Steve Stebbing

Breaking down all things pop culture

What The Hell Should I Watch? – Oct 29

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October 29, 2020

New Releases:

Come Play – On the outside of this movie it may look like another creepy kid horror film but this one only features a kid as the main character but is more about a malevolent creature looking to steal said kid. The story follows Oliver, a lonely young boy who feels different from everyone else who’s only way to speak is through his smartphone. Desperate for a friend, he seeks solace and refuge in his ever-present cell phone and tablet but when a mysterious creature uses Oliver’s devices against him to break into our world, Oliver’s parents must fight to save their son from the monster beyond the screen. The story seems a bit hokey, based on a short film for the director Jacob Chase, but had the potential to be a really great thriller and makes pretty effective use of its material early on but a terrible script and, therefore, really bad acting constantly serve to take you completely out of the movie time and time again. I love both Gillian Jacobs and John Gallagher Jr. but can’t muster up a good thing to say about either of them in this, they’re just terrible.

Spell – With the heavyweight of the horror classic The Serpent And The Rainbow behind it in a big bad way, I’m always excited to check out voodoo and hoodoo centric genre films and this one definitely piqued my interest as it not only has all of the boxes checked on these tropes but it also has character actress Loretta Deine doing some villain work. The story follows a man who crash lands in rural Appalachia with his family on the way to his father’s funeral and awakens in the attic of a traditional Hoodoo practitioner named Ms. Eloise who claims she can nurse him back to health with the Boogity, a Hoodoo figure she has made from his blood and skin. He desperately tries to break free from her dark magic and save his family from a sinister ritual before the rise of the blood moon in a film that has its really creepy moments but feels a bit less than effective. The thing that bothered me most about this lower grade but bloody thriller-horror was the score which felt like a placeholder rather than anything composed with what was going on in the movie.

Ravers – Yes, it’s all horror this week across the board in theaters and on-demand and what else would you expect this week? We cap it off in this section with this club based film which definitely feels tame when compared to the LSD laced madness that was Gaspar Noe’s Climax, which was one of my favorite films that year. This film is set at an illegal rave that gets turned into a living nightmare when a contaminated energy drink is ingested, slowly turning everyone into monsters leading a germaphobe journalist to overcome her deepest fears to get her friends out alive. This movie is low-budget and conceptually weird but it is totally wild and keeps you engaged the whole time. It’s also cool to see Canadian and former Species star Natasha Henstridge show up in this. I’ve had a crush on her since the nineties.

Blu-Ray:

Amulet – The horror is definitely relentless this week as Atonement star Romola Garai makes her directorial debut with this new creeper of a movie that she wrote as well. The story follows an ex-soldier, living homeless in London, who is offered a place to stay at a decaying house inhabited by a young woman and her dying mother. As he starts to fall for her, he cannot ignore his suspicion that something sinister is going on and that his life and his soul is increasingly at risk. Garai nails this mystery horror with great atmosphere and a few really choice moments of pure terror but the theme again is a thriller that rolls everything out very well but fails to fully capitalize on the groundwork it has laid. The highlight of this movie is Harry Potter franchise alumni Imelda Staunton who brings an incredible amount of gravitas and veteran attitude to the production.

Attack Of The Unknown – It’s probably best to start with the synopsis of this new sci-fi action so here it goes. The story follows a SWAT team transporting a high profile inmate who finds themselves trapped inside a county detention center as the world burns around them. Having no communication with the outside world, no radios, no television, and no working vehicles, they must put aside their differences and band together to escape the mysterious alien forces that are tracking them, bent on world destruction one human victim at a time. Sounds cool, right? Now I will give you that bad news that it stars former 21 Jump Street star Richard Grieco and Sharknado’s cast-off Tara Reid and, yes, the whole thing pales dramatically because the whole production is on caliber with their talent, almost non-existent. Such a disappointment because the eighties and nineties action fan in me absolutely loved that premise.

Fatima – This is a big movie in my mind as it is an anomaly of sorts, a faith-based film depicting Bible events that are actually, wait for it, good. Not just that but I’d dare to venture that this movie is great. Director and former Game Of Thrones cinematographer Marco Pontecorvo brings us the story of three young shepherds in Fátima, Portugal, who report visions of the Virgin Mary, inspiring believers and angering officials of the Church and the government, who try to force them to recant their story. The film’s cast features Harvey Keitel, a giant of an actor that I have been missing for a while now and while I contend that this movie will not work with everyone, it takes some bold chances that largely work out for it. It’s either that or I’ve been dulled down by faith-based movies so much that any improvement looks almost… miraculous.

Spree – Stranger Things is an incredible phenomenon that has given us a plethora of new stars like Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown but we have to admit that the show’s darling is the character of Steve Harrington, played by Joe Keery, someone who went from a season one bully to the best dude on the show. This new high octane thriller looks to capitalize on that as he stars in this film as Kurt Kunkle, a rideshare driver thirsty for an online following who has figured out a deadly plan to go viral by killing his clients. This movie is filled to the brim with dark humor by bold writer and director Eugene Kotlyarenko who, while this isn’t his first bat at the plate, will be very remembered after the end credits of this film hit. This is an absolutely wild ride that puts the fleeting fame of social media directly in the crosshairs of satire.

Tom And Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale – Do the kids still remember Tom and Jerry? My daughter only vaguely has a notion about them but it was only in the context of comparing them to The Simpsons cartoon within a cartoon, Itchy and Scratchy. Well, I remember these two well and their 2007 Christmas special has been revamped for the higher blu-ray platform to hopefully rope in a new generation. The story has Tom and his army of stray cats taking over Jerry’s magical kingdom of living toys leading Jerry to find the Toymaker and get help to win his kingdom back before sunrise when the window of opportunity closes all the while chased by his nemesis and his cronies. It’s hard to review this really because it is all pretty standard so if you’re into showing the kids Tom and Jerry just go for this one for the upcoming holidays.

The Opposite Sex – Heading back to 1956 for this classic Joan Collins movie that is a remake of the famous Joan Crawford film The Women but in musical form. The film follows Kay, a former nightclub singer, married ten years and mother of a young daughter, who is informed that her husband Steven, played by one of the greatest Canadians of all time, Leslie Nielsen is having an affair with chorus girl Crystal Allen, Collins role, so she goes to Reno for a divorce. After that, Steven marries Crystal, but Crystal ends up cheating and when Kay hears about this, she starts fighting to win her ex-husband back. Crawford was not a fan of this remake and when asked about it said “It’s ridiculous. Norma (her co-star) and I might not ever have been bosom buddies, but we towered compared to those pygmies in the remake.”. Apparently, this cattiness was prevalent because Collins and this film’s star didn’t get along either.

Waterloo Bridge – It’s double Warner Archive this week with this film that starred Vivian Leigh hot off of her lead role in a film regarded as one of the greatest of all time, Gone With The Wind. Directed by Gypsy and Wizard Of Oz filmmaker Mervyn LeRoy, this story is set on the eve of World War II, following a British officer recalling his time at Waterloo Bridge as a young man at the beginning of World War I and the young ballerina he met just before he left for the front, Myra who ends up staying with him past curfew and is thrown out of the corps de ballet and ends up having to fend for herself, surviving on the streets of London. She ends up falling even lower after she hears her true love has been killed in action, an untrue piece of information. This film was nominated for two Oscars for cinematography and best score but Rebecca won for the former, the remake now streaming on Netflix and Disney’s Pinocchio for the latter.

Bonanza: Season 11 Volumes 1 & 2 – To add to my burgeoning collection of classic western television series I am pretty happy to cover this family show that my dad introduced me to as a kid. A season that is over three quarters through the show’s entire fourteen-year run, this is the iconic story of the Cartwright family and their Nevada ranch featuring the bigger than life stars Lorne Greene and Michael Landon, these episodes focusing on Hoss and Candy being misidentified as bank robbers, romance, uneasy alliances and, believe it or not, social distancing makes an appearance in this season of the frontier family’s life. The classic television fans are going to be all over these two box sets.

The Flintstones: Complete Series – As a Saturday morning cartoon nerd, this new complete series box set is another piece of gold in my collection and can sit next to my complete series of The Jetsons as it awaits the arrival of the Josie And The Pussycats set in January. For those born under a prehistoric rock, this popular animated television cartoon featured two Stone Age families, the Flintstones and their neighbors, the Rubbles, much of the humor was based on its comic portrayals of modern conveniences, reinterpreted using Stone Age ‘technology.’ Most notably were their cars, complete with absence of floorboards to allow them to be ‘foot-powered.’ This set features all six seasons of the series as well as a few of the feature films as well. No, not the live action ones.

Head Of The Class: Season 2 – As a kid and preteen I was all about Saved By The Bell, not because Zach Morris and A.C. Slater were the coolest, which they really were, but because I loved Kelly Kapowski. This show had none of those teen idols but had WKRP In Cincinnati’s Howard Hesseman who in my mind will always be the epitome of cool, Johnny Fever. A series that aired from 1986-1990, this show skipped me entirely, as I was too young for it, but reliving it now has been a total trip. The show is about a laid back teacher who provides needed guidance about life for a special class of exceptional students and features early performances from Robin Givens, Richard Pryor’s daughter Rain, John Cameron Mitchell, Billy Connolly and many more. The themes have paled but it’s still interesting to take the show in as a time capsule of the late eighties.

Steve’s Home Release Geekout:

Black Lightning: Season 2 & 3 – Let’s just acknowledge right here how fantastic all of the DC Universe shows have been since the start of their sort of expanded universe, starting with Stephen Amell’s Arrow. Everything that has been put out has been a total knockout and that extends to this series that, I admit, as a comic book fan I was a bit hazy on the character. Cress Williams plays the titular hero whose civilian identity is Jefferson Pierce, a crusading school principal who gets back into action as the original African-American electrical superhero Black Lightning. He hung up the suit and his secret identity years ago, but with a daughter hell-bent on justice and a star student being recruited by a local gang, he’ll be pulled back into the fight as the wanted vigilante and DC legend. Locally shot in Vancouver, as are all of these shows, this is a very entertaining series with fantastic action sequences in every episode. Cruising through this show has been an absolute pleasure.

Mallrats – One of my favorite movies of all time and a film from one of the biggest directorial influences on my life is finally on a big, beautiful special edition as Kevin Smith’s follow-up to his debut film gets its glorious time in the blu-ray spotlight. For those who don’t know, this film gives us a viewing of a day in the life of two teenagers, T.S. and Brodie, as they wander around all day in a local mall while the girls who recently dumped them do the same. The two guys encounter characters like Jay and Silent Bob, 15-year old sex novel author Trish the Dish, 3-D visually challenged Willam (the guy just wants to see the sailboat!) and many others. T.S. and Brodie have decided that they will attempt to win back the hearts of their ex-girlfriends before scumbags like Brodie’s arch-nemesis Shannon Hamilton get to have sex with them in very uncomfortable places, while Jay and Silent Bob attempt to wreck one of their ex-girlfriend’s father’s game show in the meantime. This movie is a total darling and a large number of people, especially in my circle of friends, adore it as much as I do. This is a must-own film.

Television:

Once Upon A Snowman (Disney+) – Have your kids totally driven you nuts with not only the first Frozen movie but the sequel as well? Well, Disney+ has gifted you a twelve-minute reprieve with this Olaf centric little short film that follows the plucky and curious snowman on a new short adventure showing him taking his first steps as he comes to life and searches for his identity in the snowy mountains outside Arendelle, a nice little tack on to the original Frozen movie. Josh Gad reprises the role that shot him to superstardom and, honestly, besides the always loveable Kristen Bell and both her and Idina Menzel’s beautiful singing voices, Olaf is the best part of these movies. Yeah, I said it.

The Mandalorian: Season 2 (DIsney+) – It’s time to relive a historic moment by going back and rewatching the first-ever live-action Star Wars series all based around a character that we fans have always revered, Boba Fett, creating our new anti-hero turned real hero, The Mandalorian or “Mando” for short. Created by Jon Favreau, Disney+ will be releasing an episode a week of the new season featuring the adventures of our lone gunfighter and his adopted son, the child, also known as “Baby Yoda” set in the New Republic.With stars Pedro Pascal, Ming Na, Taika Waititi and Werner Herzog playing main characters in the first season, the ante has been upped with former Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul bad dude Giancarlo Esposito showing up as the villain at the end of last season and WWE superstar Sasha Banks playing another undisclosed character. I think it’s probably obvious that I’m going to say this but I can not wait for all of the episodes to land so I can binge it over and over again.

His House (Netflix) – It’s Halloween week so Netflix is giving it all by releasing this new indie horror flick that garnered fantastic reviews at the many festivals it played at. This British made film follows a refugee couple who make a harrowing escape from war-torn South Sudan but then struggle to adjust to their new life in an English town that has an evil lurking beneath the surface of the floorboards of their new not so happy home. Co-starring former Doctor Who, Matt Smith, this movie has all the slow burn of an instant haunted house classic, broody in a Japanese horror sense but still keeping the gothic nature of traditional ghostly stories with its roots grounded in South African folklore. I was highly entertained by this film throughout, a total sleeper horror hit that will definitely get word of mouth.

Ghosts (Crave) – Yes, it’s Halloween week but we can throw a little comedy in to have some fun too, right? This BBC television produced series takes the haunted house stereotype and tosses in the great comedy we’ve come to love from Yonderland’s Mathew Baynton in this story about Alison and Mike, a cash-strapped young couple struggling to buy their first home who think their prayers are answered when a distant relative bequeathed them a sprawling country estate. The catch is that the old house is haunted by the ghosts of its former inhabitants.Already aired in the United Kingdom and onto its second season, we now get to see for ourselves why this series has become such a notable hit and it really lands at the perfect time.

