Shoplifters

This Oscar nominated Japanese film for Best Foreign Language Film is simply lovely. Shoplifters is why I go to the movies - a perspective that gives us insight and empathy into our fellow human beings. It's about a poor Japanese family who steal just to get by. It opens with what we believe are a farther-son duo ripping off food from a grocery store. On their way home they pick up a little four year girl who is outside on her balcony shivering, hungry; her parents can be heard inside screaming that neither of them wanted her. They give her food and ask if she wants to come with them. She is happy to go. They bring her to their tiny home where Grandma, Mom, Dad, older sister, and the son (who sleeps in a closet) live. Several days go by and the young girl isn't reported missing. So they keep her and make her part of their family. It turns out the son isn't really their son either, he was found in a car while 'Dad' was stealing something.
Shoplifters brings into focus what it is to be a family, what it means to be a mother and a father, and it puts morality out in the yard to play. Nothing in this film is heavy handed and there are no sharp tales or lessons to be had. It will give you something to reflect about your own notions of right and wrong are and what is 'family.'
Shoplifters stole my heart. Catch it at a rep cinema near you or at an online streaming service soon.

Let's get high! Touching the Void, Valley Uprising, Free Solo

Do you want to get high? Then try these three documentaries about climbing.

Touching the Void (2003) After emerging from the Bytowne Cinema in 2003 I was in a daze. I really needed to talk to someone about this film. It had a major impact on me.

Touching the Void is the true story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates who in the mid 80s were the first to reach the top of Siula Grande (a Peruvian mountain). Joe breaks his leg on the descent and Simon must lower him bit by bit down the mountain. A snow storm blows in and Joe slips off a ledge and is dangling on the side of the mountain unable to pull himself up. Simon is braced in the snow on the side the mountain, holding his friend by a rope unable to pull him up. They can't hear each other because of the storm. They are both going to freeze to death. Simon cuts the rope.

The film is narrated by the men themselves and the whole event is re-enacted with actors. So you know they both live. It doesn't make any of it less riveting. I was glued to my seat. Catch it on DVD or Amazon streaming. 

Valley Uprising is a fascinating history of rock climbing in Yosemite Park. It takes us from the 1950s to 2014. It's a history lesson and an exploration of the hippie geek climbing culture that existed among those illegally living in the park whose focus revolved (and continues to revolve) around climbing two major rock faces, Half Dome and El Captain. These are massive rock walls and the early climbers spent years trying to get to the top. Like surfing culture, climbing culture is for a select set of odd and interesting characters. One climber basically lived off the condiments of the concession stand for years while evading park rangers - this is crazy dedication to climbing. By the end of this documentary, climbing has been taken to the ultimate level - free climbing: no ropes, no clips, nothing. We meet a young climber, Alex Honnold, who successfully free climbs Half Dome - a truly amazing death defying feat. Catch it on Netflix.


Free Solo Remember Alex Honnold I just told you about, well this young man is back and after studying El Captain for a decade (and when I mean study, I mean each and every foot hold and crack written down in a notebook and memorized, each position, and where to go next). To understand the magnitude of what Alex is undertaking you should really watch Valley Uprising first - it isn't essential viewing, but it really gives you a dizzying perspective. My fourteen year old daughter (who is currently binge watching Friends) watched glued with me. In other words, this is captivating viewing for almost anyone.
This documentary is nominated for an Oscar. It was made knowing that Alex, could at any time, fall to his death and that would be that. His possible death is openly discussed by everyone. If he were to die, he would be following in the footsteps of hundreds of climbers before him. And now Alex has a girlfriend and for the first time in his life seems to be getting injured when she is around.
There are certain sections of El Cap (as the climbers call it) that are super difficult to climb - like the Boulder Problem. As I watched this, even knowing that Alex doesn't die, my palms became moist. It's completely bananas and I couldn't look away. Catch it at your favourite rep cinema or on streaming services soon.
   

