Bottle Rocket – Director, Wes Anderson

Comedy, Good, Uncategorized

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have now seen all the Wes Anderson films who is one of my favourite directors. Bottle Rocket is old – well 1996 – and puts together the Wes Anderson team that includes Owen and Luke Wilson. The story is odd and off the wall but lots of fun. You can see in this movie Anderson’s use of colour and framing that make most of his films really beautiful to look at while remaining totally odd and weird. Owen Wilson’s acting style is also a great part of the film. It tells the story of a trio of young men who have a career goal of becoming master thieves. They start small in a hilarious robbing of a local bookstore for a few hundred dollars and basically stay small until they join up with a real crook played by James Caan. This last caper turns into a sad but very funny ending to their ambitions. If you are also a Wes Anderson fan and have not seen this yet – it is highly recommended.

By the way, Bottle Rocket is based on a short that is Wes Anderson’s first film to win awards at a small US film festival. You can see it on YouTube here:

Everything is Copy – Director, Jacob Bernstein

Documentary, Loved it, Uncategorized

Everything is Copy is a tribute documentary to Nora Ephron, an essayist, humourist, screenwriter, and all round really interesting woman who died in 2012 of leukemia. It was made by her son Jacob Bernstein and covers really all aspects of her life from childhood through several marriages including Carl Bernstein of All the President’s Men fame. She was an iconoclastic observer of human foibles and of being a woman in a male dominated society. She took on all aspects of her life from divorce to aging to illness with an acerbic wit that attracted many to her despite the fear of being cut to the quick by her wit and observations. The film uses interviews with Ephron herself from the past as well as with the many creative film and publishing greats who knew and loved her including Carl Bernstein, Steven Spielberg, Mike Nichols, Meryl Streep and Carl Reiner among many others.

If you do not know her you need to know that she was the brains and writer behind films like Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, Silkwood, and Julie and Julia. All hugely successful and well reviewed. If you want to know her thoughts however read her essays and humour which are available in several books and the archives of the New York Times and Esquire. The film is one of the many HBO documentaries and can be seen on HBO on-demand channels.

Filmish – Book Review, Author, Edward Ross

Book Review, Loved it, Uncategorized

Filmish presents a graphic non fiction look at the history and impact of film over the last 100 years. Lots of film fans are reluctant to read books about film and the history of film by critics and academics which can turn film viewing into a boring academic exercise that is essentially just opinion anyway. Do you really believe Citizen Kane is the best movie ever made? Do you care? When you know that its really a choice between Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia (or secretly – Star Wars: Episode IV)?

I enjoyed the book because it of the art work and the opinions. Ross has divided into chapters describing how film influences or uses the eye, time, voice and language and ideology and technology. It is not academic but raises many questions and challenges the reader to think about their own experience of watching a movie. For those who are inspired to look more deeply into the literature around film, the author quotes many of the more notable critics and writers and provides a superb bibliography. Reading the book will definitely change how you watch movies without wrecking the experience for you. Highly recommended.

Oscar Night 2016

Uncategorized

The 2016 Oscar Awards Show was one of the best of recent years. Clearly it took some controversy to get them to kick it into a higher gear. Chris Rock has received some great plaudits for his hosting and this was well deserved. He managed to skate a careful line but made the point about strongly about the lack of diversity without insulting anyone. My favourite segments were Chris Rock’s interview with people outside a movie theatre in Compton where no one seemed aware of the white Oscar nominated films. The contrast was very funny and pointed. The other highlight was Louis CK introducing the nominees and winner of the Short Documentary. Also this was won by a Pakistani/Canadian director whose film about honour killing may have actually changed the policies around punishing honour killers in Pakistan. Makes the whole thing more meaningful when the Academy gives attention to an important film and makes a difference.

As for the awards themselves overall it was very good. I was disappointed that Amy won best documentary but otherwise I was pretty happy with the outcome. I loved the surprises like Spotlight taking Best Picture and Ex Machina took Best Visual Effects in the face of Mad Max taking all the other technical awards. All in all a good year, a pretty good show, and it deserved a better audience.

Embrace of the Serpent – Director, Ciro Guerra

Uncategorized

One of the nominees for Best Foreign Language Film and while it has received some very positive reviews I found it long and boring. The idea of the film is great. It juxtaposes two European travellers/adventures/explorers whose travels into the Amazonian rain forest are separated by several decades. The thing that ties them together is the shaman who travels with them both, once as a young man and later as elderly. He carries memories that ties the two together. The plan is to educate these two explorers about the land and people and show them the damage that Europeans have brought to the Amazon. Unfortunately, it plays as a pedantic guilt trip and is incredibly slow moving and tedious. A great idea gone wrong. I think a lot of the praise is based on European guilt for the cultural and economic destruction of colonialism. I sadly cannot recommend this film to you.

