ADORATION – Atom Egoyan
Following the glossy Where the Truth Lies, Adoration is a throwback to the intimacy of Egoyan’s earlier, more complex work. Simon (Devon Bostick) is a half-Lebanese, half-Anglo high school student whose social circle meets almost nightly in an Internet chat room. While translating a story for his French class, he radically re-writes it on a whim, turning it into an autobiography about his fictional terrorist father. Simon’s fascinated teacher (Arsinee Khanjian), asks him to expand it for a drama presentation, but does not anticipate that he will post it on the Internet as truth. Simon’s parents, as seen in flashback, are cartoonishly pure, depicted in stilted and clumsy dialogue. Egoyan is on target in his depiction of the Internet as a breeding ground for fear and hatred, raising troubling questions about the lingering racism that that has been given a new lease after 9/11. Adoration may be flawed, but like all of Egoyan’s work, it’s both earnest and intriguing.
Rating: VVVv
APPALOOSA
Ed Harris
In the rare case that a new Western is made, it’s usually either revisionist or ironic. It is rather surprising, to see Appaloosa — a Western that is unapologetically old-fashioned. Ed Harris plays a no-nonsense sheriff with Viggo Mortensen as his loyal deputy. The pair are faced with the daunting challenge of cleaning up the small, corrupt town of Appaloosa, while vanquishing the murderous but well-connected Jeremy Irons. Meanwhile, Harris falls in love with an attractive widow (Renee Zellweger), but her affections are less than constant. Harris and Mortensen are ideal actors for this material — they’re stoic, manly, and appear to have been left out in the sun too long. Zellweger, so frequently miscast, has an ideal role. Appaloosa revels in its spare, dusty atmosphere, from the period costumes to a musical score that’s straight out of a John Wayne film.
Rating:VVVV
BLINDNESS – Fernando Meirelles
When Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness opened the Cannes film festival last May, it went over like a lead balloon. It’s not hard to see why: based on the novel by José Saramago with a screenplay by Don McKellar (who also contributes one of his surlier performances), Blindness is a nightmarish work about human degradation and the downfall of civilization, a cross between Children of Men and Salo. The film depicts in eerily plausible terms what would happen if an unexplainable and incurable pandemic of blindness swept the United States. As an exploration of the implications of an end-of-world scenario, with a cast that includes Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, and Gael Garcia Bernal, Blindness is powerful and uncompromising, though it may not be something you’d want to endure.
Rating:VVVVV
BURN AFTER READING – Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Following the success of No Country for Old Men, the Coen Brothers return with another film about a stolen plot device. A fitness guru (Brad Pitt) finds a disc containing the memoirs of an ex-CIA agent (John Malkovich) said to contain explosive revelations. Pitt and co-worker Frances McDormand plan to blackmail Malkovich, but their startling incompetence leads to assorted shenanigans. Aside from Tilda Swinton and Richard Jenkins, the actors approach this material with ironic detachment (expect much mugging). Alas, the Coens take the same alienating approach. While they seem to think that the idea of over-their-head half-wits is intrinsically hilarious, there are few guffaws. This is the Coen’s weakest film to date.
Rating:VV
EDISON & LEO – Neil Burns
The villain of Neil Burns’ stop motion fantasy is an inventor named George T. Edison. Credited with inventing the light bulb and the motion picture camera, the film suggests some similarities with a certain Thomas A. Edison, and the fact that he has a son named Faraday confuses matters even more. Yet two questions persist during this film: who was it made for, and to whom could it possibly appeal? Edison & Leo begins like a movie for kids, with a tone that eventually darkens enough to include nasty violence and crude sex jokes. Despite the adult content, the characters embody the same two-dimensional archetypes laid down in the Gospel According to Disney, with voice actors (including Powers Boothe and Carly Pope) that recite their dialogue in patronizing tones they might use if reading a storybook aloud to a particularly slow-witted child. While the stop motion animation is fun for a few minutes, the characters are given so many annoying mannerisms (aggressive hand-gesturing, eyebrow-raising, etc.) that it grows tiresome.