The Undoing (Crave) – A brand new HBO drama lands this week and it should be a more noteworthy premiere as it is the first series on the cable network for mega television producer and creator David E. Kelley, known for making Ally McBeal, The Practice and, my personal favorite, Boston Legal. This show has some big names to it as it stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant and follows Grace Sachs, a successful therapist who has a devoted husband, a young son who attends an elite private school in New York City and is living the only life she ever wanted for herself. Overnight a chasm opens in her life as a violent death disrupts her perfect life structure, her husband goes missing and the investigation only yields a chain of terrible revelations. Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster and horrified by how she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and herself. The entire series was directed by acclaimed Danish director Susanne Bier which is the biggest reason I want to take in all six episodes of this show which is very different from Kelley’s previous work.

What The Hell Should I Watch? – Oct 22

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October 23, 2020

New Releases:

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan – A glorious bright spot in a year of pretty much constant doom and gloom, I have no idea how Sacha Baron Cohen did it but he has gifted us the follow up to his wildly successful first film and given us a renewal on saying things like “very nice” and “my wife” in his insane Kazakh accent. In this follow-up film to the 2006 comedy, this once again centers on the “real-life” adventures of the fictional Kazakh television journalist Borat as he attempts to restore the image of his country that had been so soiled by his first film by taking his daughter on a trip to the United States to find her a husband and hopefully his lost dignity. I have no idea what we can expect for this movie but I feel like the sky and the deepest mankini are really the limit. I’m looking forward to it no matter what.

The Empty Man – Based on the graphic novel from writer Cullen Bunn, this is an adaptation I was looking forward to without even knowing it as I love the book but didn’t know it had been greenlit to be made. Starring James Badge Dale from The Departed and Stephen Root from Newsradio, this is the story of an ex-cop on the trail of a missing girl who comes across a secretive group attempting to summon a terrifying supernatural entity. The book is incredibly stylish and absolutely chilling so I am very excited to see if the debuting director and screenwriter David Prior has done justice to the source material. Honestly, we need a really killer supernatural horror this Halloween, I think we all deserve it to take our minds off the crappiness that is 2020.

His Master’s Voice -If you’re looking for some weird Eastern European tinted conspiracy sci-fi then have I got a movie to tell you about as this new film landed in my inbox and I’m really still trying. to make heads or tails out of it, meaning I’m not even sure if I even liked it but it was… something. In an extreme nutshell, to keep all the twists and turns hidden, the story follows a young man who is searching for his father after he disappears while working on a highly classified project for the United States government that involves aliens. More questions lead to more questions as the final result stretches out farther than his own family and involves a world-ending danger. This movie is absolutely fascinating to look at, with some of the most surprising and crisp cinematography that reminded me a bit of Moorhead and Benson’s work on The Endless. I’m still on the fence whether it’s good or not but it’s worth watching.

Memories Of Murder – The second feature film by Academy Award winner Bong Joon-Ho finally makes it’s North American debut just a mere seventeen years after its release in South Korea, but no big deal, it’s not like I’ve been obsessed with his work since 2006’s The Host. Oh wait, I totally have been! This film, a very personal story, is set in 1986 in the province of Gyunggi, South Korea, following two brutal and stupid local detectives without any technique who are investigating the murder of a young and beautiful woman, the second found dead, raped and tied and gagged with her underwear. Using brutality and torturing the suspects, without any practical results, the investigation picks up steam when a detective from Seoul comes to the country to help and is convinced that a serial-killer is killing the women, proven when a third woman is found dead in the same “modus-operandi”. This movie is intense, so incredibly well plotted and lays the incredible groundwork of the inticracies of why we love Bong’s work. It also has Parasite star Kang-ho Song in a lead role, who is riveting as usual. This is a highly recommended one.

Blu-Ray:

Cut Throat City – Wu-Tang Clan legend the RZA returns behind the camera for this third directorial feature, this film being a heist action thriller taking place in New Orleans after one of the biggest natural disasters in recent memory, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The film is the story of four boyhood friends in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward who return after Hurricane Katrina to find their homes decimated. Out of options with no jobs and no help from FEMA, they reluctantly turn to a local gangster who offers them one shot at turning their situations around by pulling off a dangerous heist in the heart of the city. When the job goes bad, the friends find themselves on the run, hunted by two relentless detectives and a neighbourhood warlord who thinks they stole the heist money. The cast is pretty sizeable with Dope’s Shamiek Moore, Alita: Battle Angel’s Keean Johnson leading the film and T.I., Ethan Hawke, Terrence Howard and Wesley Snipes lending some supporting work but the result is just above middling with the conclusion of the movie not quite meeting the calibre of which it sets up. Still an entertaining watch though.

The Great – Elle Fanning, Nicholas Hoult and The Favourite writer Tony McNamara combine for this new series that is filled from top to bottom with great character work, beautiful set pieces and a brilliantly dark humor that will absolutely ticle you if you liked McNamara’s Yorgos Lanthimos film as much as I did. The show follows a royal woman living in rural Russia during the 18th century who is forced to choose between her own personal happiness and the future of Russia, when she marries an Emperor. I love that this series takes the stuffiness out of the usual period piece and allows each character to breathe with dialogue that feels quick and totally sardonic. With a second season on the horizon, this may be a dark horse here in Canada as it originally aired on Hulu.

The Vanished – Okay, I have a new mystery thriller here but the more I describe it, the worse it sounds honestly. So, the film stars Thomas Jane, who I like, Anne Heche, who I also like, and Jason Patric, another great one, but all three of them have been bogged down with garbage projects for more than a decade and Patric still hasn’t really atoned for Speed 2: Cruise Control. The film is the story of a husband and wife that will stop at nothing to find her missing daughter, who disappeared on a family camping trip and when the police don’t catch any leads, the duo take over, vigilante style. This whole movie feels tired and lame, like a retread of thrillers we’ve seen before time and time again and this film had nothing to it that sparked any excitement at all. It’s really unfortunate as it comes from Peter Facinelli who I really enjoy as an actor but I guess not so much as a writer and director.

No Escape – More horror hits the shelves this week, exactly what you would expect for the lead into Halloween and this one is definitely stylish and totally caught me off guard. Also called Follow Me, the story follows a social media personality who travels with his friends to Moscow to capture new content for his successful VLOG. Being strangers in a strange land doesn’t stop this group from always pushing the limits of their content and catering to a growing audience as they enter a cold world of mystery, excess, and danger but when the lines between real life and social media are blurred, the group must fight to escape and survive. This movie caught me off guard as I wasn’t familiar with writer and director Will Wernick’s debut Escape Room, no the big-budget Sony version but another one, and this movie got me right away. It is also coincidentally released the same week as star Denzel Whittaker’s other film Cut Throat City.

Quiz: Season 1 – This new series on one of the most popular American networks for new original programming comes from Britain and looks into one of the most popular game shows of the last thirty years, how it was created and how it was hacked by its contestants and, the best thing about it, it makes it all into the most insane piece of biting satire since the US made satire ironic. Starring Matthew Macfadyen, Aisling Bea and Michael Sheen in another incredibly chameleon-like performance, this is the story of the creation and rise of the show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? but beyond that, it focuses on Charles Ingram, a former British army major, who caused a major scandal after being caught cheating his way to winning £1 million. After one episode, I can say that this is definitely intriguing enough for me to continue.

NOS4A2: Season 2 – From the mind of writer Joe Hill, the son of horror master Stephen King, comes the creepy second season of this awesome series, bringing vampire lore to a whole new level. Zachary Quinto plays Charlie Manx, an immortal vampire who feeds off the souls of children who finds his ultimate nemesis in a woman with a special ability that could threaten his entire existence. I was already on board with the mere mention of Hill’s name, being that I’m a huge fan of his work including his popular comic Locke & Key, but even cooler is that this all takes place in the Stephen King universe, complete with small references to Maine towns and King-verse happenings such as Salem’s Lot, a movie that still gives people the shivers That floating kid outside the window? Still scary stuff. I’m psyched to see where this series will go in its third season as AMC keeps knocking it out of the park.

Hard Kill – It’s time once again for what movie is Bruce Willis going to phone in this week as yet another one of his direct to home video action flicks strikes the shelves this week, also starring former heartthrob Jesse Metcalfe, directed by filmmaker Matt Eskandari who has already put me through the stinkers of Trauma Center and Survive The Night this year, both starring Willis in a totally listless couple of performances. Heck, Trauma Center only features him at the beginning and the end. This film has Willis playing tech billionaire CEO Donovan Chalmers whose work is so valuable that he must hire mercenaries to protect it and eventually a terrorist group kidnaps his daughter just to get their hands on it. Another quick paycheque for Bruce results in another total dud that is borderline unwatchable and I couldn’t even enjoy former WWE diva Eva Marie in this because it was so terrible.

The Owners – It’s honestly crazy that I’m only learning about this new horror film especially because it stars former Game Of Thrones star Maisie Williams, who I absolutely adore, as well as former Doctor Who Sylvester McCoy in a film that just sounds so deliciously entertaining in a total genre story. The story follows a group of friends in the 1990s who think they found the perfect easy score, an empty house with a safe full of cash, but when the elderly couple that lives there comes home early, the tables are suddenly turned and a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues with the would-be thieves fighting to save themselves from a nightmare they could never have imagined. This film is vicious, violent and gory with some satisfying twists and turns that keep it entertaining and sort of make up for its weaker points, which it definitely has.

House Of Shadows – If you’re not into horror movies then this month must be a real drag for you as we have yet another genre film making its home release debut this week and it’s even another ghostly story to give you the spooky vibes in this later part of October. A British made film with no stars of note, the story follows a woman who visits a mysterious house she has inherited, hoping to learn more about the deaths of her mother and late sister. Haunted by ghosts, she must uncover the truth behind the curse of the house, or become the next victim because the house is definitely hungry for more souls. This movie definitely misses the feel of having a solid budget behind it and in a week that we have the blockbuster version of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting Of Hill House it was for sure noticed. Don’t let that take away any excitement for this because, much like the sleeper scarefest Hell House LLC, this one has it’s thrills and chills aplenty.

The Haunting – Coincidentally, I received this new entry into the Paramount Select collection as I had just been rewatching Mike Flanagan’s incredible Haunting Of Hill House Netflix series which is exactly what this 1999 Jan de Bont ghostly thriller is based on. Starring Liam Neeson, Lily Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Owen Wilson, the story follows a team of paranormal experts who look into strange occurrences in an ill-fated house, the Hill House. Through the course of the night, they all fight for their lives as the house begins to manifest everything it can to doom them for eternity. I saw this film when it originally landed in theatres and absolutely loved it so I was ecstatic to get this new blu-ray update of it.

Sunrise At Campobello – Getting some serious Warner Archives classics going on this week with this film from 1960 and it gels well with this upcoming election in the United States as it is about one of the most revered presidents in history and one that occupies a space on Mount Rushmore, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The story starts with Roosevelt’s bout with polio at age 39 in 1921, following how his family and especially wife Eleanor coped with his illness. from the moment he was stricken with it while vacationing at Campobello to his triumphant nominating speech for Al Smith’s presidency in 1924. The film focuses on the various influences on his life and his determination to recover, adapted from the award-winning Broadway play of the same name. The film would end up being nominated for four Oscars that year, ultimately losing to Spartacus, Butterfield 8 and The Alamo.

The Plot Against America – In a time of heightened and emboldened racism in the U.S. and, heck, around the world, we get this brand new “what if” historical drama from one of the great creators of television today, HBO. Starring Winona Ryder, Zoe Kazan, John Turturro and more, this series follows an alternate timeline America that lives in a world that saw Roosevelt defeated in the 1940 race for presidency by Charles Lindbergh, a man who has strengthened ties to Nazi Germany. A six-episode limited series, this show has great creators behind the camera with The West Wing’s Thomas Schlamme directing the lion’s share and The Wire’s David Simon and Edward Burns writing it. This could be the best miniseries of 2020 so I’d give it a look.

Steve’s Home Release Geekouts:

Young Sheldon: Season 3 – With the main series of The Big Bang Theory finally being over and done, we still have a piece of the Chuck Lorre created series with this spin-off about the childhood years of Sheldon Cooper, a show that Jim Parsons narrates naturally and has been doing great ratings for CBS for two straight seasons. This show could have been a real bust but a weird thing happened after I watched a few episodes and that was a simple notion that I was enjoying it and Annie Potts plays his “MeeMaw”! Sold! The second season proved that this show is beyond a flash in the pan sophomore hit as it takes that groundwork laid out by the original series and puts it in an almost Wonder Years like filter and now it can continue it’s Sheldon Cooper lore without any new encumbrance or retcon. That and it doesn’t have a laugh track, an instant killer with me.

Undergrads: Season 1 – Growing up in Canada, my formative and later teen years were punctuated by Teletoon’s late-night line up which included Clone High, Mission Hill and this delightful college set animated series that always made me laugh and smile no matter what my day looked like prior. The show was created by Pete Williams and follows the misadventures of a group of childhood friends who keep in touch even while they go to separate colleges, still maintaining a roommate relationship. The heart of the show is Nitz, the most regular of the guys, who learns that there are new experiences and friends to have and meet that will profoundly refashion his friendship with Gimpy, the reclusive computer geek, Rocko the dumb jock and Cal the effeminate ladies man. This show is a forever favourite and my lovely wife scoured the internet until she found me the sealed box set that I’m essentially bragging about here. Also, it should be noted that Williams has a Kickstarter set up to fund a possible movie to wrap up the cliffhanger of this series.

Television:

Long Way Up (AppleTV+) – Thirteen years after their last trip, Long Way Down, best friends Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman reunite for a long-overdue motorcycle trip and as a huge fan of the last two series, both of which I own in my collection, I have been tearing through this new season as fast as I can. This one is a little different as Ewan and Charley decide to travel on electric Harley-Davidsons to make their thirteen thousand mile trip from the tip of Argentina up through Central and South America and Mexico to their final destination in Los Angeles. This is an engrossing docuseries that is made that much more endearing by their beautiful friendship and a real tale of recovery for Charley who suffered two horrendous motorcycle accidents in the years since the last show. This is really feel-good television right here.

