Australia and is still in the hands of the family. One can only hope that the legal obstacles can be overcome so we can buy the book. Apparently it is available there but I can’t see how to get it shipped to Canada. Rats!!!
At any rate this is a great film, funny, interesting and educational all in one. Go for it.
http://tiff.net/festivals/festival15/tiffdocs/women-hes-undressed
Youth – Director – Paolo Sorrentino
This film will likely be on the OSCAR track if not for best film then for best actor for Michael Caine. The director is Italian and noted for several previous films that were generally pretty depressing in theme and plot. They have been lauded for quality but not for fun. This film takes him in a new direction. The story is lighter than anything he has previously done and offers a theme of redemption. I found some of it very beautiful to look at, very funny in several places, moving in others, but he insists on inserting scenes and images that as far as I can see are a tribute to Fellini and have nothing to do with the plot or theme. Nonetheless I was entertained more than I was irritated and the acting is top notch. I am reminded at how effortlessly the old pros like Caine and Keitel can act while being impressed with the Paul Dano a young actor who has a great career in front of him.
The story is about two old friends, Caine and Keitel who are at Swiss spa to rest and regain health. Keitel is a film director and Caine a retired composer and orchestra conductor. Both have hidden issues in their lives that remain unresolved and which come to light in the course of the film. I can’t tell you how the plot evolves but will intrigue you with the fact that Miss Universe is also there and prone to walking about with minimal clothing, and a small subplot in which Caine and Keitel bet on the quality of the relationship between ta couple who eat dinner at table near them. The picture above has them observing a change in that relationship. All very funny.
On the whole a good movie and one that will be out this fall and worth the time to see.
http://tiff.net/festivals/festival15/specialpresentations/youth
No Men Beyond This Point – Director – Mark Sawers
This was the funniest movie of the week. A mockumentary that the director told us was more about mocking documentaries than mocking the topic of the film. Still the topic was great and the film very funny. Filmed in Canada with a Canadian cast and director, the film speculated on a world in which women begin getting pregnant through parthenogenesis or asexually. They just become pregnant without requiring male involvement and worse, at least from the male perspective, all these pregnancies result in female babies. After a few decades men are becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of the population and as no new males are being born, older and older. The film focusses on the youngest remaining man, a 37 year old who is working as a nanny and housekeeper for an all-female household. Among the speculations is that sex becomes something to be refrained from at least in the policies of the female government and a new naturalist religion evolves. Men are forced to live in compounds and the title of the film comes from signs restricting males from leaving their compounds.
The film lacks good scientific background but it uses great documentary style and while you do not laugh hysterically you do chuckle continuously and in a good way. It is a very funny movie. The director was there for a Q and A and was asked some pretty silly questions like why he did not address issues of gay/lesbian sex, his lack of multicultural or racial variety in the cast, the problem of reduced genetic diversity in parthenogenesis etc. It was after all a comedy and a joke and needed to be accepted as such and not as a serious sci-fi film. On the other had he was asked how he came up with the idea and he confessed his starting point was that he wanted to make a movie, he had limited funds so it would be shot in his house, use only 6-7 actors and involve a love triangle. The idea for the movie came from a story he read about komodo dragons who can reproduce without male/female intercourse. He felt bad for the komodo dragon and speculated on this possibility in human populations. Thus a movie is born.
I think this is well worth your time if you can track it down. I suspect it will show up at Hot Docs but not in general release but if you can find it, see it.
http://tiff.net/festivals/festival15/vanguard/no-men-beyond-this-point
Victoria – Director – Sebastian Schipper
I am not entirely sure about this movie. It is not the best I have ever seen and it is a wee bit too long but all in all very entertaining. Victoria is a German film but most of the dialogue is in English. Set in Berlin it tells the story of a young Spanish student who hooks up late one night or really early one morning with four guys who are out for the night partying. What starts out as a fun encounter and a blossoming romance with one of the guys slowly turns darker as the guys are coerced into a bank robbery and the girl – Victoria – becomes the driver of the getaway vehicle. I will not give away the whole story but needless to say it all starts to go awry until the climactic ending. The characters speak English because the guys are German and Victoria is Spanish. The common tongue is English which they all speak relatively well and which makes for interesting dialogue.
What is unusual about this movie is that it all happens in real time and is shot in one continuous take. Apparently they did three versions and the final one is the one that was released. The dialogue is all ad libbed which is a credit to the actors since it is mostly in English which is a second language for them all. The pace of the movie picks up slowly over the time and ends in a rush. Great fun really and although one can punch all kinds of holes in the plot, the nature of the filming is unique and the story compelling so you really want to see how it all comes out at the end and definitely stay hooked. Not sure when this might be released. The film will be at several film festivals including Vancouver and Berlin and hopefully will get general release in the New Year if not before. Definitely worth the effort to see.
http://tiff.net/festivals/festival15/specialpresentations/victoria
Born to be Blue – Director – Robert Budreau
This movie is brilliant. Maybe the best movie I have seen so far at the festival. Ethan Hawke portrays the legendary jazz trumpeter and singer Chet Baker in a tightly scripted film that covers an early part of his career about his struggles to deal with heroin addiction and the connection between that and his music. It’s a complex story but handled very well. The filming, much of which happened in Sudbury, and the acting are at the highest level. The music is great with Canadian jazz artists doing most of the work although Ethan Hawke apparently did much of the singing and he is very good. Jazz stalwarts like Mike Murley and Terry Clarke back him up and really enhance the movie. Baker rose to stardom at the time of Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis but when jazz was still a domain of black musicians in New York. Baker was part of a new style of west coast cool jazz and he sang as well which was not well regarded by the New York artists. A great quote from the film has Ethan Hawke in a kind of soliloquy saying: Hey Dizzy, Miles, there’s a white boy coming from California and he’s gonna eat your lunch.
The biography of Chet Baker is a novel in itself and this film only touches on the early part of his career. His most productive time for playing and recording occurred after the end of this film but we see how he gets to that point and it is a moving story. Going back to Hitchcock and Truffaut, one of Hitchcock’s techniques or skills was to portray feelings and thoughts of the characters in a glance or a look rather than dialogue. In the last scene of this movie, Baker is on stage at Birdland. Playing at Birdland in NYC is the sign he has finally made it back to the top. He struggles however to go on stage and although he has been clean – no heroin for years – he is tempted to use again just to get the confidence he needs to go on. The tension builds and we do not know if he will resort to heroin he has in his dressing room or take the methadone that has kept him clean so long. His fiancée who has helped him stay clean all this time did not come with him to NYC and he felt abandoned by her however she shows up unannounced just as he comes on stage. She has told him she will leave him if he goes back on the drugs and she will know he is using just by his manner when he is high. He comes out, sees her and starts to play My Funny Valentine. He brushes his cheek which is the sign he is using again and she sees it. He continues to play as he watches her take off her engagement ring and walk out. He however has made it back, the heroin helps him play to his full potential while destroying him at the same time. His eyes say it all: goodbye, I’ve made it, I am never going back. Fade to black. Great scene, great ending, great performance.
No release date for this film yet but some critics who have seen it say it is Ethan Hawke’s best performance in film. It is bound to come out and it will be well worth your while to see it.
Movies: Rants and Raves 