The list of films I saw, in reverse chronological order.
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MARCH |
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Flower And Garnet
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Most powerful in the small: painful silences, the spaces left behind by
action, perfectly ordinary details of day-to-day existence that can't
help but resonate with the greater experience. Less successful on the
larger scale, where it opts for the old standbys of earnest smalltown
drama. Dad (Callum Keith Rennie, solidly playing his age for a change)
has emotionally withdrawn from his children. Teenage daughter (Jane
McGregor, a find) rebels. Young son (Colin Roberts, either perfectly
pitching his performance or steadfastly sticking with a single facial
expression, not quite sure which) self-destructs. Behrman's a talent,
no doubt. Despite the slightness of its story, much of his film rings
true, avoiding most of the missteps inherent in such TV-movie material
and crafting at least one perfectly judged scene: father and son fishing,
bonding not over the success of the venture but over its abject failure,
only to resign the entire experience to the trash-heap of family
betrayal when the outing is revealed to be an utter sham, a cruel
exercise designed to keep a too-devoted brother away from home while
his sister moves away.
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Tales From The Gimli Hospital
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Only a neophyte and already in full bloom, although Maddin's more
recent work has better reconciled the push/pull between irony and,
if not sincerity, then perhaps an acknowledgement that older modes
of storytelling still retain considerable power. The self-conscious
weirdness is a double edged sword, giving the film its welcome
cultish sense of humour yet detracting somewhat from its last-minute
dash towards all-out melodrama.
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The Last Letter
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Affecting monologue detailing one woman's life in a WWII Jewish
ghetto spins the unashamedly personal into the universal -- it's
because we get to know the character (expertly performed by
Catherine Samie) in such intimate detail that we come to imagine
ourselves in her place. Wiseman follows suit, making striking use
of silhouettes to render Samie as but one part of a larger entity
or as a lone figure isolated in a single shaft of light.
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25th Hour
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It all feels just right, not necessarily the plot (which has its fair
share of narrative question marks) so much as the characters, the actors
never taking a wrong step as Spike masterfully directs the individual
and ensemble trajectories that form the events leading up to a condemned
man's final hours of freedom in post-9/11 New York: Norton the drug-dealer
stopping to save a scrappy-looking pooch from certain death; high and
mighty cops putting the emotional screws to their latest catch; Pepper
exploding in a fury of accusations aimed directly at the complicity of
Norton's girlfriend; Hoffman's guilty lust melting away in a post-kiss
epiphany. (Spike only muffs it twice: the sudden rise in music as he
surveys a Ground Zero cleanup crew from on high clumsily announces the
importance of the scene; the extended 'Fuck You' monologue feels like a
cheaply made student film crowbarred into the larger narrative, but at
least its presence becomes less galling when it finally pays off late
in the film.) Although prison rape panic (perhaps born of watching too
many _Oz_ episodes) is the spoken reason for the violence of the friends'
last encounter, the real catalyst is more likely Norton's desire for
punishment intersecting with Pepper's anger over not kicking Norton's
ass sooner. Is there a certain amount of irony that Spike's most
confident and artistically successful film of the last decade is a
depiction of multiple crises of confidence? Even when offered an
extended temptation to run, a scene which expertly teases the audience
with the question of just what constitutes a happy ending, Norton
appears unable to make a decision, guilty of the same glide-along
mentality that has sealed his fate.
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Love Me Tonight
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Thoroughly entertaining. Tailor Maurice Chevalier chases some unpaid
bills to an enclave of gathered royalty (a "one man French Revolution",
he calls his mission) only to end up impersonating a Baron and romancing
a princess (Jeanette MacDonald). The songs aren't much to write home
about -- apart from the indelible "Isn't It Romantic", the musical
numbers mostly consist of actors rhythmically talking as the orchestra
plays a generic march behind them -- but Mamoulian's use of them to
bridge space is striking: "Isn't It Romantic" invades head after head
as the film follows its journey from Chevalier's shop to a camp of
gypsies; "Love Me Tonight" unites two dreaming lovers; the opening
sequence pieces together the sounds of a new Paris morning into a
rhythmic collage. These and many of the film's other endearing
flights of fancy are enlivened by Mamoulian's keen visual sense
(love the puff of railroad steam that engulfs the reunited couple
come the film's close) and his seemingly natural sense of comic
timing. Even the standard stereotypes of the moneyed classes --
dotty sexpot, free-spending sponge, well-meaning spinster, stern
patriarch, persistent stick-in-the-mud -- come alive with loony
unpredictability and saucy innuendo. The repulsiveness of
Chevalier's self-centered chauvinism is overcome through the
sheer force of his personality; perhaps that's why, apart from
the dictates of formula, Jeanette MacDonald suddenly succumbs
to his charms at the one hour mark after she'd been so studiously
rebuffing the man's advances.