Rating: Vv
EXAMINED LIFE – Astra Taylor
In this National Film Board co-production, Cornell West, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Zizek, Pete Singer, and other contemporary philosophers are asked to explain how to live a meaningful life. It’s a surprisingly complicated question, as the film is a veritable orgy of philosophical theory. Each of the interviewees wrestle with the near-impossible task of viewing human nature and ethics objectively. A sample of the issues brought up: can secular humanists believe in objective ethics? Is revolution possible in a first-world country? Why is it more satisfying to believe that catastrophic events have a higher meaning? Can humans ever attain absolute truth? These are the types of questions that college students debate at 4 A.M., fueled by caffeine or other, more illicit substances. To Examined Life’s credit, it possesses much of the same excited spirit of intellectual inquisitiveness.
Rating: VVVv
HEAVEN ON EARTH – Deepa Mehta
Chand (Bollywood star Preity Zinta), a young Indian woman, is sent to live in Canada as part of an arranged marriage. In the establishing scenes, all of the characters are dressed in traditional Indian clothing. Coupled with the fact that arranged marriage is anachronistic to the average western filmgoer, Heaven on Earth initially takes on the look and feel of a period piece. Yet the contrast is jarring when we see Chand applying make-up in a modern airplane bathroom, growing starker when her depressive husband begins beating her with little provocation. With films like Water, director Deepa Mehta has often contrasted the role of the modern Indian women with their function in the traditional family unit. Though Heaven on Earth heads for supernatural territory, Mehta is most effective with the shocking and uncomfortably realistic scenes of domestic abuse.
Rating:VVVVv
IL DIVO – Paolo Sorrentino
Il Divo begins with an ‘Italian glossary,’ defining several key Italian political terms from the early 1990s. While I appreciate the attempt to keep the viewer well-oriented, I was thinking, “Wait, hang on…could you say all that again, a little slower?” Either way, Il Divo doesn’t slow down. As it covers the fall from grace of Christian Democrat leader Guilio Andreotti, seemingly dozens of true-life characters are introduced, corrupted, killed, elected, rejected, and prosecuted. Sorrentino’s aggressive directorial virtuosity recalls a Goodfellas and Casino-era Martin Scorsese, with long tracking shots, fast cutting, roving camerawork, and a general atmosphere of hyperactivity. While his style is coolly distancing rather than engrossing, I suspect Il Divo will improve upon repeated viewings, when the labyrinthine intricacy of the plot will hopefully become clearer.
Rating: VVV
LA FILLE DE MONACO – Anne Fontaine
In one of his Life in Hell comic strips, Matt Groening described what he believes to be cinema’s greatest paradox: “The French are funny, sex is funny, and comedies are funny, yet no French sex comedies are funny.” La Fille de Monaco does little to dispel this notion. Bertrand (Fabrice Luchini) is a top attorney whose current trial is high profile enough that he needs 24-hour protection from Christophe (Roschdy Zem), a no-nonsense bodyguard. Almost by accident, he strikes up a relationship with Audrey (Louise Bourgouin), a sexually adventurous femme fatale who provides his life with certain fringe benefits, but also adds to his neuroses. The fact that she once had a fling with Christophe adds extra tension. The film’s first half is a light and fizzy screwball comedy with shallow characterization: Bertrand is uptight and bumbling, Christophe is scowling and imposing, and Audrey is a two-dimensional vixen. In the second half, director Anne Fontaine veers into more dramatic territory, as Christophe’s conflicted feelings about Audrey become increasingly intense. But by establishing the characters as paper-thin, Fontaine hasn’t given us any reason to care about them in the conclusion.
Rating: VV
PASSCHENDAELE – Paul Gross
Ten years and $20 million in the making, Paul Gross’ Canadian war epic has lofty expectations to live up to. I suspect Gross will have a tough time with the critics, who will probably dismiss the film as corny and melodramatic. Gross stars as a shell-shocked WWI veteran haunted by memories of Vimy Ridge who falls in love with an Albertan nurse. She has problems of her own — her father died fighting on the German side, and her asthmatic younger brother is determined to fight in the war despite his 4F status. Gross goes overboard on the symbolism (at one point, he actually a carries a cross through a battlefield), and I doubt the road to Canadian box office success is paved by resurrecting the hoariest clichés from the American War Movie Playbook. Passchendaele does, however, climax with a humdinger of a battle scene that will undoubtedly become a staple for particularly dry grade 10 history classes.