On The Rocks (AppleTV+) – Sofia Coppola has returned during this odd year of movie delays with possibly my favourite movie this year and she brought Bill Murray back with her and I couldn’t be happier with it. The film stars Rashida Jones as a young mother who reconnects with her larger-than-life playboy father, played by Murray, and they embark on a mission to see if her workaholic husband, played by Marlon Wayans, is having an affair. The chemistry between Jones and Murray, first displayed in the Netflix Christmas special A Very Murray Christmas, is so palpable that you just want them to star in absolutely everything together. The script is so snappy and fun, The film charms you in every moment and I would be perfectly content in watching this film every day for weeks on end, I loved it that much. This is a true gem of a movie and I highly recommend it.

My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman (Netflix) – I’m not going to start this little piece here by slamming Stephen Colbert because I really love what he does but I think we can all easily say that his Late Show is very different than the man who created it all, David Letterman’s Late Show. That said, I really miss having Letterman on the desk as he was a huge piece in my television upbringing. This is why the new Netflix series he has is so phenomenal as it allows the legendary talk show host to explore interviews in a more engrossing fashion and do things he is incredibly good at, just talking to people on a secular human level. This latest batch has a handful of great episodes, kicking it off with Kim Kardashian-West in a surprisingly interesting chat and the great Robert Downey Jr., who is just so massively charming that it’s hard not to have a goofy smile on the whole time. This is truly great talk show stuff and I can’t wait for more.

Rebecca (Netflix) – The trio of director Ben Wheatley, cinematographer Laurie Rose and composer Clint Mansell have collaborated for a second time to make a complete masterpiece of a film again and after doing an adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s High Rise, a project that the legendary Stanley Kubrick once said was impossible, they set their sights on this Alfred Hitchcock remake. Starring Lily James, Armie Hammer and Kristen Scott Thomas, this story follows a young newlywed woman who arrives at her husband’s imposing family estate on a windswept English coast and finds herself battling the house’s domineering headmistress as well as the shadow of his first wife, Rebecca, whose legacy lives on in the house long after her death. This movie just pops out of the screen at you from the get-go, a beautifully crafted piece of cinema and with the story and plot twists to match. This might easily be one of my favourite films of the year.

The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix) – Smart kids is the name of the game of this new Netflix original that is based on the works of The Hustler ad Color Of Money novelist Walter Tevis, shepherded to the screen by Nicholas Roeg’s writer Allan Scott and overseen by The Lookout writer Scott Frank who already has the phenomenal western Godless under his belt. Starring a personal favourite, Anya Taylor- Joy, the series is about Beth Harmon, an orphan who is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is until she plays her first game of chess and her senses begin to grow sharper, her thinking clearer and, for the first time in her life, she feels herself fully in control. By the age of sixteen, she’s competing for the U.S. Open championship but as Beth hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her isolation grows more frightening, and the thought of escape becomes all the more tempting. The show has style out the yin yang and with a whip-smart dialogue to match, this may easily become a high brow hit.

What The Hell Should I Watch? – Oct 15

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October 15, 2020

New Releases:

Rebecca – The trio of director Ben Wheatley, cinematographer Laurie Rose and composer Clint Mansell have collaborated for a second time to make a complete masterpiece of a film again and after doing an adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s High Rise, a project that the legendary Stanley Kubrick once said was impossible, they set their sights on this Alfred Hitchcock remake. Starring Lily James, Armie Hammer and Kristen Scott Thomas, this story follows a young newlywed woman who arrives at her husband’s imposing family estate on a windswept English coast and finds herself battling the house’s domineering headmistress as well as the shadow of his first wife, Rebecca, whose legacy lives on in the house long after her death. This movie just pops out of the screen at you from the get-go, a beautifully crafted piece of cinema and with the story and plot twists to match. This might easily be one of my favorite films of the year.

The Secrets We Keep – Nazis are evil no matter what and we should stomp them out whenever we come across them, no question, no if, and or buts. This is unwavering but what if you were unsure because your trauma may be clouding your judgement. This is the story at the heart of this new thriller starring former Lisbeth Salander Noomi Rapace, Chris Messina and Joel Kinnaman, set in a post-WWII America following a woman rebuilding her life in the suburbs with her husband who kidnaps her neighbor, seeking vengeance for the heinous war crimes she believes he committed against her. The film is well-paced and Rapace is absolutely riveting, wearing every emotion on her sleeve, so palpable with each drag of her character’s cigarette. Pieces of this movie feel a bit far fetched but it’s her conviction that keeps it all grounded.

Love And Monsters – These days, if a film is attached to the name of Brian Duffield I am pretty much on board immediately with his last works being the Babysitter movies and his directorial debut Spontaneous which was just fantastic. This new film has Five Fingers for Marseilles director Michael Matthews behind the camera for his second feature and star Dylan O’Brien in front of it to hopefully show off how great he was in Teen Wolf and not the failings that were the Maze Runner series and the action flick American Assassin. The story is set seven years after the Monsterpocalypse, following Joel, who, along with the rest of humanity, has been living underground ever since giant creatures took control of the land. After reconnecting over the radio with his high school girlfriend Aimee, who is now 80 miles away at a coastal colony, Joel begins to fall for her again and as he realizes that there’s nothing left for him underground, he decides against all logic to venture out to Aimee, despite all the dangerous monsters that stand in his way. The supporting cast also has Michael Rooker, which is an instant sell in my opinion.

Totally Under Control – Just a couple of weeks ago the public was informed that master documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney had been meticulously working on a comprehensive timeline of the coronavirus pandemic and now it is available and it is certainly in-depth. Gathering public health officials in a unique and safe fashion, the discussion of the U.S. government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is brought to light and how the current administration has failed the American people and has led to over two hundred thousand deaths that could have largely been avoided. The frustration is palpable and you can’t help but feel angry and a little bit hopeless watching it, much like you do anytime you see a comment thread about it on social media. The feeling that we are all pretty much screwed seems to be never shakeable.

I Am Greta – To follow up the new Alex Gibney film with this biopic documentary about a young girl making big changes in our fight with climate control was probably a mistake as I really wasn’t emotionally ready for this. The film starts in August of 2018, with Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old student in Sweden starting a school strike for the climate. Her question for adults is very blunt and simple at its heart if you don’t care about her future on earth, why should she care about her future in school? Within months, her strike evolves into a global movement and Greta, a quiet Swedish girl on the autism spectrum, is now a world-famous activist with the team behind Greta following the young activist from her very first day of school striking to her trek across the ocean to speak at the United Nations in New York City. This film gave me a deeply emotional reaction as I look at my own eight-year-old daughter and fear for her future, especially during these very uncertain times. I reiterate again, we all feel hopelessly screwed right now and, as Greta says, the leaders have failed us with no recourse of change.

Clouds – Disney is looking to inspire this week but they’re digging in that well of inspirational stories that really turns me off and we have a double shot of it this week. The film follows seventeen-year-old Zach Sobiech, a fun-loving high school senior with raw musical talent whose world gets turned upside down when he finds out his cancer has spread a few weeks into his senior year, just after asking out his long-time crush, leaving him with a life expectancy of just six months. With limited time, he follows his dream and makes an album, unaware that it will soon be a viral music phenomenon and, you guessed it, a total inspiration. The film is directed by actor turned filmmaker Justin Baldoni who was an audience favorite in the series Jane The Virgin and this film kind of soared above my expectations for it entirely, a story that is heartbreaking, well acted and leaves a lasting effect more than just a good tune.

2 Hearts – The words “inspirational true story” are usually the kiss of death for me in a movie as it usually contains the words “faith-based” somewhere in the descriptor and if you’ve followed this blog you know I absolutely hate those message over substance films. This one has me in the fact that it has Radha Mitchell in it and follows two couples across different decades and different places but with a hidden connection that brings them together through faith and there it is, I’ve already checked out. No matter what, these movies always devolve into a preach fest that yields nothing story-wise and feels like a constant reach for more people to attend church and that ship has sailed for me. That said, it’s weird that this comes from the director of the Chuck Norris action flick Missing in Action 2: The Beginning.

Making Monsters – It’s the Halloween month so let’s continue a bit down the path of horror again, shall we? We haven’t touched much on the subgenre of slasher movies so this film hits that quota quite nicely and, although its low budget, it really does encompass all of the things that started this type of film back with Friday The 13th and Halloween. The very basic story follows a social media prankster who finds his idyllic country weekend with his fiancée turned into the ultimate video prank where the stakes are life and death as the two have to outwit a sadistic killer. Surprisingly the suspense in this movie is really well executed which manages to overcome its small budget look to be one of the more inventive horror movies, especially being pigeonholed as a Canadian film which is still trying to claw out of its stereotypes for a large part of the movie audience.

Blu-Ray:

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie – The fan demanded movie follow up to Breaking Bad is now able to be purchased on a home entertainment format complete with digital sound surround and all the bells and whistles and if you still haven’t gotten around to it, the great thing is that the trailer and synopsis released by both Netflix and AMC are so fantastically ambiguous that there is really no hint to what this movie will be about except that Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman leads it. It should be noted that Badger, Mike, Skinny Pete and Old Joe are the only other characters listed in the cast list so a contained cast means a smaller scope film but that definitely leads to a bunch of uncredited cameos just to blow away the viewer with surprise. Breaking Bad fans, you can now finish up your original series collection and await the final season of Better Call Saul which might just be the superior series.

Cats & Dogs 3: Paws Unite! – They’re making more of these movies? Yes, two were in theaters to varying successes and now Warner Bros. wants to squeeze a little bit more out of the franchise with this direct to blu-ray sequel. Many out there, including the target demographic, have no clue that these movies exist but to give the quick rundown, cats and dogs are secret agents working in a constant battle with each other and in this film, Gwen the Cat and Roger the Dog have now partnered up due to the Great Truce which has stopped dog and cat hostility for a decade. The long-standing peace is threatened though when a supervillain parrot discovers a way to manipulate wireless frequencies that only dogs and cats can hear, and that parrot is extra villainous because he is voiced by George Lopez. This film is without a doubt just meant for the kids as it is pretty much unbearable to human adults. Most times talking animal movies are just the worst and this is one of those frequent times.

Seized – Yes, I will be the first to admit that direct to video action films are almost all terrible and I just had an example of that last week with The Invincible Dragon but this movie definitely is aiming for that crown too. Starring martial arts expert Scott Adkins and Mario Van Peebles, this follows a former special forces agent who has moved to a quiet beach town to raise his son and leave his past life behind but that’s all thrown out when he is awakened by a phone call from a modulated voice telling him that his son has been kidnapped. He must now wipe out three dangerous crime syndicates using his deadliest skills if he wants to see his son alive again in obvious bloody fashion. It’s such a bummer that Adkins constantly does these mediocre films because I think if he had a great writer and director he could be at the top of the action mountain in no time.

Bad Mothers – Bad Moms with Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn and Kristen Bell is now a television series? No, not quite. This is a brand new series that is not playing for the comedy at all, instead going the dramatic route via some deep melodrama. The story follows five very modern women juggling the life engrossing issues of love, family, careers, infidelity and eventually murder as they end up getting in their problems way over their heads. When their lives collide following a series of shocking events, the group of women have unexpected support among each other and a bond that might keep them out of jail, given that they can stay out of trouble. I had never heard of this show coming into this week and, although it doesn’t feature any notable stars, it really isn’t half bad if you’re in for a Desperate Housewives without the horrible cheesiness.

Sergeant York – Warner Archive has brought another old classic to the elevated format of blu-ray and this one happens to be my first Gary Cooper movie in my collection. Cooper takes the title role in this somewhat fictionalized account of the life and war service of Alvin York, who went from humble beginnings to being one of the most celebrated American servicemen to fight in World War I. The film follows York having turned to religion when he was struck by lightning during one of his drunken outings, taking this newfound belief very seriously, claiming to be a conscientious objector when receiving his draft notice and when that was refused, he joined the infantry where he served with valor, capturing a large number of Germans and saving the lives of many of his men who were under heavy fire. The film was directed by legendary filmmaker Howard Hawks and ended up winning Cooper an Academy Award as well as one for editing.

Reversal Of Fortune – Based on a novel by Alan Dershowitz, this was always a film that I saw on video store shelves as a kid but never paid it any notice and now as an adult, I’m like “whoa, Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons in a Barbet Schroeder movie?”, so, yeah, things have changed. The film follows actor Ron Silver as Dershowitz himself, a brilliant professor of law who is hired by wealthy socialite Claus von Bulow to attempt to overturn his two convictions for the attempted murder of his extremely wealthy wife. Based on a real story, the film concentrates not on the trial like other legal thrillers, but on the preparatory work that Dershowitz and his students put in as they attempt to disprove the prosecution’s case and achieve the “Reversal of Fortune” that is implied by the title. Irons ended up winning an Oscar for his performance in this film.

Space Ghost & Dino Boy: Complete Series – I’ll be completely honest about this one, when I unwrapped it I thought it was the Adult Swim cartoon for more than a decade ago that put this superhero behind a talk show desk where he got really cantankerous and eventually would execute all of his guest by fire. It was hilarious. This, though, is the original series all of that was taken from, as well as Brak who featured on The Brak Show, although in this series he was one of the villains. This series is simple and classic Hanna Barbera stuff, following the adventures of a space superhero who can become invisible and his sidekicks. It’s been neat reliving all of these episodes that I never knew existed plus it’s an early role for 80s staple actor and National Lampoon alumni Tim Matheson.