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The Face Behind The Mask
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A bit flat, as Florey jumps the various sections of his narrative
-- a hopeful immigrant finds physical deformation, true friendship,
the underworld, a knack for crime and even redemption through
love -- like a kid playing hopscotch. Each new twist in the
story is tried on for size, but no single one is given time to
fully breathe other than the wickedly cruel finale of bitter,
no-turning-back revenge. Florey's direction (especially of
his secondary performers) ranges from the economical to the
haphazard, but it is enlivened considerably by three short
montage sequences that are the stuff of Coen brothers' dreams.
Lorre's performance, however, is never in question. His
transformation from naive newcomer to smooth criminal is
as abrupt as anything else in the film, but both sides of
the character are played with an expert command of body
language and facial expression.
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Max
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More interested in concepts -- the solace of tradition in the face of
uncertain modernity, the ability of human beings to reinvent themselves
as necessary, social transformation through politics as the ultimate
expression of art -- than in developing these notions into a coherent
character arc for our Mr. Hitler. To that end, we should have had
more of the future fuhrer (Noah Taylor being very unpleasant) and less
of Max (Cusack on autopilot), whose relationships with
family/wife/mistress/business partners hold little sustaining
interest. The ending is painfully telegraphed and cheaply ironic.
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West Of Zanzibar
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O wondrous cruelty! At little more than five minutes into this
briskly paced silent, Lon Chaney already lies crippled on the
pavement vowing to wreak revenge on the man who spirited
his wife away to Africa and the "brat" the couple sired. Of
course, it's never that simple, and the film's eminently guessable
twist ensures that as much as we enjoy watching Chaney's eyes
light up with visions of sadism (he's not unlike a skinnier,
more perverse version of Vin Diesel in this shaved-head guise),
we won't have to follow through on its promise.
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Three Sisters
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Three tales of women in India -- underprivileged girl takes lessons
from an older man, woman craves jewels more than the love of her
husband, rambunctious girl matures through marriage -- that just
might be uncomfortably chauvinistic, although Ray's typically
pared-down sensibilities make it hard to tell just what he is
getting at. Also prone to an emotional flatness that makes the
simplicity of the stories more quotidian than iconic.
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The New Option
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Pure formula. Like the previous entries in the 'Option' series,
The New Option follows a batch of recruits
for Hong Kong's SDU force, leavening the rather mechanical training exercises
commanded by Stone (Michael Wong) with some gentle character-based
humour before finally introducing a larger plot in which the group's
newly learned skills can be put to use. The outside-looking-in
point-of-view provided by unfairly rejected SDU wannabe Jackie Law
(Shawn Yu) gives
the enterprise something of a fresh spin, but the unnecessary, poorly
integrated side-step of Jackie's post-rejection depression ultimately
goes nowhere while the should-be colourful villains -- a gang of goofballs
with a cocky, intelligent leader (Patrick Tam) -- are left to flounder
until the final shootout brings the whole mess to a close with equal parts
predictability and incomprehensibility. One of the prime selling points
(for me) of the first 'Option' film
(curiously titled Final Option)
was the high Michael Wong-humiliation factor. Sadly, there's little of
that here, although Wong's attempts at projecting a sense of
military-styled manliness continues to provide a certain amount of amusement.
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Infernal Affairs
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Solid cops'n'triads flick, marred only by the occasional bit of
unnecessary flashiness and an unfortunate tendency to nakedly state
its themes in tacked-on romantic subplots. The script's many twists
and turns keep tension levels high through a number of near-confrontations,
pitting moles in both a drug smuggling ring and the police force
itself against one another as they simultaneously try to protect
their cover and keep information flowing to their respective
bosses. In contrast to the many flicks in which an undercover
police officer becomes tempted by the darkness that surrounds him,
here it is the crook in cop's clothing that wants to switch sides.
Whether this is a true change of character or merely an example of
shameless opportunism, the officially sanctioned power of the law
nevertheless puts the fate of his counterpart entirely in his hands.