Rating: VVv
RELIGULOUS – Larry Charles
One’s appreciation of Religulous depends on their appreciation of Bill Maher. This documentary follows him touring the holy lands, the Bible Belt, and a few odd religious offshoots (a gay correctional centre, a creationist history museum) as he makes the case that religious institutions are corrupt and hypocritical and that faith leads to bigotry, irrationality, and closed-mindedness. While Maher interviews many, he’s less interested in debate than forwarding his own hypothesis. Is there anything to learn, for example, from the long scene where Maher runs logical rings around a guy who plays Jesus at a theme park except that Maher is more quick-witted than the average theme park worker? I wish he showed more of the intelligent religious defenders and less dim radicals. Nevertheless, Maher is smart and witty, and even if his observations are old news, they’re still fascinating. Isn’t it a little disturbing that so many people take “the talking snake” literally? Isn’t the idea of living a good life only to get into heaven an immoral one? Isn’t it astounding when a fundamentalist senator smugly proclaims, “You don’t need to pass an IQ test to get into the Senate?” I would have preferred if Maher and Larry Charles tried to spark debate instead of just defending their foregone conclusion, but Religulous is an articulate, sometimes funny, and fairly substantial defense of atheism.
Rating:VVV
SUGAR – Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Instead of being lured to the high budget big leagues, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have followed up their acclaimed Half Nelson with another small-scale slice-of-life, which I found even more interesting than their breakthrough. Miguel ‘Sugar’ Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) is a dynamic Puerto Rican baseball player who is invited to the United States minor leagues. Unable to speak English and placed in a country that regards him patronizingly, he finds it difficult to adapt. Sugar is a convincing film about culture shock and self-confidence, and Boden and Fleck’s nonjudgmental treatment of the characters is admirable.
Rating:VVV
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK – Charlie Kaufman
How to describe Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York, a surreal pseudo-comedy about a self-loathing playwright (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who aims to stage a life-sized version of a small city as his next production? It’s a hall of mirrors. It’s not linear. It’s cumbersome. It’s dense. It’s funny and groan-worthy, pretentious and sublime. It’s cubist, mannerist, realist, abstract, non-representational, baroque, and rococo. It’s James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Kurt Vonnegut, Philip Roth, Harvey Pekar, and Dr. Seuss. It’s Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Woody Allen, David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini — both the Coens and the Farrelly Brothers. I found this film brilliant, tiresome, fraudulent, ridiculous, intelligent, weird, moving, emotional, sterile, self-satisfied, ambitious, innovative, calculated, spectacular, sad, gross, entertaining, narcissistic, delightful, overreaching, and fun. It made me feel enthralled, excited, depressed, lonely, intrigued, exhausted, exasperated, elated, and frustrated. And so obviously, I can’t wait to see it again.
Rating:VVVVV
WALTZ WITH BASHIR – Ari Folman
The principal reason to see Waltz with Bashir is the extraordinary quality and originality of its animation. For his animated documentary about the first Lebanese war, Ari Folman has taken actual audio recordings of interviews with war veterans, animating both the interviews and flashbacks in a style that brings to mind Persepolis, Waking Life, and a paper puppet show. As much as I enjoyed looking at Waltz with Bashir, the animation doesn’t suit the material. As the interviewees describe their guilt over taking part in acts that were arguably genocidal, the whimsical animation places a filter of irony in front of their harrowing memories. Only in the final moments when Folman shows archival footage of the war’s aftermath does the film achieve the emotional resonance it requires.
Rating: VVv
ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO – Kevin Smith
During the long ordeal that was Zack and Miri Make a Porno, I reflected upon a brief moment in the ‘90s when Kevin Smith seemed to have the potential to be a truly interesting cinematic voice. These days, it’s more lame sex jokes from the man who brought you the bestiality scene in Clerks 2. Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are longtime platonic friends and roommates that have hit financial woes. To pay off their debt, they decide to direct and star in a porno, with the agreement that the on-screen copulating will be strictly business. Predictably, they find that having sex changes their dynamic. While Smith’s snickering attitude towards sex and pornography will be a riot to anyone who is still in grade seven, his racial humour is unpleasant and pointless. The cast (an eclectic bunch that includes Craig Robinson, Traci Lords, Justin Long, Jason Mewes, and Katie Morgan) is game, but Smith’s profane rat-a-tat dialogue, so fresh and original in Clerks and Chasing Amy, now sounds like a guy trying to cash in.
Rating: VV