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

I'm a sucker for films about writers, especially ones who are struggling to make it - go figure. Melissa McCarthy plays Lee Israel, a writer we meet after she has penned two biographies. She gets fired from her current day job for drinking and her foul mouth. She is behind in her rent and she has a sick cat and can't pay her tab at the vet. After ranting to her literary agent (played by Jane Curtin) about Tom Clancy getting a three million dollar advance - it's funny stuff - her agent tells Israel she can't get her a ten dollar advance and needs to clean up her act. As Israel is doing research in a library she finds some old letters by someone famous in a book. She tacks on a funny PS of her own to one of the letters and then takes the letter into a used book store to sell. The store owner tells her that the PS really makes it. Thus Israel begins her criminal career of forging letters by people like Noel Coward and Dorothy Parker and selling them for a lot of money. This is based on a true story.
Melissa McCarthy won my heart for her performance in Bridesmaids (if you haven't seen it, it's really funny). McCarthy, like the late great Robin Williams, can go over-the-top and off the rails quickly. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's too much. McCarthy was nominated for the Golden Globe and for an Oscar for her subdued work in this film. Williams won an Oscar when he wasn't over-the-top; maybe McCarthy will win too. And her co-star Richard E. Grant who was also nominated for both the Golden Globe and the Oscar is fabulous. His performance reminded me of his performance in one of my favourite films, Withnail & I. Catch Can You Ever Forgive Me at your local rep cinema or on streaming services soon.

At Eternity's Gate

I thought to myself, "Oh God, please, not another film about Vincent Van Gogh's life." After watching Loving Vincent (2017)  - well I didn't even watch the whole thing; I got about halfway and turned it off and never went back - I felt we didn't need more Vincent. Loving Vincent was a bore despite the crazy amount of effort that went into making it.

At Eternity's Gate would mark my fourth feature film into the life of Vincent Van Gogh (plus one Doctor Who episode where the good Doctor visits the troubled artist and brings him to present day to show him what a success he becomes - it's actually quite a touching episode).
I didn't want to watch At Eternity's Gate but I'm such a film awards whore and Willem Dafoe was nominated for the Golden Globe and the Oscar, so I thought, fine, let's get this over with.

When Dafoe flops from a few lines of French into purely English at the beginning of the film, well I was certain my disdain would be justified. I was entirely wrong. In fact this might be the only thing to criticize about it, that everyone, for the most part, speaks English. If you put this aside, it's a beautiful, thoughtful, and meditative film. I was completely drawn in and time flew by. There are new revelations about Van Gogh which surprised me. And Dafoe! He is really good and deserves his nominations. At Eternity's Gate was a delightful surprise.

Catch it now on Amazon, iTunes, OR

your local video store February 12th, 2019.

From the Archives - The Silent Partner (1978)

I would like to introduce something I call, "From the Archives"; these are films that I absolutely love and if you haven't seen them, then you really should.

So for my first film I'm going with something you might never have heard of, The Silent Partner (1978). This is a Canadian film that was shot in Toronto's Eaton Centre starting Elliott Gould, Christopher Plummer and Susannah York, featuring a cameo by the late, great (and in this film, very young) John Candy. Christopher Plummer plays the bad guy, and he comes across as truly evil - he is fantastic.

This is the first film I remember seeing Elliott Gould in and made a big impression upon me.

The Silent Partner is a bank heist picture. I'm a sucker for a good heist picture. I also love prison escape films. Maybe I just love cheering for the bad guys.

The biggest star of this movie though is Curtis Hanson's screenplay. Now if you don't know Curtis Hanson, (he passed away in 2016) he is the fellow who directed L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys, and 8 Mile to name a few. The story and the dialogue are fast and at times, funny as hell. It's an extremely clever game of cat and mouse. The Silent Partner has brought me so much joy that I have watched it a least a dozen times over the years.

Where you can watch it: https://www.moviefone.com/movie/the-silent-partner/1031949/where-to-watch/

Beautiful Boy

When I grew up I had a friend who introduced me to all kinds of things, including smoking, Jimi Hendrix, hashish, Peter Gabriel's back catalog, LSD, Nirvana (the band, before many had heard of them), Charles Bukowski, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, Southern Comfort, The Doors, and the list goes on and on. He was charming, super smart, and an extremely talented writer. He had a gift for language. He also had a thing for drugs. He like drugs and romanticized them. And my friend was fearless - needles didn't bother him. He liked them. He became a heroin addict. He almost died. Then he got better, got clean. Then cancer killed him at 29.

So when I watched Timothée Chalamet give his stunning performance as Nic Sheff, an arty kid with a gift for language and a taste for the dark side, I couldn't help but think of my friend. I know that guy; that guy is real, that guy is my friend.

