The Bloor Cinema held a complimentary screening of It’s a Wonderful Life for members last week; it’s another tribute to what can be done with steady direction, good chemistry between cast members, and a sensible screenplay. Ranked thirty-second among I.M.D.B.’s top films, I never found it particularly great. At times, it seems to drag. Viewing the film in a full theatre erased some of those complaints as the film really has a lot of humourous lines. Certain scenes may be slightly old-fashioned (the scenes in Slap Shot don’t age well but it’s still an excellent comedy) but the messages that …
Older Films
Today, although it is rarely aired on television and rarely screened at cinemas, 12 Angry Men is an excellent film that highlights many of the faults in modern filmmaking (even in modern culture). The strengths of the film are tremendous performances and a meaningful script. Henry Fonda’s Juror #8 is clear-headed and well-spoken, using salient logical points to make his argument. Other Jurors have superficial biases or deeper internal conflicts and are gradually won over due to a sensible line of reasoning. Thanks to the individual actors, the viewer can see how each member of the jury must deliberate within …
Toronto Stories
Toronto Stories begins with a series of diverse people passing through customs and ends with a wide-angle shot of a homeless man crossing the street and entering the dense maze of downtown. The link between these two diverse scenes (the personalities of the travelers and the soulless nature of the city) is a mysterious boy of unknown origin who does not speak English. Alongside the tapestry of tales of people moving on and doing their best in their different lives, there is a thread that asks how the city would be perceived by a newcomer who knew nothing about Toronto …
Doubt
Contradictions and contrasts abound throughout Doubt: good and evil, summer and winter, certainty and doubt. Largely due to the captivating performances of Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the audience experiences similar opposite emotions. Who is in the right: Streep’s stern Sister Aloysius or Hoffman’s relaxed Father Flynn? As the seasons change, so does the apparent truth. “What’s this? The wind is so … peripatetic this year,” comments Sister Aloysius early in the film. Later, as Father Flynn arrives in the parish with new ideas, the school principal fights back, criticizing the priest regarding matters ranging from his close relationship …
The Class
For teachers, Laurent Cantet’s Palme d’Or winning film, Entre les murs, is a mirror on their daily lives. For others, it’s a window into a public school system that has changed a great deal during the past twenty years. François Marin teaches the French language to junior high students in the 20th Arrondissement in Paris. Over the course of the year, both teachers and students face many trials and tribulations. At the end, almost everyone admits that they have learned something and they all get along during a staff-student soccer match. However, the year is not a success for all, …
High and Low
Nothing blew up. Nobody fell off of a roof in Vienna. Numerous scenes unfolded without any dialogue. Yet Akira Kurosawa successfully crafted a film in 1963 that surpasses most modern action films. The plot revolved around a kidnapping mystery, which was revealed gradually as the villain and his persistent police pursuers matched wits. Scenes with hardly any action were incredibly tense, as a result of the actors’ performances, the film’s pacing, and the simple score. There was a connection between the characters and the audience which made a two and half hour film fly by. Kingo Gondo, played by Toshiro …
Quantum of Solace
When a franchise becomes over-extended, it becomes a parody of itself. It reflects incredibly poorly upon Quantum of Solace that the most memorable moment of the film is a reference to an earlier James Bond story: like Auric Goldfinger covered Jill Masterson in gold, Dominic Greene covered another one of Bond’s failed loves with crude. (Similar to how Halle Barry’s emergence from the ocean is more a nod to Ursula Andress and Doctor No than a part of Die Another Day.) The visual is striking because of the earlier scene that it parodies; Agent Fields appeared far too briefly for …
Synecdoche, New York
“The visible world is no longer a reality and the unseen world no longer a dream.” – W.B. YeatsSynecdoche, New York, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and directed by Charlie Kaufman opened to mixed reviews this past weekend. I thought it was a good film. Kaufman’s directorial debut delves into death, divorce, and decay. The protagonist, Caden Cotard, a struggling director in Schenectady, New York reads the obituaries of different friends in the newspaper as September turns into November in a single morning. Eventually, Caden’s wife leaves him and he becomes paranoid about his health. He receives an apparently unlimited grant …
What Just Happened?