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geekouts:

Beau Travail – I love bringing all of these Criterion Collection releases to the show as they are the definitive films that should be in all cinephiles’ collections and, a lot of the time, they are a new discovery for people, even myself sometimes. I definitely knew of Claire Denis and had watched her last film, the Robert Pattinson sci-fi High Life, which I loved, so I was very excited about this one. This film focuses on Galoup, an ex-Foreign Legion officer, as he recalls his once glorious life, leading troops in the Gulf of Djibouti. His existence there was happy, strict and regimented but the arrival of a promising young recruit, Sentain, plants the seeds of jealousy in Galoup’s mind and he feels compelled to stop him from coming to the attention of the commandant who he admires, but who ignores him. Ultimately, his jealousy leads to the destruction of both Sentain and himself in an incredible finale that needs to be seen to believe it. Denis’ work is forever inspirational and this film was the one that inspired Greta Gerwig to become a filmmaker so now I am forever in the debut of the French writer and director. Trust me, this film is special.

World Cinema Project, Volume 3 – Another cool thing that Criterion does is their film compilation box sets like the ones that are curated by Martin Scorsese and already in 2020 we got all of his early short films and now we get the third volume of his world cinema project. Scorsese has been curating the World Cinema Project for around thirteen years now and the result has been a plethora of international films from 1934 to 1981 that in some cases his efforts have helped save from the ravages of time and film deterioration. This set features six of these rejuvenated classics with Lucia, After The Curfew, Pixote, Dos Monjes, Soliel O ad Downpour to hopefully give it new life with a new audience. This is for the tool film nerd and to see what inspires a legendary filmmaker like Scorsese is fascinating.

A Dog’s Courage – Last week I was baffled by Well Go USA, a predominantly Asian cinema distributor sending me a western and now I have this animated family film that they sent me. A South Korean made film, this is an animal centric story with a deep emotional core to it as it follows stray dogs who have been abandoned by humans who find “a place without humans” and realize their identities and the meaning of freedom and self-identity. I know, you’re asking how kids can latch on to a story like this but many forget that we had to endure the existential questions that don Bluth’s All Dogs Go To Heaven posed us with at a very young age so I feel lie kids can handle it and the animation is absolutely gorgeous in this so it really is a treat to look at.

Yellowstone: Season 1 & 2 – Kevin Costner takes the lead in this new series that has been created by the Paramount network but really hasn’t landed in Canada yet until now but has a whole bunch of clout behind it because it is damn good both in writing from Hell Or High Water and Sicario’s Taylor Sheridan and a well rounded cast around Costner. The show follows the Dutton family, led by John Dutton played by Costner, who controls the largest contiguous ranch in the United States, under constant attack by those it borders, such as land developers, a nearby Indian reservation and the keepers of America’s first National Park. It is an intense study of a violent world far from media scrutiny, where land grabs make developers billions, politicians are bought and sold by the world’s largest oil and lumber corporations, where drinking water poisoned by fracking wells and unsolved murders are not news. I’m currently immersed near the end of the first season and am really enjoying it, a good series for those who like crime series like Sons Of Anarchy or The Sopranos.

The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection – One of the greatest directors to ever step behind the camera, I have a deep adoration for Alfred Hitchcoc so when this new 4K box set landed on my doorstep, I really freaked out. This one contains the most notable films from his filmography with Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, about a wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder, Vertigo, another Stewart film with him playing a former police detective wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with a hauntingly beautiful woman, The Birds, well, you know the story on that Tippi Hedren film and Psycho, which actually contains two different cuts of the highly influential horror classic. This is a set made for the deep cinephile and I’m so grateful to own it.

Television:

The Right Stuff (Disney+) – Disney is hoping to bolster their library with this brand new co-production between them and National Geographic, who they own as well, for an informative and engrossing look at space and those who have explored it so far. Combining real life footage and dramatic recreations with actors, this is the story of U.S. fighter pilots who are recruited to test experimental aircraft and rockets to become first Mercury astronauts. This is the TV adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s book, ‘The Right Stuff’ which had been previously adapted as the four time Academy Award winning film of the same name starring Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid and Fred Ward but in a more expanded series approach to give it more depth.

Fear the Walking Dead: Season 6 (AMC) – Let’s face it, at this point Fear is the best zombie show on television as the original incarnation of this series needs a little shot in the ass to get going again. The cast is flying on all cylinders with Lennie James’ Morgan being my absolute favorite at the moment but don’t let that take away from how stellar Alycia Debnam-Carey is on a consistent level. In a ramble of names, this show is always getting the best of the best as Garret Dillahunt, Jenna Elfman and Matt Frewer are still feature roles and the breakout star, Colman Domingo, is still killing it as Victor Strand.

Star Trek Discovery: Season 3 (Crave) – Ten years before Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise, the USS Discovery discovers new worlds and lifeforms as one Starfleet officer learns to understand all things alien in this series that now enters into it’s latest season and I know a lot of Trekkies out there do not like this show but as a fleeting Trek fan myself I really dig it. Great casting, exciting adventures and inner politics and an infinite ceiling due to being on the CBS All Access streaming service, I really like what they’re doing with this show and the possibilities are really endless to where they can go.

The Trial Of The Chicago 7 (Netflix) – If one writer gets me hook, line and sinker everytime he writes a movie or television series, it’s Aaron Sorkin. I’m just addicted to his stories. For his latest film, that he directed as well as wrote, he takes a bite out of Chicago history as well as adding his own spin with sardonic humor and grandiose moments of grandstanding with a phenomenal cast that includes Oscar winners Eddie Redmayne and Mark Rylance, recent Emmy winners Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jeremy Strong as well as Joseph Gordon Levitt, Frank Langella, Sacha Baron Cohen, Michael Keaton and more. Yes, this is a heavyweight. The film is about the fallout after the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago where there were massive demonstrations against the Vietnam War, which was reaching its peak. When a curfew was finally instated, this led to even further protests, eventually leading to a police riot. and following this, seven of the demonstrators, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Lee Weiner, and David Dellinger, were tried for conspiracy. The meat and potatoes of this film is the trial that followed. This is a big recommendation this week because, though it is heavy on talk and exposition, this could go down as one of the best films this year and when it debuts on Netflix in two weeks it will be the must watch movie, trust me.

A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote (Crave) – I don’t think I’m alone in wanting a new limited series to continue this fantastic White House set drama amongst all the reboots and revivals we’ve been getting in television these days but I will definitely take what I can get. Originally running for seven seasons, including I believe two different presidential runs, starting with Martin Sheen’s President Bartlett, this show returns for a play style table read episode to bring voter awareness for the fastly approaching election as well as fundraise for the Biden and Harris campaign. It’s probably a known fact that many Trump supporters don’t have the intellect for a smart show like this so their proposed boycott of it pretty much means nothing. Yeah, I said it.

What The Hell Should I Watch? – Oct 8

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October 8, 2020

New Releases:

Honest Thief – It’s really kind of funny now that after the Taken trilogy had wrapped up, Liam Neeson stated that he was done with the action genre, retired I think was the term he used. Since then, he has made six more of them, including this film here, and five more on the horizon so, contrary to this movie’s title, he isn’t very honest at all. Coming from Ozark producer Mark Williams, this new movie has him playing Tom Carter, nicknamed the In and Out Bandit because of how meticulous of a thief he is, stealing $9 million from small-town banks while managing to keep his identity a secret. After he falls in love with the bubbly Annie, played by Private Practice’s Kate Walsh, Tom decides to make a fresh start by coming clean about his criminal past, only to be double-crossed by two ruthless FBI agents. Neeson action films seem a dime a dozen in the last twenty years with glimmering hopeful spots here and there but I can’t say that this is one of them.

Yellow Rose – This film was a total surprise, one that I had heard no buzz about or one that had any real ad campaign behind it which is kind of a shame because it is an incredible movie. Written and directed by Diane Paragas in her feature narrative debut, this is the story of Rose, an undocumented 17-year-old Filipina, who dreams of one day leaving her small Texas town to pursue her country music dreams. Her world is shattered when her mom suddenly gets picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and, facing this new reality, Rose is forced to flee the scene, leaving behind the only life she knows and embarks on a journey of self-discovery as she searches for a new home in the honky-tonk world of Austin, Texas. This film is beautifully shot and gives each character on screen such a rounded reality that we feel the weight of the situation at all times, most heavily felt with any of the dealings with the Gestapo nature of ICE. This movie has soul and will infuriate you with the immigration practices in today’s America. Highly recommended.

The War With Grandpa – As a general rule now, I don’t get into any movie involving Robert De Niro and the word grandpa because I’m still in a state of trauma from having to go to the press screening for his raunchy comedy Dirty Grandpa which made me severely question his financial state as well. This one will definitely go in a different route than that, a family film that follows a boy thrilled that Grandpa is coming to live with his family until he finds out that Grandpa is moving into his room, forcing him upstairs into the creepy attic. Though he loves his grandpa, he wants his room back and has no choice but to declare war, so, with the help of his friends, he devises outrageous plans to make Grandpa surrender the room but Grandpa is tougher than he looks and rather than give in, Grandpa plans to get even. Oh man, now reading that back, this movie may be no better than the previous movie I mentioned and seeing that it comes from the director of Alvin And The Chipmunks, well, the positivity meter is shrinking.

The Curse Of Audrey Earnshaw – A theme that comes up a few times this week, being the Halloween month, is witchcraft, possession and ghostly curses and I don’t think it’ll slow down until the end of the spooky season. Let’s kick it all off here with this Canadian made film, a period piece about a devout community suffering from a plague which they believe is caused by a beautiful young woman and her mother using the forces of witchcraft, black magic, and possession to decimate crops and livestock. The film features some great Canadian talent like Travelers and Hello Destroyer actor Jared Abrahamson and, a favorite of mine, actor, writer, producer and director Don McKellar and while it has a storyline with so much potential it never feels like it rises to an actually scary level. This movie always feels like it needed that extra nudge that it never got.

Percy – Speaking of crops in Canada, this film takes it to the plains of Saskatchewan for a real David versus Goliath battle with some great veteran talent taking the screen, led by the legendary Christopher Walken. Directed by actor and filmmaker Clark Johnson, this film is based on events from a 1998 lawsuit and follows small-town farmer Percy Schmeiser, who challenges a major conglomerate when the company’s genetically modified canola is discovered in the 70-year-old farmer’s crops. As he speaks out against the company’s business practices, he realizes he is representing thousands of other disenfranchised farmers around the world fighting the same battle and suddenly he becomes an unsuspecting folk hero in a desperate war to protect farmers’ rights and the world’s food supply against what they see as corporate greed. Featuring co-stars Zach Braff, Christina Ricci and good Canadian Adam Beach, this film is a great character drama that excels over its small flaws to be a compelling story about a real fight that rages on now. I really enjoyed this one.

Blu-Ray:

The Secret Garden – A classic story from novelist Frances Hodgson Burnett who also wrote A Little Princess, it’s about time we got another theatrical adaptation of this book as the last one was made over twenty-five years ago. Beautifully shot by 45 Years cinematographer Lol Crawley and directed by usual miniseries guy Marc Munden, this is the heartwrenching and equally uplifting tale of Mary Lennox, a spoiled 10-year-old girl of rich parents who grew up in India who, after everyone in her family dies from cholera, is sent to live in Misselthwaite Manor in Yorkshire with her uncle. There, she discovers that the household’s many secrets and finds a key that leads her to a garden held locked for years by her uncle after the death of his wife, a secret place that she brings to life which rejuvenates her and her bedridden cousin thought to be on his deathbed. This film is very well done, a visual feast every moment that had me captivated while dealing with some deep and dark issues.

Valley Girl – The curse of “why, why, why remake this movie” is upon us with this completely unnecessary redo of Martha Coolidge’s classic 80s teen love story. Adapted by Rachel Lee Goldenberg who recently did the highly recommended Unpregnant, this is a musical version of this classic story of a pair of young lovers from different backgrounds who defy their parents and friends to stay together all set to an 80s new wave soundtrack. Even though the film features Jessica Rothe, who really won me over in the horror sequel Happy Death Day 2U, I felt nothing but bile towards this movie as I am a huge fan of the original and it really misses the charm of Deborah Foreman and Nicolas Cage. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it!

The Tax Collector – Writer and director David Ayer is a filmmaker who started with such promise, penning Training Day for Antoine Fuqua before stepping behind the camera himself. Unfortunately, that has only worked out for him once, the fantastic LAPD thriller End Of Watch and everything else has been less than middling or straight-up bad. His latest film since his big-budget Suicide Squad is this crime thriller, set on the streets of Los Angeles following family man David and his longtime partner, Creeper, played by one of this generation’s greatest actors, Shia LaBeouf, who are “tax collectors” for the crime lord Wizard, meaning they collect his cut from the profits of local gangs’ illicit dealings. When Wizard’s old rival returns to Los Angeles from Mexico to take his turf back the business is upended, and David finds himself desperate to protect what matters more to him than anything else, his family. If Suicide Squad was bad, and it was, then this movie is infinitely worse, suffering from bad directing, a terrible script and the acting of a lead actor who would lose an audition to a cardboard cut out. LeBeouf is the only saving grace in a film that I couldn’t wait to be over.

Eli Roth’s History Of Horror: Season 1 – Who better to breakdown the history of one of the most fan loved and driven genres in film that still to this day doesn’t get the respect it deserves, especially when it comes to awards season than Hostel, Cabin Fever and The Green Inferno filmmaker Eli Roth. Featuring interviews with the who’s who of the horror world including Greg Nicotero, Rob Zombie, Stephen King and John Landis as well as famous fans who have dabbled in it like Quentin Tarantino, Elijah Wood and Jack Black, we get a comprehensive look at what makes this filmmaking so addictive and the fans so ravenous for it. I absolutely loved this entire season and can not wait for more to return to my television screen. Hook it to my veins, Eli.