I found my eyes wet more than once in the first hour of the film because of Steve Carell. He is also fantastic in this film. He plays David Sheff, Nic's dad. I'm a father with two kids and I know that I would do pretty much anything to help them. So when David is speaking with a counsellor about his son with such urgency and earnest, well it brought me to tears. Beautiful Boy isn't just the story of David and Nic, it's about how drug abuse affects an entire family; we get a good look at David's mother, step mother, and his siblings. It's unflinching, raw, and very human. It's also a beautifully shot film. It's seriously nice to look at despite the tough subject matter. It is one of the best films of 2018 and it would have made my list had I seen it earlier. Catch it when you have a chance.

Unbreakable, Split, Glass

Let's talk about M. Night Shyamalan for a minute. I don't know of a director who has received more unwarranted insults, bad mouthing, and criticism than M. Night Shyamalan has. It's some sort of weird obsession film reviewers have to criticize his entire backlog at every opportunity. I can't explain it. Whenever I hear that M. Night is coming out with a new film, I'm excited in the same way when I hear names like Darren Aronofsky‎, Steve McQueen, Christopher Nolan or Ana Lily Amirpour are releasing a new film - I can't bloody wait to see it! For me, Shyamalan is much like De Palma, a student of Hitchcock, who is the master of suspense. M. Night knows where to put the camera, he knows how to create tension. This doesn't mean I have loved everything he has done. There have been slips. But why go on and on about them? I didn't like Nolan's Dunkirk, but when Nolan comes out with a new film, I'll be there in a heartbeat. Same goes for M. Night Shyamalan. He is a director I want to watch.

Reviewers piss all over M. Night's twist endings too. Can't the same mockery be made about Christopher Nolan's films - think Memento, The Prestige, Inception, and Interstellar, they all end with a twist. But nobody is speaking disparagingly about Nolan, not like they do about Shyamalan. I believe M. Night Shyamalan has been unfairly treated and he deserves your time as a movie goer. You should be watching his films, because most of the time, they are good (The Happening, The Visit) and some of them are great (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Split).

So, let's get to M. Night Shyamalan's comic book masterpiece of Unbreakable, Split, and Glass(BTW, Nolan has one of these too and Batman Begins is the weakest of the three in my opinion, but it might be the third, and of course the second is his masterpiece).

1.Unbreakable

Shyamalan's second Hollywood film, is just as good as his first; that being The Sixth Sense. I think there is an argument to be made that Unbreakable might even be better because you can watch Unbreakable multiple times, whereas The Sixth Sense is a special kind of one trick pony (although I recently re-watched it with my kids and after such a long time between viewings, I loved it almost as much). Don't listen to anyone bad mouthing Unbreakable, just watch it if you haven't already. And if you haven't seen it in a while, time to see it again, because it holds up over time.

2. Split

Split is the Godfather II of the series. I absolutely loved it from the opening shot right to the end. In fact I have re-watched the opening five minutes of this film several times. It's the open shot of Anya Taylor-Joy sitting alone in a crowded restaurant, muted, and different; we all know something awful is about to happen. It's riveting stuff.
This is James McAvoy's film. He plays a man with 23 personalities and a 24th is about to reveal itself. James McAvoy was so good I thought he was deserving of an Oscar nomination - he didn't get it.
Split had me on the edge of my seat the entire movie and it's one of my favourite films of 2016. "I have red socks." 

3. Glass

It's hard to stick the landing. The Godfather III, Back to the Future III, Return of the Jedi, Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, The Matrix Revolutions, to name a whole bunch of films that wobbled and fell trying to land the trilogy. All of these films had great starts. Great starts and in some cases, even better sequels (The Godfather II, The Empire Strikes Back, Split).
Glass is worth your time if only to see James McAvoy do it again (although it's not as much fun as the first time). What's really fun is M. Night's super hero fight sequences. This isn't Marvel stuff where nobody really gets hurt and it's just noise and explosions and you sit there bored to tears. When James McAvoy and Bruce Willis fight, it feels like a gritty bar fight, where someone might actually get seriously hurt. It's refreshing.
Glass may be the weakest of the three, but should you see it? Absolutely. Make sure to see Unbreakable and Split first.