“Indeed,” remarked the cinema patrons as they left Robert DeNiro’s latest film What Just Happened? “Was that a comedy or a drama?” said one. “I have no clue,” replied another. “Just keep walking,” urged a third. Did a comedy happen? Or a drama? I was hoping that an absurd series of events would parody Hollywood like Get Shorty. Or maybe a disaffected protagonist grinding his way through a series of soulless setbacks, like directory Barry Levinson’s T.V. series Homicide and Oz. If not that, then two leading actors bantering back and forth and satirizing their field, like another Levinson-DeNiro collaboration …
Body of Lies
Body of Lies is unfortunately less than the sum of its parts. Fortunately, it’s made with a number of top quality parts (Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe, and Leonardo DiCaprio) so it’s still a very entertaining story. Crowe has worked with director Scott in previous films such as American Gangster and Gladiator and they always do well together. Body of Lies is much closer in quality, scale, and significance to the more recent American Gangster than the Academy Award winning Gladiator. It is still a film that is worth seeing. I am tired of films with taglines such as “Trust No …
Burnt After Reading
Several individuals counseled me to avoid the Coen Brothers’ film Burn After Reading on account of poor reviews but I found that these opinions strengthened my resolve. After viewing the black comedy, I did not find myself to be disappointed, nor did the rest of the audience at the Varsity Cinemas. The film lacks the drama and tension of “No Country for Old Men” but provides numerous laughs, thanks to an absurd screenplay and ridiculous performances. Borrowing (or perhaps “adapting) shocking scenes from Pulp Fiction and Fargo, Burn After Reading is fairly violent. I found J.K. Simmons deadpan character to …
The Dark Knight and The Graduate
Over the weekend I watched two films, The Dark Knight in IMAX and The Graduate on DVD. Directors Christopher Nolan and Mike Nichols created two excellent films but only one of the two is truly an all-time great (despite what IMDB’s All-Time Ratings indicate at the moment). On the six-storey IMAX screen, The Dark Knight is spectacular. Panoramic shots are crystal clear and one can appreciate the scale of Gotham City. The monologues and dialogues are even more intense; the size of the presentation does great justice to the performances of Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, and Aaron Eckhart. But the …
Four Bond Films
I decided to compare a few of the early James Bond stories that I have been reading and watching lately. Casino Royale Book (1953): This is an excellent detective novel. Ian Fleming also showcases his writing for the first time and acquits himself admirably. The style is concise and memorable; there are some nods to the dialogue in the most recent film adaptation. Unlike the action-themed film, the novel focuses more on the Baccarat game between James Bond and Le Chiffre (it’s disappointing that the film chose to focus the gambling around Texas Hold-em rather than Bond’s traditional game of …
Seconds
Circulation Restreinte Carlos Sastre won the 2008 Tour de France. Cadel Evans was second, for the second consecutive year. Evans had a chance to claim the yellow jersey during Saturday’s time trial but he did not capitalize on his superior potential against the clock. Either he hurt himself more than he let on when he fell in the Pyranées or he can improve upon his mental training. Last year, the Australian had a chance to pass eventual winner Alberto Contador in a similar situation – one stage left, short time to make up – and could not. This year, Evans …
Deux films
Deux cinémas Two films that I watched over the weekend had similar themes. La Nouvelle vie de Monsieur Horten, Norwegian with French subtitles (a past Cannes selection and a future TIFF selection), and Nos 18 ans were good films, developed smoothly (and promptly), and talked about how to set priorities and enjoy life. La Nouvelle vie de M. Horten, was an intelligent version of The Bucket List. It is a quiet film with moments of absurd humour. Odd Horten is a train conducteur who is forced to retire and doesn’t know what to do with himself. Single and living near …
Shine a Light
Martin Scorsese’s film about a Rolling Stones concert, Shine a Light, puts on a good show. I was expecting more of a documentary; not This Is Spinal Tap but a film that shone light on the band’s intricacies, like how that Simpsons’ episode revealed that Keith Richards spikes his lemonade and Mick Jagger mows his own lawn. Bill Clinton introduces the Stones and mentions that he did likewise at a climate change fundraiser because “they care as much about this issues as we do.” Hopefully they purchased carbon emission credits to make up for lights that were “burning [Mick Jagger’s] …