Yummy – A Shudder original that is now making its way to physical disc, this is a definitely quirky zombie horror film out of Belgium that may end up on a lot of genre fans’ lists this Halloween. A movie with a darkly comedic edge, this is an orgy of blood, violence and fun in which a young couple travel to a shabby Eastern European hospital for plastic surgery. The young woman wants a breast reduction and her mother comes along for yet another face-lift. While wandering through an abandoned ward the boyfriend stumbles upon a young woman, gagged and strapped to an operating table and finds out that she is the result of experimental rejuvenation treatment. He frees her but does not realize he just caused the outbreak of a virus that will change doctors, patients and his mother-in-law into bloodthirsty zombies. This movie is so insane from the get-go and is an unrelenting ninety minutes that will relentlessly poke you until the end. I really loved this one.

The Pale Door – Let’s keep going down the horror path being that it’s the perfect month for it, with a film that does a bit of genre-mixing refreshingly with the good ole’ fashioned western. Fresh off his segment in the great anthology horror film Scare Package, writer and director Aaron B. Koontz spins this story of the Dalton gang who must find shelter in a seemingly uninhabited ghost town after a train robbery goes south. Seeking help for their wounded leader, they are surprised to stumble upon a welcoming brothel in the town’s square but the beautiful women who greet them are actually a coven of witches with very sinister plans for the unsuspecting outlaws. Executive produced by Bubba Ho Tep and Cold In July’s novelist Joe R. Lansdale, this is a flawed little film that entertains but doesn’t entirely make the best use of its trappings. Featuring Magnum P.I.’s Zachary Knighton, veteran actress Melora Walters and Knives Out’s Noah Segan, I was still entertained enough by this film to enjoy it.

The Invincible Dragon – Martial arts films can usually feel like a dime a dozen and we know that the really good ones or the ones passing for really good usually hit theaters so it’s suspect when there’s one that flies under the radar right to blu-ray. This s one of those movies, focusing on an undercover agent with a dragon tattoo named Kowloon who continually helps the police to solve mysterious cases, which made him known as a rising star in the city. However, his impulsive personality drags him into endless troubles as many in the criminal underworld are looking to take him down for good. The most intriguing thing about this film is to see the fight choreography between the star, Jin Zhang from Pacific Rim: Uprising, and former UFC champion Anderson Silva playing the heavyweight villain. The film is also directed by acclaimed filmmaker Fruit Chan who steps outside of his usual films into a new genre.

Trump Card – I really don’t even know why I’m including this documentary, and I really use that term loosely, as this is a film, another loose term, written and directed by an ex-con and lie spreader, Dinesh D’Souza, who hasn’t made a film that has rose over ten percent on Rotten Tomatoes. For his latest piece of garbage that is sure to rile that MAGA base and be shared like a truthful gospel, this is an “expose” of the socialism, corruption and “gangsterization” (not a work but he uses it) that now apparently define the Democratic Party. Whether it is the feared socialism of Joe Biden or the overtly feared socialism of Bernie Sanders, the film desperately tries to reveal what is unique about modern socialism, who is behind it, why its evil, and how all the other idiots can work together with Trump to stop it. This movie is a complete waste of time, skewing facts into their narrative and omitting that which doesn’t work with it. Pure and utter trash.

Roger Waters: Us + Them – One of the greatest theatrical musical presences ever on stage graces us with another mindblowing concert just five years after he performed The Wall in its entirety, another concert movie definitely worth checking out. Roger has certainly not gotten less political as this whole tour was a direct shot at the Trump administration as well as the Putin regime and the Boris Johnson Brexit debacle. I know a lot of friends that had the chance to see this show in person and while I was extremely jealous at the time, and still am, this is the closest we can all get to being there and it is a pretty sweet consolation prize in my opinion. As a long time Pink Floyd fan, one of my first concerts ever, attended at BC Place, this is a beloved addition to any fans collection.

To Your Last Death – One of the great things about reviewing everything that hits blu-ray is to get contacted out of the blue by a company looking to get eyes on their product and that’s what happened here with this violent and gory animated film that I was sent. Featuring the voices of Firefly’s Morena Baccarin, Star Trek legend William Shatner, The Devil’s Rejects’ Bill Moseley and Twin Peaks’ Ray Wise, this is the story of a young woman who takes on her father and a powerful entity known as Gamemaster that ensnares humans into diabolical plots while her species gambles on the outcome to save her siblings. This movie is pretty insane and uses all the tropes of horror and death metal imagery that dominated the nineties to a really satisfying degree. This will definitely not be for everyone, as it heads down some really dark paths for some comedic reasons, but I found myself very engrossed by it.

Happy Halloween Scooby Doo! – How can it be Halloween if you don’t include the iconic Scooby, Shaggy, the rest of the crew and the Mystery Machine? The simple answer is it can not and will not and even better about this new animated film is that Matthew Lillard is in his rightful place as the voice of your favorite animated secret stoner, Shaggy. Being the gang’s favorite holiday as well, filled with fake monsters and candy galore, this one turns sour when the neighborhood pumpkin patch is infected by a toxic ooze, creating high-flying jack-o-lanterns, and a king-sized pumpkin leader squashing everything in its path. Featuring the guest voices of Bill Nye The Science Guy and, a lifelong crush, Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark, this movie is a throwback to all the Scooby Doo cartoons we grew up on collectively as it has been running for decades. The kids will love it too.

Pierrot Le Fou – Criterion Collection is no stranger to the works of Jean Luc Godard as he has a few of them already in the collection but this one is pretty damn important in the Criterion releasing as it was first released on Blu-ray in the U.S. by The Criterion Collection in 2009, however, it was discontinued almost immediately due to them losing the rights to Studio Canal, its previous owners. For a while, it became a collector’s item due to its out of print status, until now where everything has been restored without the possibility of being taken away again. The film follows the title character who escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. Together they lead an unorthodox life, always on the run in this entertaining and wholly different classic film.

Drop Dead Gorgeous – A really dark film from the 90s, the first thing that stood out to me when I received this from Warner Archive is how much two of the stars are pretty much Hollywood pariahs with Kirstie Alley being a MAGA hat-wearing Trumper and Denise Richards being a straight out nutcase but this movie definitely had its charm. The film takes place in a small Minnesota town with the mockumentary style of the annual beauty pageant being covered by a TV crew. Former winner Gladys Leeman, played by Alley, wants to make sure her daughter, Denice Richards’ character Becky, follows in her footsteps by doing some dastardly deeds which include explosions, falling lights and trailer fires. As the Leemans are the richest family in town the police are pretty relaxed about it all but, despite everything, her main rival and nice girl Amber Atkins, played by the wonderful Kirsten Dunst, won’t be stopped even though there is more death and disappointment to come. This movie wasn’t well-reviewed when it came out but I enjoyed it then and still enjoy it now.

Star Trek Picard: Season 1 – Everyone was waiting for this return series featuring one of the most popular Star Fleet captains ever and, in my opinion, the best captain as Sir Patrick Stewart slips back into the chair as Jean-Luc Picard for a brand new series. Set 18 years after his last appearance in Star Trek: Nemesis, the show finds him deeply affected by the death of Data from the events of that film as well as by the destruction of Romulus as referenced in the J.J. Abrams reboot which has me slightly confused. Wasn’t that storyline called the “Kelvin” line? Not a big issue to me in the long run as I really enjoyed this whole series, loved the inclusion of Riker and Deanna Troy later in the season and even the new characters of Michelle Hurd’s gruff Raffi Musiker, the rogue pilot Cristóbal Rios, played by Santiago Cabrera and Allison Pill’s Dr. Agnes Jurati are a welcome addition and feel well written. After an exciting first and establishing season, I’m looking forward to what comes next.

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geek Outs:

She Should’a Said “No!” – These old “marijuana-slpoitation” movies from the Reefer Madness era always make me laugh so when Kino Lorber has them up for grabs I always accept them. Made in 1949, this film, also known as Wild Weed, follows a chorus girl who’s career is ruined and her brother is driven to suicide when she starts smoking marijuana because of hysteria, miseducation and fear-mongering. Sorry, I had to throw that last part of the description in because it is all just so ridiculous. It’s funny that the main actress of this film, Lila Leeds, was cast almost as a punishment because she was arrested in 1948 with Robert Mitchum for possession of marijuana, so I guess she’s the cautionary tale. The film was also put together in seven days making it suspect that it was a government initiative to get cannabis out of people’s hands and fear on the rise immediately. Too funny.

Bloodstone – Time to head back to the forgotten vaults of B, C, and D grade movies in the possession of those film-loving maniacs at Arrow Video with this film from Dwight H. Little which may have fallen a tiny bit under the radar, although it does have a sequel. This action-adventure follows an American couple on a business trip to Bangalore, India who are dragged into the theft of a ruby called ‘Bloodstone’. The wife is then kidnapped and the husband teams up with a resourceful taxi driver to free his wife and retrieve the ruby. The film, released in 1988, almost seems to be borrowing that energy from Romancing The Stone and Jewel Of The Nile but miss having the acting caliber of Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny Devito as there’s absolutely no star power to this one at all.

Life Is A Long Quiet River – Let’s get a bit classier with the Arrow Academy side of the Arrow releasing and dig into this French comedy that was released the same year as Bloodstone, although for an entirely different type of audience. From writer and director Étienne Chatiliez in his debut film, this is the story of two babies are switched at birth by a revengeful nurse and are raised in two radically different families. When the mistake is discovered 12 years later, it leads to complications in the lives of both families, one family is affluent with dutiful and contented children while the other family is poor, with rambunctious and delinquent children, often hungry, but with lots of laughter in the house. This is a fascinating film that almost acts as a sociological experiment and how it can all be blown apart by a reveal of lineage.

A Soldier’s Revenge – Well Go USA, usually known for Asian cinema releases, sent me this film and I stared at it a little bt because I definitely was not expecting a western in any parcels from them. Featuring only a small handful of actors I recognized like Jake Busey, AnnaLynne McCord and, a good cowboy staple, Val Kilmer, this is the story of Civil War soldier-turned-bounty-hunter Frank Connor, haunted by wartime horrors, who spends his time post-war polishing off two things, whiskey and fugitives, but when two desperate children arrive on his doorstep and enlist his help to find their missing mother, Frank must face his past to take down the notorious Major Briggs, with whom he has a violent past with. The first thing to be said about this movie is it is way too freaking long, clocking in at almost two and a half hours which feels wildly unnecessary. Will it satisfy western fans? Only on the surface level of seeing the time period as it is a mess of close-ups and strained dialogue and Kilmer certainly doesn’t look like Doc Holliday anymore, maybe more so like his corpse.

Red Shoes And The Seven Dwarfs – Lionsgate sent this animated family film to me which features the voices of Chloe Grace Moretz and Sam Claflin, two bankable stars, and has been highly praised by the Dove society, a film advisory board that gives awards to the “best” family films but I have never even heard of it. Obviously a take on the classic fairy tale Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, this plays things differently as princes who have been turned into dwarfs seek the red shoes of a lady to break the spell, in a parody with a twist. Is it any good? Well, the parents will find it predictable but with some nice looking animation and some recognizable supporting voice work from Gina Gershon, Community’s Jim Rash and the always welcome baritone of Patrick Warburton but the kids will be delighted with it. I will warn everyone upfront that they may have to have a body issue conversation with their kids afterwards as some of the dialogue and themes in this is slightly problematic and I don’t know how that slipped by Dove.

Television:

The Lie (Amazon Prime) – Hot off of her stellar awards season, cleaning up for her lead role in the miniseries The Act, Joey King stars in this new film opposite Peter Sarsgaard as a father and daughter who are on their way to dance camp when they spot the girl’s best friend on the side of the road. Stopping to offer the friend a ride, their good intentions soon result in terrible consequences and the family quickly closes ranks and decides not to tell anybody. Secrets rarely stay secret for long and they soon find themselves faced with an impossible choice that will alter the course of their lives forever. I’m being vague with the details on this for a reason as The Killing creator Veena Sud writes and directs this film, a creator that revels in her reveals and keeping the mysteries close to her chest. This film is intensely engrossing from start to finish.

The Haunting Of Bly Manor (Netflix) – With his first series based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, Mike Flanagan proved once again that he is a horror director at the top of his game and the perfect fit for this series that took in many of Netflix subscribers. Now, we head into his next series that will be sure to give you nightmares just like Hill House did for me, shot in Vancouver, this series once again follows Henry Thomas’ character Henry, who hires a young American nanny to care for his orphaned niece and nephew who reside at Bly Manor with the chef Owen, groundskeeper Jamie and housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. Soon after arriving at the Bly estate, she begins to experience strange occurrences and a grim history starts to unravel. This series is full of emotion and atmosphere and it is really neat to see Flanagan pivoting off of Jackson’s classic into this version of The Turning Of The Screw. Also, like the first series, there are so many hidden ghosts to be spotted in this season, one of my favorite things about Hill House.

The Forty-Year Old Version (Netflix) – Right now, with the focus on the Black Lives Matter movement and giving a signal boost to the creations made by people of color being on the forefront it’s really great to see Netflix give it’s platform to a film like this one, written, directed by and starring writer and producer Radha Blank and it’s even better to know that the movie is seriously great and very relatable to women of all colors that hit the forty-year milestone and still feel lost in their own lives. This film follows Blank as a down-on-her-luck New York playwright, who is desperate for a breakthrough before she turns forty after being one of the prominent winners of the top 30 under thirty award a decade earlier. Reinventing herself as a rapper named RadhaMUSPrime, she vacillates between the worlds of hip hop and theater to find her true voice but finds herself trapped in a lie as she has to adjust her playwright voice to get it seen. Through the sighs of everyday comedy, Blank makes this an enriching experience that I believe everyone can take something away from and emerges as a great voice in black cinema that I really hope to see more from. This was a fantastic movie.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond (AMC) – Another Walking Dead spin-off arrives just as the final season of the original series has just been announced and this one has definitely a different vibe to it as it seems to combine the themes of Lord Of The Flies a little bit with the shambling flesh, brain and entrail eating ghouls we are oh so familiar with these days. Featuring Nico Tortorella from Scream 4, this series focuses on the first generation to grow up during the zombie apocalypse, centred around a trio of characters and judging by the trailer it looks suspenseful and will carve a new side in this new zombie lore. If it’s as good as Fear The Walking Dead is I will definitely continue to immerse myself in Robert Kirkman’s imagination.