The 33 – Director, Patricia Riggen

Adventure, Drama, Good, Uncategorized

This movie got mediocre reviews and I think I understand why. It tells the story of the 33 Chilean miners trapped for 69 days underground and finally miraculously rescued. It was a dramatic story that captured the attention of the world for over two months and brought in mining and drilling experts from all over the world including Canada. The making of a movie about the events made sense and I recall listening to a radio documentary about the making of the movie a couple of years ago that piqued my interest in the film and learning that Antonio Banderas and Gabriel Byrne were in the cast. The film, if it had been made as a fictional story would perhaps have garnered more praise. Unfortunately, the real story while dramatic is also disturbing.  Despite all the attention, the company that owned the mine was never punished for creating the unsafe conditions that led to the disaster and the minors were never compensated for their trauma. The film touches on these issues but never really focuses on them. Instead we focus entirely on the rescue in a pretty typical Hollywood manner. There are some interesting characters among the miners and there is some real tension. One of the best scenes is the final rescue as the minors are pulled one by one from the mine. I enjoyed the movie and am just disappointed that they didn’t do a better job.

Theeb – Director, Naji Abu Nowar

Adventure, Drama, Loved it, Oscar 2016, Uncategorized

Unlike Room ( see below), which also focuses on a young boy at the centre of the story, this film is far more powerful and interesting. It is set in 1916 in Hijaz province (Western Saudi Arabia today) of the Ottoman empire. It is during the First World War at the time of Lawrence of Arabia and tells the story of a young boy named Theeb or Wolf in Arabic and his older brother. They are asked to guide a English soldier to a well on the way to Mecca. They are moving through a war torn area and are victims of a conflict they have nothing to do with. The cinematography in this film is beautiful and reminiscent of David Lean’s masterpiece. The boy is a great actor and not nauseatingly cute as in Room but very real. Unlike Room I was entranced for the full hour and a half. This movie has a high rating from reviewers but like many foreign language films has had very little exposure. The knock on this movie is that it is a simple coming of age adventure film with a predictable outcome. I am not sure this is entirely fair. The world in which it is set and the time is a violent one and this movie avoids any gruesome violence or unjustified confrontations or death.It’s a good adventure story and I would highly recommend it to you. it will be at review cinemas and the Lightbox so get out and see it.

Room – Director, Lenny Abrahamson

Drama, Hated it, Oscar 2016

I really did not like this movie despite its 96 percent rating on RottenTomatoes. It is boring, unbelievable and pointless. It is winning because the kid is so damn cute but if not for that I think this film would disappear into oblivion which I suspect it will after February 28th passes. I am clearly way off the popular consensus. This starts with a woman who is a prisoner in a room with her young son. They have access to food and basic comforts but she is visited by her captor and is clearly a sexual slave to him. She has been there for seven years and the son is only 4 or 5 and is clearly the son of her and her captor. The focus of the film is that her son has no concept of the outside world except through the small television they have. The whole scenario seemed unbelievable to me. They behave as would any mother and son in a normal situation which I could not believe. The boy has concepts that he would never have if brought up in this situation. I don’t know if this is based on a real case or not or on research about people in similar circumstances but I just couldn’t believe the scenario at all. They escape in yet another unbelievable plot involving the son feigning death. Once they get out the story shifts to introducing the boy to the world he has never known. It is totally wrapped around the relationship between mother and son but it is just pointless unless you identify with the cute little boy. Sorry but this movie really is not very interesting at all. Just my opinion however. Enjoy… if you like that kind of thing.

Creed – Director, Ryan Coogler

Drama, Good, Loved it, Oscar 2016, Oscar Stuff, Uncategorized

Has it really been 40 years since the first Rocky movie? Creed is a homage to the Rocky series and is a remake in many ways of the original film only this time focussing on the rising career of Apollo Creed’s illegitimate son played by Michael B. Jordan. Coogler’s previous very well received film is called Fruitvale Station also starring Jordan. I have not seen the latter but will definitely hunt it down now. As for this film, I have to wonder how Jordan does not get a nomination or how Coogler (who is black) doesn’t get one either for directing. This is particularly bad when I look at the nominated films some of which simply do not measure up to this one. If it had been nominated it would have also gone some way toward addressing the whiteness of the Academy’s process.

It is clear why Stallone gets a nomination in the acting category. Although he is not known for great performances outside of the Rocky series he is actually really good in this film. I hope I am not being overly generous here and channeling my memories from 40 years ago but hey…I had a great time watching this movie and it took me back. So I think this counts as a really good movie and a tribute to the entire Rocky series. It has, and this is a warning, great boxing scenes and I know there are those who find this unpleasant and see it as barbaric. The latter may be true but that doesn’t take from the quality of this movie. Go see it if you can.

Son of Saul – Director, László Nemes

Drama, Loved it, Oscar 2016, Oscar Stuff, Uncategorized

This is a very difficult film to watch. The Nazi’s selected skilled and fit Jews to help in the concentration camps as work commandos. They were not executed unless they fell ill or were no longer needed. They collected the clothing and possessions of the inmates who were led to the ovens and gas chambers. This film follows one of these commandos who finds his son among the dead and seeks to find a rabbi and give his son a proper burial. It is filmed from his perspective as the camera follows him around focussed on his face or what he is watching. This techniques makes it very powerful and very upsetting as the reality of the camps is revealed. The ending is inevitable if not entirely predictable. It frustrates me somewhat that these excellent films are not recognized more fully by the Academy. An award for the Best Foreign Language Film is something out of a past in which the lords of Hollywood condescended to recognize films from those countries that in their opinion sadly lacked a real film industry. This kind of American arrogance needs to be addressed with a major redo of the awards and the industry. Worth an editorial on the blog shortly. In the meantime here is a very good movie that deserves the recognition it is getting.