Andy Lau brings a prickly uncertainty to the role of a one-time criminal
who likes the taste of respect that comes with his new position,
and although Tony Leung is typically excellent as his opposite, the casting
choice unfortunately recalls his superiour performance in a similar role
in John Woo's Hard Boiled. Meanwhile, Anthony Wong and Eric
Tsang stand around acting like they run things, which is exactly as
it should be.
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Whale Rider
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Sure to send cynics running for the exits (or have them snickering in
their seats) even as it will certainly delight the middlebrow contingent
with its unvarnished earnestness. As ever, I'm caught in the middle,
a confirmed agnostic who doesn't want much truck with religious
mysticism outside the realm of fantasy or metaphor but nevertheless a man
who takes a certain amount of pleasure in displays of liberal progressiveness.
If you can turn off the irony and intellectual superiority that define
certain pockets of Western culture, however, there is something of
note to be found in Caro's picture, namely a tale of hope through
progress that is told in the religious symbology of the
culture it portrays. It's far from perfect -- early scenes are roughly
acted and the character of Koro, the old chief, is initially too hardline
to be believable in any context -- but as the film progresses, Koro
takes on a fierce dignity that makes his Maori 101 scenes with the
tribe's young boys something more than mere cultural exposition. For him to
change his hidebound ways requires a message to be delivered in the
kind of language his old-world mind understands; when it comes, the
way his resolve melts into humility in a few short seconds is nothing
short of heartbreaking. We don't get to see new hope Pai deal with the
issues that plague her tribe, but perhaps it's for the best. Caro
is wise enough to weave problems such as alcoholism into the backdrop
of her story without insulting the seriousness of such issues by
offering easy solutions.
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The Truth About Charlie
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Initially irresistible, largely due to Thandie Newton's typically
irrepressible charisma and the infectious sense of possibility
Demme brings to the filming of this European lark (love
the Charles Aznavour bit), but by the time the plot revelations
start coming fast and furious, it's clear that Demme has lost
control of the film's once-breezy tone and doesn't have a clue how
to maximize the impact of its narrative twists.
It might have worked better with someone other than Mark Wahlberg
as the male lead; the "love conquers all" finale and the flights
of fancy that follow in the end credits are left to twist in the wind
as Wahlberg once again opts for earnestness over much-needed suavity.
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February 2003 |
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Notes: If the feature film listed is less than four years old, the year
that accompanies it is the year of its release in Toronto. If the feature
is older or if it has not been released in Toronto, the year listed
is derived from the IMDB. In the latter case, the year is preceded
by the characters 'nr'. TV movies are listed by year of first broadcast
and are preceded by the characters 'tv'. Years for short films
are retrieved from wherever I can find information.
Legend:
Confused by my idiosyncratic 5-star rating system? Here's an explanation.
tv = I saw the movie on television
video = I saw the movie on videotape
dvd = I saw the movie on dvd
ld = I saw the movie on laserdisc
infl = I saw the movie on a plane
net = I saw the movie streamed on the internet
vp = I saw the movie projected from a video source
qba = print/video quality below average
r = repeat viewing -- I had previously seen the movie sometime in my adult life
pre = pre-release viewing -- I saw the movie in advance of its release to Toronto theatres
tiff = I saw the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival
fest = I saw the movie at one of Toronto's many small film festivals
ot = I saw the movie outside of Toronto
orig = I saw the original-language version
dub = I saw the English-dubbed version
tntv = tentative grade; I was considerably distracted during the screening or missed significant sections of the film
zzz = I slept through a considerable portion of the film, so take my
grade with a grain of salt
| My Scale | What It Means | Letter Grade | 4-Star Scale | Pro/Mixed/Con |
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| 5 / 5 | All-time great | A+ | 4 | Pro |
| 4.5 / 5 | One of the year's best | A | ||
| 4.25 / 5 | Damn good | A- | 3.5 | |
| 4 / 5 | Very good | B+ | ||
| 3.75 / 5 | Quite good | |||
| 3.5 / 5 | Good | B | 3 | |
| 3.25 / 5 | Decent | |||
| 3 / 5 | Ok | B- | 2.5 | Mixed |
| 2.75 / 5 | Almost, but not quite | C+ | ||
| 2.5 / 5 | Has its moments | C | 2 | Con |
| 2 / 5 | Not good | C- | 1.5 | |
| 1.5 / 5 | Very bad | D | 1 | |
| 1 / 5 | Dire | F | 0 |
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