The Cleansing Hour (Shudder) – Yes, I’m bringing so much horror this week but we have to consider that we are in October and people are clamouring for more of the genre to round out their monthly viewing. This movie had horror critics raving during festivals and has now made its way to the Shudder streaming service at the perfect time. Starring Ryan Guzman and Kyle Gallner, this is about millennial entrepreneurs, Drew and Max, who run a webcast that streams live exorcisms that are, in fact, elaborately staged hoaxes. They get their comeuppance when their latest actress becomes mysteriously possessed by a real demon that holds the crew hostage and, to make matters worse, the possessed victim is Drew’s fiancée, Lane. In front of a rapidly-growing global audience, the demon subjects Max to a series of violent and humiliating challenges meant to punish him for his online charade and, to save the love of his life, Drew discovers that the demon’s sinister motive is not only about revenge, but also to expose the dark secrets he, Max, and Lane have been hiding from one another. This film is brutally effective and a total diamond in the rough as it really has a bumpy start but settles in for some fantastic possession horror that satisfies on all levels.

VIFF 2020 – The Finale (#21-25)

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October 8, 2020

Mogul Mowgli – Let’s just make it al clear at the get-go. If I see Riz Ahmed’s name attached to a film I immediately become very interested in it because he is one of the best emerging talents of this generation and the projects he picks are always so fascinating. This new film feels very closely connected to Ahmed and his experiences growing up in the United Kingdom dealing with race and culture as a British Pakistani, following him as a rapper on the cusp of his first world tour that is struck down by an illness that threatens to derail his big break. Learning his lessons the hard way, he realizes that the way he was living his life in excess of ego and forgetting the culture of what made him have slowly deteriorated his soul and his being, leading him to this unfortunate fate. Riz’s performance in this film is riveting and gives dramatic focus to the monkey on his back while we observe him like a living fish tank. That last wistfully triumphant moment in this movie will go down as an unforgettable cinematic moment for me this year.

Lapsis – On the outside of this film it just looks like a man laying cable to provide money to help his sick brother but there is something so much bigger at the heart of this sleepy pseudo-science fiction film that has a real headiness to it. The film follows Ray, a delivery man struggling to support himself and his ailing younger brother, who suffers from a crippling narcoleptic disorder that is running rampant across the world. Getting the nudge from a scheming friend, he takes a strange job in a strange new realm of the gig economy laying cable across the wilderness, connecting devices meant to change the technological future of man. As he journeys further into the forest, he comes across Anna, another cabler who has a deeper insight into the company they are employed by and the endgame to their work. This film is deeply subtle and feels like you the viewer must fill in the blanks a bit but to that end, it still feels wildly satisfying at the finish.

Undine – I am here for any collaboration between actress Paula Beer, one of my favorite international actresses in the last ten years and writer and director Christian Petzold, who she did her last film with, Transit, an excellent film that also co-starred this film’s lead, Franz Rogowski from the one-shot thriller Victoria. This film has Beer starring as the title character Undine, who works as a historian lecturing on Berlin’s urban development but when the man she loves leaves her, the ancient myth of her name catches up with her and, to satisfy the fable of which she believes she is based on, she has to kill the man who betrays her and return to the water. This film is fascinating and intimate, possibly my favorite work that Petzold has done, and a story that keeps you guessing until the finale. The third act is layered in a way that only accomplished filmmakers cand pull off and Petzold does it with a flourish that is jawdropping.

Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President – Trying to squeeze in a last couple films, this documentary was on my radar since the announcement of the festival titles as Jimmy Carter is always a president that I had a lot of respect for and one that still continues to do great work through humanitarian and charity causes as well as building houses with his bare hands. The film comes from CNN Films by way of director Mary Wharton  and follows Jimmy Carter and journey from the country town of Plains to being the governor of Georgia to becoming the thirty ninth  U.S. president and one who openly embraced rock ‘n’ roll the whole way. With interviews with Willie Nelson, the surviving members of the Allman Band, Bob Dylan and more, a fascinating portrait of not only a great but stifled president but a fantastic human being is painted. In this time leading up to one of the most important elections in U.S. history, this film was definitely a breath of fresh air.

Siberia – Rounding out this year’s festival with something weird, metaphorical and from the very unique and volatile brain of filmmaker Abel Ferrara through the conduit of Willem Dafoe and I’m still trying to make heads or tails of it. The film had Dafoe as a bartender in the middle of the Siberian wilderness, dishing drinks out to fur drapped inuit, dogsleds containing elders and pregnant women and more, although, none of it is real. Ferrara uses this landscape to traverse the subversive nature of dreams and, from what I can glean from this film, nightmares. The film feels to me like its set on a sort of purgatorial landscape with heaven on one side and the drop off to hell on the other with Dafoe’s character Clint being magnetized to the latter. There were points of this film that reminded me of Von Trier’s The House That Jack Built where you get the slow realization in the subplot that Bruno Ganz is escorting Matt Dillon’s character to the depths of hell. I’m still trying to make a uniform sense of this but it was incredibly jarring at many points and ends with a guttural death metal roar. Fascinating stuff.

VIFF 2020 – Getting Near The End (#16-20)

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October 6, 2020

Black Bear – Well, we finally got to the movie in the festival where once the credits rolled I had a confused look on my face and went “huh?” It was bound to happen but even though it looks like I’m throwing a bit of shade at this film I am really not as the direction is great, the cast delivers but I just don’t think that the dual complexity of it worked. So. now, as I have you all confused I’ll try to give you a little context. Directed and written by Lawrence Michael Levine, the film follows a filmmaker at a creative impasse, played by Aubrey Plaza who seeks solace from her tumultuous past at a rural retreat with a married couple, played by Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon, only to find that the woods summon her inner demons in intense and surprising ways. This description is almost a red herring as this only sort of describes the first half of the movie before it shifts to a real film being made at the remote house, flipping te character motivations and dynamics completely. Again, I enjoyed it but am still trying to unpack it.

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My Salinger Year – This is definitely one of my favorite films of the festival this year and the crowning achievement for director and screenwriter Philippe Falardeau whose last outing I saw at the Vancouver International Film Festival was My Internship In Canada, an absurd comedy that I’d love to forget. Based on Joanna Smith Rakoff’s novel of the same name, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’s Margaret Qualley plays Joanna as a young aspiring writer who lands a day-job at J.D. Salinger’s literary agency in n New York City during the late nineties. While her eccentric and old-fashioned boss, played by Sigourney Weaver, tasks her to process Salinger’s voluminous fan mail, she struggles to find her own voice through romance, a crash course in the publishing world and communications with the reclusive writer that she knows as Jerry. This film is beautifully shot, wonderfully acted and leaves a resonance that will put a smile on your face.

Summer Of 85 – Director Francois Ozon returns from last years By The Grace Of God, a movie that made me yell at my television screen when I watched it, with this teenaged romance that gave me glimmers of Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name. Punctuated by two fantastic and glowing performances from young actors Félix Lefebvre and Benjamin Voisin, this is the story of Alexis, a boy on the verge of becoming a man, who meets the individual responsible for the release of his sexuality during the summer of 1985 after the dreamy David rescues him from his capsized boat one afternoon. A torrid romance leads to heartbreak and tragedy which informs the rest of Alexis’ future and leaves an indelible mark on his soul. This film is such a beauty, a very endearing story of naivete that is gorgeously shot along a breathtaking French seaside. Ozon crafts one of my favorite singular stories in his career, showing that he is still a filmmaker who brings the soul every single time. 

Women In Blue – This is a massively topical documentary that puts us right in the center of a city going through massive turmoil still to this very moment and a fight that is not going to relent any time soon. The film is a close “fly on the wall” documentary that follows the stories of the women police officers in Minneapolis who try to reform the department and restore trust in the community after a high-profile police shooting forces its first female chief to resign. I can’t say that the end result of the movie leaves a lot of hope for women in leadership roles in police departments as it feels that al of those who are focused on end up marginalized or used as a scapegoat for public ridicule. The film also doesn’t touch on the George Floyd murder which would surely have added another element to the story. I couldn’t help but think, with everything going on at the moment, that this film was shot through a sort of “Blue Lives Matter” lens and it was a bad taste I couldn’t shake.

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The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel – Remember The Corporation, a Canadian made documentary from 2003 that that looked at the concept of the corporation throughout recent history up to its present-day dominance and even put it through the psychopath test? Well, director Jennifer Abbott and new co-director Joel Bakan are back this the very and, yes, unfortunately, necessary follow up that exposes how companies are desperately rebranding as socially responsible and how that threatens democratic freedoms. It is infuriating to watch in detail how these tactics had blurred political lines between massive conglomerates and dirty politicians and have effectively choked the life out of democracy to the point that it is almost completely unrecognizable. It’s also really interesting to see how close this has all gotten in the timeline as the filmmakers have been able to include the happenings of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies’ reactions and ad campaigns around it, exploiting the public needs and even the exploitation of the Black Lives Matter movement. This is a great movie but, be warned, it will piss you off.

VIFF 2020 – Five Films Beyond (#11-15)

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October 3, 2020

Falling – Viggo Mortensen makes his directorial debut with this drama that he wrote and starred in as well and I know awards season is going to be weird this year but if both he and his other star Lance Henriksen aren’t even mentioned during it, well, that’s going to be a serious indictment on the industry. Henriksen plays Willis, a gruff and brutal father rapidly descending into dementia who moves from his rural farm to live with his gay son and his family in Los Angeles very much against his own wishes. From the get-go, nothing but hazy bile, vitriol and resentment comes out of Willis’ mouth and it all takes out characters downhill as they just try to do what’s right for him as they put their lives on hold to figure out his situation, The film explores the deep commitment to family, for better and in this case for worse in an experience that largely feels stressful and uncomfortable but is some of the best character work I’ve seen this year. Bravo to Viggo in his first film and it was a nice touch to see a David Cronenberg cameo in this.

Beauty Water – After starting my festival with Brandon Cronenberg’s latest shocker, I’m really surprised it’s taken me this many movies in to finally come across another totally messed up movie then this little slice of weird came up next on my list. An animated South Korean film blending traditional stylings with computer-generated movements, this is the story of an unhappy and overweight woman named Ye-ji who comes across an infomercial for a mysterious water that enables her to lose weight and reshape her appearance. The upkeep of this procedure proves to be a murderous obsession for her and her life starts to spiral out of control but the tables are turned when what she perceives to be the man of her dreams enters her life and the stakes turn from keeping her beauty to keep her life. The film plays like an episode of The Twilight Zone and the twists and turns last all the way up to the final moment. This is definitely a hard film to recommend but if you like to be disturbed by your art then have at it.

My Wonderful Wanda – One of the best things about this festival is starting the screenings of these films with little to no knowledge of what they’re about and that was the perfect case for this drama. This new film from Swiss writer and director Bettina Oberli follows a Polish caretaker named Wanda who looks after the ailing patriarch Joseph, living in his family villa by the lake. She is there for him around the clock and also helps his wife Elsa and the youngest son Gregi care for her on a level beyond being romantic. The work is poorly paid, but Wanda needs the money for her own family in Poland and since everyone lives under one roof, Wanda gets an intimate view of their family life, one so intimate that Wanda unexpectedly becomes pregnant and the source of this ends up blowing the family apart in order to repair the decades of damage that occurred before Wanda arrived. This film is beautifully shot and constructed with characters you find yourself getting behind that, on the first reveal, are not ones that you would find yourself caring about. This movie is filled with so many perfect human imperfections that its hare not to root for it as a whole.

Fucking Idiots – I’m so happy that I got to the absurd comedy corner of the festival and this movie was so much fun to unpack from its completely ambiguous opening to its slide down to its inane finish. Not everyone will appreciate a film like this but it really landed with me very well, all the lines working with me but maybe it’s because I’m a fucking idiot as well and they’re just preaching to the choir. The story to it seems simple, a seemingly money-strapped couple heads to their wealthy friend’s house for dinner, looking to propose some sort of deal and, as the audience, we are totally unclear of what their intentions are but we know they’re nervous. Honestly, that’s the only plot morsel I’ll feed you but the trifecta of Ben Cotton, Christina Sicoli and Stephen Lobo is hysterically funny as I felt the grin on my face getting wider and wider as the movie progressed and the absurdity reached a fever pitch. I thoroughly loved this movie and I think it was swinging for my audience, especially as a blu-ray collector. That will make more sense if you see the movie but, what do I know, I’m a fucking idiot.

NO TRAILER FOR THIS ONE

Nadia, Butterfly – Retirement must be a hard transition to go through and must be even harder to do when you’re at a young age and still have so much future ahead of you. When you’re an athlete it must be doubly worse, a problem I will never know. French Canadian writer and director Pascal Plante delves into this notion in this new drama about a Canadian Olympic swimmer who finishes her final race, a relay in which her team wins the bronze medal, and then the real implications of her decision start to dawn on her, pushing her to some self-destructive actions with all start with her alienating her teammates during their celebration that night. Plante does a phenomenal job in illustrating our main character Nadia’s isolation that she feels deep inside and does a great job of keeping everything so internal with actress Katerine Savard giving a knockout performance in the process. The weird irony that struck me was that this takes place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, an event that, due to COVID-19, hasn’t even taken place. Maybe this movie is set in the future.

