Apollo 11

I watched "First Man" last year and loved it. It made my top ten list of the best films of 2018. So do we need another film about the Apollo 11 mission to the moon? The surprising answer is: Absolutely yes! In fact you can skip "First Man" if you haven't seen it already and watch CNN's documentary "Apollo 11" which is comprised of entirely real archival footage from the 1969 trip to the moon. There is no modern voice over. All the narration comes from the commentators and reporters of the time. There may be some music added, but that's about it. Todd Douglas Miller who directed and edited this movie must be given high praise for being able to cobble together a riveting tale out of all this old footage. For me, to see how many people were actually involved on the ground was even more impressive than its docudrama counterpart had portrayed it. To see this movie is to marvel at how brilliant humanity can be when we work together. This is something to behold. Fly away with this one on streaming services or catch it at your local cinema.

If you are in Ottawa, catch it at the Bytowne now: https://www.bytowne.ca/movie/apollo-11

 

Paddleton

Maybe I'm getting old and soft, but there were tears. I've always liked Ray Romano. He played a character on the TV show "Parenthood" who had Aspergers ("Parenthood" was a fantastic show by the way). Ray's character, Andy, in "Paddleton" also seems to be a little on the spectrum. What's it all about? Well it's about two grown men, Andy and Michael who live in the same Californian apartment building who spend a lot of time together drinking beer, watching Kung Fu movies, and playing board games. They have made their own tennis game, "Paddleton" which they play against the back of an abandoned Drive-In movie screen. They aren't gay, they are just good friends who spend a lot of time together. Mark Duplass's character, Michael gets diagnosed with terminal cancer. They go on a road trip to get his die-with-dignity euthanasia suicide pills. Yes it sounds grim. It's also tender and slow, and at times, quite funny. I don't know if this will my top ten by the end of 2019 but I wanted to share it with you because it's a beautiful little film that will get lost and forgotten, like an old Kung Fu movie, unless somebody watches it. You might be a little sad when it's over.

Catch it on Netflix.

Touch Me Not

"Touch Me Not" - is a film by Adina Pintilie. I have never seen anything quite like it. It will stay with you long after it’s over and it will push even the most open-minded person to place that he or she might not be comfortable going. "Touch Me Not" is not a mainstream movie; this is as art-house as art-house gets. What’s it about? I don’t even know where to start. It supposed to feel and look like a documentary, but it’s fiction. It revolves around a middle-aged woman who seems to have serious intimacy issues – she doesn’t like to be touched, yet seems to crave it. There is a whole fictionalized touch therapy class involving real-life physically challenged individuals; this whole part reminded me of George Lucas’s "THX 1138" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest." The film raises questions about our personal relationships with our own body and the bodies of others. "Touch Me Not" is also about voyeurism, sexuality, power relations, kink, and the blurring of truth. There is so much going on here that everyone who watches might end up taking away a bunch of completely different things.

There is something lovely about the pacing of this film – it’s extremely slow, which makes it so personal and intimate. I don’t know how much was improvised and how much was scripted, but does it really matter? "Touch Me Not" is taboo breaking and pushing boundaries, but it does so in such a beautiful sensitive way, that we can face what we would normally find most shocking.
Let it touch you on streaming services or at your local art house movie theatre.