What The Hell Should I Watch? – Oct 1

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October 1, 2020

New Releases:

Possessor: Uncut – Let’s mess you up right out of the gate as David Cronenberg’s son Brandon returns with his second feature, a violent sci-fi film that proves once again he is his father’s son and the body horror runs in the family. The film stars Andrea Riseborough, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Christopher Abbott and it follows an agent who works for a secretive organization that uses brain-implant technology to inhabit other people’s bodies, ultimately driving them to commit assassinations for high-paying clients. Riseborough’s character, a veteran assassin is starting to suffer psychotic breaks in her “outside” life which breaks wide open with her latest client. I’ve already had a chance to see this movie and it blew my mind entirely. Disturbing in visuals, this chaotic film is another showcasing of Cronenberg’s boundless imagination and the incredible prowess that cinematographer Karim Hussain has.

Spontaneous – Coming of age is hard as I remember it. Budding sexuality, hormones, high school cliques, exploding bodies… wait, exploding bodies? Yes, this is the direction that this teen horror from com goes in The Babysitter writer Brian Duffield’s directorial debut and although the story seems insane he makes it work for the entire duration. Starring the “it” girl of right now, 13 Reasons Why’s Katherine Langford alongside Charlie Plummer, they play seniors Mara and Dylan two newly found lovebirds who struggle to survive in a world where each moment may be their last as students in their school begin exploding like balloons full of blood. The dynamic of the film is so interesting as the explosions at first come off as comical but when you start putting faces behind the victims the seriousness arises along with the stakes to keep everyone alive. I was honestly surprised by how much I liked this film and the script and lead stars are definitely what keep it afloat.

Save Yourselves – Nothing like a good sleepy little hipster comedy to give you some laughs and make you think about existence but this one has a bit of a twist. Coming from first time writing and directing duo Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, the story follows Jack and Su, a hip Brooklyn couple who, like many of their friends, find themselves dependent on technology and unable to put down their phones. Fearing their mindless scrolling may impact their connection with each other, they seize the chance to head to an isolated cabin in the woods, vowing to unplug from the outside world for a week. Sheltered from texts and push notifications, they are blissfully unaware that the planet is under attack and real danger looms just outside their door. As strange events unfold, the couple must figure out a way back to civilization, or what’s left of it in one of the most surprising comedies of the year. The script of this film is hilarious and although I only recognized the female lead from GLOW, the whole cast delivers no matter how big or how small their role is.

Eternal Beauty – To be honest, the first thing I think of when the name of actor turned writer and director Craig Roberts is his role in the Seth Rogen movie Neighbors in which he was a fraternity pledge nicknamed Ass Juice. Not flattering, I know, but the reality is that he made a great first movie with Just Jim and this new film is nearly a masterpiece. The film stars the amazing Sally Hawkins as Jane who, after being left at the altar, had a breakdown spiralled into a chaotic episode of schizophrenia lasting twenty years in which love, both real and imagined, and family relationships collide. Things change when she begins a darkly comic romance with Mike, played by David Thewlis, a failed musician and fellow lost soul. This movie is intense in its delivery and deliciously shot like it’s completely from Jane’s point of view which gives such a deeper insight into her affliction. Again, Hawkins bats for the fences with a fierce performance that demands to be seen.

On The Rocks – Sofia Coppola has returned during this odd year of movie delays with possibly my favorite movie this year and she brought Bill Murray back with her and I couldn’t be happier with it. The film stars Rashida Jones as a young mother who reconnects with her larger-than-life playboy father, played by Murray,  and they embark on a mission to see if her workaholic husband, played by Marlon Wayans, is having an affair. The chemistry between Jones and Murray, first displayed in the Netflix Christmas special A Very Murray Christmas, is so palpable that you just want them to star in absolutely everything together. The script is so snappy and fun, The film charms you in every moment and I would be perfectly content in watching this film every day for weeks on end, I loved it that much. This is a true gem of a movie and I highly recommend it.

The Trial Of The Chicago 7 – If one writer gets me hook, line and sinker every time he writes a movie or television series, it’s Aaron Sorkin. I’m just addicted to his stories. For his latest film, that he directed as well as wrote, he takes a bite out of Chicago history as well as adding his own spin with sardonic humor and grandiose moments of grandstanding with a phenomenal cast that includes Oscar-winners Eddie Redmayne and Mark Rylance, recent Emmy winners Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jeremy Strong as well as Joseph Gordon Levitt, Frank Langella, Sacha Baron Cohen, Michael Keaton and more. Yes, this is a heavyweight. The film is about the fallout after the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago where there were massive demonstrations against the Vietnam War, which was reaching its peak. When a curfew was finally instated, this led to even further protests, eventually leading to a police riot. and following this, seven of the demonstrators, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Lee Weiner, and David Dellinger, were tried for conspiracy. The meat and potatoes of this film are the trial that followed. This is a big recommendation this week because, though it is heavy on talk and exposition, this could go down as one of the best films this year and when it debuts on Netflix in two weeks it will be the must-watch movie, trust me.

The Boys In The Band – Everywhere you look these days on Netflix you can’t really go through a row of releases and not find a Ryan Murphy written, directed or produced film or television series as the deal he signed with the streaming service must be massively lucrative. This new film feels like it was a long time coming and brings in a cast of actors that have been working with Murphy for quite a while now and it’s an adaptation of a famous gay play and one that was adapted by acclaimed filmmaker William Friedkin way back in 1970, a hugely different and more taboo time for the subject. The film is set in that same time, 1968 New York City, when being gay was still considered to be best kept behind closed doors, following a group of friends gather for a raucous birthday party hosted by Michael, played by Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons, a screenwriter who spends and drinks too much, in honor of the sharp-dressed and sharp-tongued Harold, played brilliantly by Zachary Quinto, who could double for Elliot Gould. Other partygoers include Michael’s former flame, Donald, Larry, a promiscuous commercial artist living with a school teacher, Hank, who has just left his wife, Bernard, a librarian tiptoeing around the bro codes of friendship alongside Emory, a decorator who never holds back an opinion to his detriment and a guileless hustler dressed as a cowboy hired to be Harold’s gift for the night. Everything gets upended when Alan, Michael’s straight-laced college roommate, shows up unexpectedly and each man is challenged to confront long-buried truths that threaten the foundation of the group’s tight bond. This film is all about the performances and the dialogue will remind you that it was all based on a play so sometimes the theatrics do hit the ceiling. For those looking for a well put together conversational drama, this is it.

2067 – Self-contained sci-fi and lower budget sci-fi, it can either be great and captivating or it can leak air for ninety minutes and make you wonder why you got into it in the first place. This film hits somewhere in the middle, starring former X-Men’s Nightcrawler Kodi Smit McPhee and former True Blood star Ryan Kwanten and is set, obviously from the title, over forty years into the future following a man sent on a dangerous mission to an unknown world to save the human race when Earth’s air becomes unbreathable, only on the prodding of a mysterious message that was sent out. The film has a detailed plot with several intriguing mysteries at its core but that may be the biggest issue being that it has so many strands going outward that it can’t resolve or make sense of most of them besides our main character’s increasing existential quandaries. It’s still a bold film for former VFX artist turned director Seth Larney to take on.

The Glorias – One of my favorite visual storytellers of all time, Julie Taymor, returns after a ten-year absence to tell a true story in her own way that I feel is sorely needed right now, especially when women’s right once again hold so delicately in the balance. This is the story of feminist icon Gloria Steinem’s itinerant childhood’s influence on her life as a writer, activist and organizer for women’s rights worldwide as told through multiple timelines, the later two in life played by Academy Award winners Alicia Vikander and Julianne Moore. This film is a visual feast, as all of Taymor’s movies are, which at times distract from the reality of the story at hand but the powerfulness of the message is never dulled and the imperative anger that should never stop in the treatment of women is always on display. For whatever shortcomings the film has, and it has more than a few, this movie is massively important and will have a guttural effect on any forward thinker that sees it.

Blu-Ray:

Rogue – For a while, Megan Fox was the it girl, one of the hottest women on screen who made us sweat during Transformers movies until her franchise ending riff with Michael Bay stopped that and I still think her horror film Jennifer’s Body is still a hidden gem. Well, for years she’s been making these little films that don’t get much publicity and this time she made an action film that even critics are saying has some merit. In this new film, she plays O’Hara, a mercenary leading a squad of soldiers on their mission to rescue hostages in a remote part of Africa when, unfortunately, the mission goes wrong and the team are stranded, forced to survive against the local rebels. I was completely shocked by this movie as Fox shows an emotional depth that I honestly thought she was incapable of and, even a production that can’t really shake that B-movie feeling, it all is still effective filmmaking. I also love that a female director was behind the camera for this, MJ Barrett who my favorite work of hers is all the Ash vs The Evil Dead episodes she did.

The Silencing – After the last weirdo film that former Game Of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was in, the deliriously entertaining thriller Exit Plan, I’m feeling like I can finally be on board with each of his projects afterwards because it has wiped the taste of that awful De Palma movie he did. This new action thriller has him playing a reformed hunter living secluded in a wildlife sanctuary after the disappearance of his teen daughter years ago who saves a young girl from being killed by a serial killer but gets caught in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with the deranged man he foiled plans for. His path crosses with the town’s sheriff, played by The Mummy’s Annabelle Wallis, who also seems to bring the serial killer to justice after the discovery of a dead body of a teen girl. The story feels like a retread of the familiar but all in all, I still found myself sucked into the film and Coster-Waldau when he has something to work with, always seems to deliver.
The Legend of Tomiris – We’re going international now for this new blood and sword epic from Kazakhstan to get some serious storytelling done before Borat arrives later in October and we’re all sort of mocking them by going “my wife” and other lines. This is the story of the life of the great queen of the steppe, the legendary Tomiris, a woman destined to become a skillful warrior, survive the loss of close people and unite the Scythian and Saka tribes under her authority, simple as that. Lead star Almira Tursyn is fierce in her action scene, as the choreography is quite good and works with the cinematography well, but the dialogue scenes come off a bit cringeworthy at times and maybe that’s just the language barrier or her inexperience as a front and center role. Still pretty entertaining but definitely very long, clocking in at over two and a half hours.

Ursula von Rydingsvard: Into Her Own – Got to get some sort of informative documentary to this week and this intimate portrait of an artist is a great way to do it, also as a cool way of inspiration. The film is the story of Ursula von Rydingsvard, a woman who has struggled for years to overcome the hardship of her upbringing and to follow her true calling to become an artist and live her dream of painstakingly crafting public sculptures in New York. Sophomore documentary filmmaker Daniel Taub does a great job in giving Ursula the necessary backstory of her plight to the audience but also going fascinatingly in-depth on her process to create her works as well as the scrutinizing harshness that artists always seem to put on their shoulders. This documentary will really only speak to a certain crowd but for them, it will speak volumes.

The Secret: Dare To Dream – Remember that self-help book that everyone was raving about years ago that was supposed to fix your life through the easy steps of listening to the world’s secret messages? It was something like that, I honestly don’t remember but they put out a movie based on that, direct to video and now there’s this one, starring Katie Holmes and Josh Lucas for some reason, that follows a widow struggling to get by who meets a stranger that subscribes to a philosophy of positive thinking and messages of hope, compassion, and gratitude. Needless to say, this movie was awful in every sense, much like a faith-based film, it’s clunky in dialogue, overreaching and overbearing in its need to hammer home the message and a complete was of time if you don’t feel the urge for a browbeating of indoctrination. Holmes may have escaped Scientology but she still landed herself in The Secret which I can’t say is really any better.

Genesis II/Planet Earth – Warner Archive is aiming for those deep Star Trek fans with this new double set of forgotten films that Gene Roddenberry wrote in the mid-seventies. Genesis II follows a scientist, Dylan Hunt, who has been preserved in suspended animation in a NASA cavern in 1979 and wakes up to find himself in a primitive society in the year 2133 because during the 154 years he had slept, war has broken out and the world’s scientists rebelled against the war-loving military and developed a society known as the Pax, whose goal is to keep the spirit of mankind alive. The sequel, Planet Earth, follows Hunt awakening from suspended animation again and awakens in the twenty-second century where women rule the world and men are slaves called Dinks. He is captured and sold as a slave, but escapes and hooks up with a male rebel movement. It’s campy but undeniably from the mind of a science fiction genius.

Variety – Have you ever wanted to see the flip side of Taxi Driver and see the seedy underbelly from a troubled woman? This is sort of what Bette Gordon’s 1983 drama is, following Christine, played by Sandy McLeod, who takes a job selling tickets at a porno theater near Times Square and, instead of distancing herself from the dark and erotic nature of this milieu, she develops an obsession that begins to take over her life. a story of this nature was definitely a taboo of its time and I would argue that the film would still come off as massively controversial today but it is affecting and undeniably hard to look away from, a total forgotten gem of a movie. It was shot by Jim Jarmusch’s guy Tom DiCillo and scored by John Lurie and fits in the pantheon of dirt and seedy New York City films near the top. A must-see.

Penny Dreadful City Of Angels: Season 1 – A pretty sizeable fan base is very excited to get the spinoff to the popular Showtime series that started back in 2014 and ran for three seasons. While the original series followed explorer Sir Malcolm Murray, American gunslinger Ethan Chandler, scientist Victor Frankenstein and medium Vanessa Ives as they combated supernatural threats in Victorian London, this series goes ahead in time to a late 1930s Los Angeles at a time that city expansion was aggressive and pushing out the Latino community and the rise of the Nazi ideals were taking hold in the city. The kick is that an evil and godly entity is responsible for pushing the weaker-minded humans into furthering the agenda of the destruction of humanity. The show stars Game Of Thrones alum Natalie Dormer, Nathan Lane and It Follows and Don’t Breathe actor Daniel Zovatto and I loved episode one. Looking forward to what’s next.

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geek-Out:

The Captain – I’m bringing some Asian cinema this week with the newest film from Andrew Lau who is the guy who shot the entire Infernal Affairs trilogy as well as directed the very cool action flick Initial D. Playing back into the action-adventure, this film is based on a real-life incident in May 2018, when the cockpit windshield of a Sichuan Airlines flight shattered while the plane was flying 30,000 feet above the Tibetan Plateau and the co-pilot was sucked halfway out of the cockpit as passengers started losing consciousness due to low pressure, causing our title character to step up and be the hero. The character development and script of this film are definitely lacking but the action and suspense of it keep you on track from beginning to end and some of it seems too crazy to believe. A wild ride but slightly forgettable.

Hiroshima – Coming from Arrow Academy, the classier side of the Arrow Video releasing, this film is an updating of the 1953 film that detailed the day the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. In the focused plot of the film, it is the story of Hiroshima seen through the eyes of the targeted civilians, but mostly the children in particular, as they live amidst the war, then as victims of the atomic bomb, and subsequently as they try to subsist in the aftermath on a pile of ash, rubble and corpses. Even made almost seventy years ago, this film is still affecting, tragic and comes packed with world messages and morals all seen through the eyes of youth.

Brute Force – I’m bringing a double shot of Criterions this week because I’m a total geek for them and they’re the definitive versions of the film, those most important to cinephiles like me. Both films coming from director Jules Dassin, this film features Burt Lancaster and Hume Cronyn and follows Joe Collins, a convict in the State penitentiary who decides he’s had enough and wants to break out. Fed up with the Captain of the Guard, Mr. Muncey, who uses both physical and psychological torture to get his way with the men, Joe and his cellmates are assigned to work in the drainpipe located just outside the prison gate which Joe uses a tactic from the US military during World War II in Italy as the basis of a breakout. This film is incredible but was not well received at the time of release in 1947 due to the brutal violence of it which turned audiences off. The new Blu-ray transfer is gorgeous and I was astounded by this absolute classic

The Naked City – My second Jules Dassin film this week to geek out on, this is an excellent representation of classic film noir and the inspiration for so many filmmakers who make homages to it all the time. The film, at its heart, is a murder mystery, as somewhere in New York’s bustling post-world-war-two metropolis, a beautiful blonde and a former model, Jean Dexter, has been found dead in her apartment, drowned in the bathtub. With the news of her death spreading like wildfire across the city, Irish homicide Detective, Lt. Dan Muldoon, and his young protégé, the rookie Detective Jimmy Halloran, smell out clues all over Manhattan’s tangled asphalt jungle, as the deceased’s crafty boyfriend, Frank Niles, becomes the prime suspect. So many guilty lies and a string of unsolved jewellery robberies cloud Jean’s mysterious case and the two must make or break the case by tossing aside their emotions to keep the city safe from more crime. Again, this is a product of the time so it’s best to keep an open mind about it but I will say that the intrigue of the mystery still holds up over seventy years later.

Television:

Warrior: Season 2 (Crave) – I can’t believe this show flew under my radar as it is based on stories written by Bruce Lee and comes from director Justin Lin, which is great being that he directed the Lee centric comedy satire Finishing The Game, a solid movie if you haven’t seen it. The actors aren’t known but the story will grab you, set during the Tong Wars in the late 1800s, following a martial arts prodigy originating from China who emigrates to San Francisco and ends up becoming a hatchet man for the most powerful boss in Chinatown. The action is phenomenal and the attention to detail feels impeccable. The first season was a great Blu-ray pick-up, a ten-episode series and if you’re a classic martial arts fan then they made this show for you.

Fargo: Season 4 (FX) – It’s honestly funny how much mud I slung at this show before the first season aired saying “why would they do a remake of a perfect Coen brothers movie?” and each season has proved me more and more wrong, each series is a self-contained new story, told masterfully by showrunner Noah Hawley and an ever-changing cast of great performers. The fourth season is set in 1950 in Kansas City and the story follows two crime syndicates as they vie for control. The cast is led by Chris Rock, who plays Loy Cannon, the head of a crime syndicate made up of black migrants fleeing the Jim Crow South who have a contentious relationship with the Kansas City mafia and the supporting cast has I’m Thinking Of Ending Things’ Jessie Buckley, Jason Schwartzman, Ben Whishaw and Jack Huston. I have a good feeling that this season will be incredible and awards caliber as well.

Gangs Of London (AMC) – As a network that generally has made great decisions for its line up by picking up British programming like Quiz most recently, they have done it again by nabbing this gritty crime series from the UK network Sky. Coming from the man behind The Raid movies, Gareth Evans, this series tells the story of London being torn apart by the turbulent power struggles of its international gangs and the sudden power vacuum that’s created when the head of London’s most powerful crime family is assassinated. The only recognizable stars in this are Joe Cole who featured in the other British crime saga Peaky Blinders and Colm Meaney who was O’Brien in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine but it’s shot so beautifully and the story is absolutely fascinating for fans of these crime family series.

The Comey Rule (Crave) – I really love these true story political films and television series like Game Change, Vice or The Loudest Voice and the producer of that last one has made this new series, based on the book by James Comey. Emmy winners Jeff Daniels and Brendan Gleeson star as former FBI Director James Comey and President Donald J. Trump in this limited event series that tells the story of two powerful men, whose strikingly different personalities, ethics and loyalties put them on a collision course. Part one follows the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and their impact on the election while part two is an account of the first months of the Trump presidency where allies became enemies, enemies became friends and truth depended on what side you were on. As it seems the world was paying close attention to everything at this time in history, all of this comes off as an interesting but horrifyingly real as you want to say that it is all satire but it is all terrifyingly true and getting worse by the day.

Monsterland (Crave) – This looks like a really fun new series from Hulu which is still, to this day, unavailable to us Canadians unless Crave decides to pick it up, so my fingers are crossed on this one. The series features Booksmart’s Kaitlyn Dever, Luke Cage’s Mike Colter and Orange Is The New Black’s Taylor Schilling in an anthology show about encounters with gothic beasts, including fallen angels and werewolves, and broken people who are driven to desperate acts in an attempt to repair their lives, ultimately showing there is a thin line between man and beast. The esthetic is awesome and I’m honestly a real sucker for these types of shows like Creepshow, Tales From The Crypt and Masters Of Horror so this one is definitely up my alley.

VIFF 2020 – My Next Five Films (#6-10)

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September 30, 2020

Servants – Another black and white film, my second of the festival, proving again that this format has such an immediate ominous tone that given the right circumstances makes you feel uneasy and on edge. This film puts you in that feeling right away, set in 1980, following Michal and Juraj, two students at a theological seminary in totalitarian Czechoslovakia, a school on the verge of dissolution through an investigation by the secret police. All of the students must make the ultimate decision whether they will subject themselves to the surveillance or collaborate with the regime to fight the draconian oppressors, joining in a fight with a mentor priest battling his demons who may or may not be on their side, blackmailed by one of the secret police that helped him cover up a hit and run. This all feels convoluted but it all comes to a head in a tragic ending that felt like a constantly deepening slope that you can’t avoid. This movie may leave a lot of viewers cold and in the dark.

This Is My Desire – One of my favorite things about taking in the international cinema at these festivals is to get immersed in other cultures and other walks of life and this film is a perfect example of that, a deeply intimate insight into a country I know nothing about, Nigeria. This film follows two separate Nigerians, living in Lagos, trying to better the lives of their families. On one side you have Mofe, an engineer and electrician trying to provide for his sister and er family when she tragically passes away leaving him with the problems on his shoulders. On the other side is Rosa, a woman working odd jobs trying to support and care for her pregnant sister which may come at the cost of giving herself up for marriage and negating a relationship that may be a wholesome one with a future. Beautifully shot, the film puts you on the shoulders of two lives that may look bleak in the outcome but are enriched with soul.

THERE IS NO TRAILER FOR THIS ONE

Time – Another black and white shot film but this time it’s an emotionally affecting documentary and for the first time this festival I was extremely grateful that this is a virtual festival this year so other filmgoers wouldn’t see me shedding tears at the end of this film. From filmmaker Garrett Bradley, this is the hard-hitting story of Fox Rich, a black woman and the wife of Rob, a man convicted to a sixty-year prison sentence for a robbery they both committed in the early 90s in a moment of desperation when both of their kids were toddlers. For the last two decades, Fox, now an entrepreneur and a fierce abolitionist has campaigned for the release of her husband and we see this struggle documented with family video and the follow-along that Bradley did with her and the final result is such a powerful story and an indictment on the lopsided nature of the law, the harshness of those who convict black men in America and the justice system as a whole. Another deeply affecting documentary for this festival that can be described no loss then must see.

Another Round – One of my most anticipated films of the festival, I was already seeing great reactions to this new Thomas Vinterberg film on Twitter before I even got the chance to check it out and they are all very much warranted. Starring one of my favorite international actors of all time, Mads Mikkelsen, the story is about four friends, all high school teachers, who embark on an experiment where they each sustain a certain level of alcohol intoxication during their everyday life, believing that all people, in general, would benefit from a bit higher Blood Alcohol Content. As a result, their working experiences are turned upside down, forcing their lives into deeper turmoil than they were in the first place. The performances are phenomenal as the story keeps descending into a chaotic nose dive until an odd resolution that seems like a conflicted triumph, What a pure cinematic gem this movie is!

The Reason I Jump – Being the parent of a child that is on the spectrum of ADHD with slight autism, documentaries like this are fascinating to me and I entered this film with a bit of fear but a healthy amount of curiosity as well. Based on a book written by a non-speaking Japanese thirteen-year-old boy named Naoki Higashida this film explores the experiences of nonspeaking autistic people around the world from each kid as well as their parents. It’s so interesting to see the connections between the behaviours of each child and see how culture and global geography influences how differently each child is dealt with, all in good ways, and what the crossover was. It gets pretty emotional any time you are dealing with children and their mental wellbeing.

VIFF 2020: My First Five Films

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September 28, 2020

There Is No Evil – Well, I guess I wanted to start my festival off with something pretty heavy and I found it in this Iranian film, co-produced by Germany and the Czech Republic. Written and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof and the winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, this film is divided into four stories set in Iran all dealing with the brutal death penalty sentences that are given out without regard by the authorities. Each of the stories deals with different very distinctive human themes, the first story focusing on a man’s devotion to his family, the second following an executioner who has lost his ability to make these prisoners anonymous like as his co-workers do, the third on how the grief is dealt with in these situations and the fourth focuses on the estrangement of familial bonds that are a direct result of the second story. Beautifully shot and always thoughtful in its repose, Rasoulof leaves you with so much food for thought when the final credits roll.

Last And First Men – So it looks like the next type of movie I wanted to cross off the list immediately was the “hard to unpack” film but this is one I was certainly looking forward to as it was the directorial debut of one of my favorite composers, Johann Johansson, who passed sadly away two years ago. His arrival as a feature filmmaker definitely leaves you for a thirst for what he could have created beyond this as this film presents itself as a documentary shot in black and white with narration from Tilda Swinton but only at first as we slowly realize that the aged stone structures and landscapes we are seeing are of a world where humanity is on the brink of extinction and all that there is left is to beam essentially the codex of humankind to the ethos of the galaxy. The film’s tone comes off as artistically scientific and evoked feelings of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in its visuals mixed with a side of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Knowing how gifted of a composer Johansson is, it’s not hard to feel that this film was completely drafted to the ominous tone in his mind. This movie is definitely a hard sell to any casual viewer.

Special Actors – This is definitely the shift in tone I was looking for and after the last Shin’ichirô Ueda, the incredible One Cut Of The Dead which I caught at the festival three years ago, this is one of my most anticipated films of this year’s collection. Leaving the one-take zombie cinema for a more narrative approach, Ueda still keeps the twists and turns alive for this story of Kazuto, a shy and afflicted young man who has a lifelong dream of becoming an actor, but has been suffering from a special medical condition where he faints and collapses when he gets nervous. His brother presents him with an opportunity to take his hopes and put it into guerrilla-style acting that puts him in real situations to coerce, con or, in the film’s major case, disrupt scams. Ueda is taking an almost Fight Club Project Mayhem styling and using it to juggle multiple themes in it, always keeping you on your toes, and on a shoestring budget. It doesn’t equal up to his last effort but it was a fun ride.

No Ordinary Man – In one of the most effective and soul-bearing documentaries I have seen in recent memory, directors  Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt and writer Amos Mac explore the life of American Jazz musician Billy Tipton who, moments after his death was revealed to be a woman living as a man by his son which then resulted with his family being paraded all over tabloid television as a rating grabbing freak show. In this film, Tipton’s story is reimagined and performed by trans artists as they are brought together in an audition like situation to paint a portrait of a posthumous trans hero and relate their stories to the struggle Tipton went through in his era. The filmmakers also go to Tipton’s son Billy Jr. to reconcile a complicated and contested legacy that has informed his entire adult life without seeing the boundaries his father had broken for trans and non-binary around the world. This documentary was thoroughly fascinating and informative, my first great doc of the festival.

Merkel: Anatomy Of A Crisis – Maybe it’s the fact that I don’t live in Germany or that the orange tyrant we know as Trump is so large and looming over North America but I have to say that I consider Dr. Angela Merkel as one of my favorite leaders on the planet and not just from the cold shoulder she gave to previously mentioned Cheeto Mussolini. This film kind of boosted up that view and also, in small moments, gives the softer side to the German Prime Minister as it follows her decision in the fall of 2015 to open the borders for refugees and how it divided the opinion of the country, some praising the moral stance, others criticizing the surrender of sovereignty. On the outside, it all appeared to be well-planned activity but in reality, it was a policy of muddling along, chance, trial and error, a hair’s breadth from spinning out of control and taking down Merkel’s entire administration with it. The film shows the power struggles and playing against each other that ensued in the time of leading up to the final decision in a way that feels almost surgical in its depiction. If you enjoy a good heady political drama then you will love this one.

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