There are a lot of new movies that have become available today and if you're in or near Vancouver you have even more. The film festival started up last night and over 12 days presents some 140 features. Today I write about three more I can recommend. But let's take things in order.
The Creator: 3 stars
Flora and Son: 3½
On Fire: 4
Carlos: 4
Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie: 3
Reptile: 2½
VIFF: I'm Just Here for the Riot: 4
VIFF: The Old Oak: 4
VIFF: Deep Rising: 3½
THE CREATOR: Director co-writer Gareth Edwards was already making this film when the subject of Artificial Intelligence became such a hot topic. We debate and worry. Job losses? Sentient machines? How soon? He had a perfect opportunity to tap into that but didn't. Hal in 2001, The Terminator and others already dealt with the basics. Edwards avoids today's arguments and jumps decades ahead when the machines are already a force on their own. Robots were empowered to enforce the law worldwide but triggered a war when they set off a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. Now humanity is trying to eliminate them, except in South Asia (known here as New Asia) where they are still supported.
John David Washington plays a secret agent sent there by a military boss (Allison Janney) to find a rumored mastermind known as Nirmata. He finds that the ultimate weapon over there is a young girl named Alphie (played by a winsome new face Madeleine Yuna Voyles).
She's a robot, can control technology and charms the agent enough to raise questions about whether two species like that can co-exist peacefully. Or should he kill her, which, since she's a machine, would be no more meaningful than turning off a lightswitch. That brings on sentimental scenes and muddles the warning themes. But they come in a huge visual show that digitally combines actual sights in Thailand and elsewhere with modern sci-fi images. They're spectacular and more innovative than the story. (In theaters) 3 out of 5
FLORA AND SON: Stressed single mom. Rebellious son. What can bring them together? Writer- director John Carney turns as he has before, notably in his big hit Once, to music. Mom, played winningly by Eve Hewson (daughter of U-2's Bono) is told by a policeman to find the boy a hobby.
She comes across a guitar in a dumpster and encourages son Max (Orén Kinlan) to learn how to play it. Zoom helps with that. He, in Ireland, connects with a guitar player in Los Angeles (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who, even though his career has stalled, is willing to share insights into music, song craft and more. It's a warm connection that emerges. His songs cheer up the boy and music becomes transformative. Carney's technique helps too by bringing the two ends of the Zoom session together at times and making it seem that they are side by side. Which they are, figuratively, very soon and you've got a feel-good movie that'll delight. It's not as emotionally-involving as Once but warms the heart anyway. (Streaming on Apple+) 3 ½ out of 5
Incidentally: Eve's dad, Bono, is connected to an upcoming film. The streaming service Max is bringing a short starting Oct 19 that re-tells the story of Peter and the Wolf. It's based on drawings that Bono created for a book version.
ON FIRE: This is timely and for people in Kelowna and other places it might be a difficult watch. For the rest of us its a powerful picture of what it is like as a forest wildfire is coming at you. Terrifying, as the film amply shows. The fires blaze on all the hills on the horizon. They're an inferno when you have to drive or walk through them. They topple trees on the road in front of you. The film re-creates those images and the growing fear extremely well.
The images in the film match exactly what we've seen on the news this summer. Director Nick Lyon envisioned them while on a camping trip in California and created this story of a family trying to escape a wildfire. Peter Facinelli is the father (and director after Lyon caught COVID). His son (Asher Angel) blames climate change which the grandfather (Lance Henrickson) grumpily disputes. Meanwhile, the mother (Fiona Dourif) is well-along pregnant. The story is stacked to deliver suspense and it thrills, and scares, because of it. Purposely designed but ultra-realistic. (In 17 theaters across the country, including Kelowna) 4 out of 5
CARLOS: We've all been listening to Santana for decades now. Oyez Como Va and other songs from the late sixties, to the mega-hit Smooth, recently and there's valuable background here. Who he is, and what he thinks. He tells it all himself. No critics or band mates; though a couple of sisters give illuminating insights. "He was like a laser when he wanted something," one says. He needed to be. His family was poor. "You see something, you go after it," he says. His mother taught him that.
His dad had him play the violin but hearing a guitar player in a park one day set him off. He formed a band, got it hired to play opening sets at the Fillmore West (without even a record contract), gained the support of the owner, Bill Graham, and the boss at Columbia Records, Clive Davis, and did a tremendous set at Woodstock. He describes that experience: a drug-induced trip that made his guitar feel like a snake. He had to tame it. The film has details like that, about family life, his turning to the philosophy of the guru Sri Chinmoy and meditation. He had to "collect the molecules to the light," he says. Fascinating. Plus lots of music and rare film clips seen for the first time. (In theaters in Toronto and elsewhere) 4 out of 5
PAW PATROL THE MIGHTY MOVIE: The company behind this, Spinmaster, is a huge Canadian success story. It now has offices in 16 countries, thanks to the children's TV series that started it all, and now brings us a second full-length movie. The first was a hit; this one, also directed by Montrealer Cal Brunker, will likely be too with a much more dynamic feel than the bits I've watched on TV with my grandson. There's a PG rating this time, not just a G, probably because of the amped-up action. A small bit of evidence of maturity: Kim Kardashian has a cameo. She's the voice of a classy and self-indulgent poodle.
The Patrol is a group of seven dogs, led by a boy named Ryder. They work as rescue dogs in Adventure City and this time gain super powers when a metor crash lands. Hey, it's fiction. One can fly, others get speed, water power, magnetism, or the power of a wrecking ball. They'll come in handy when the evil mayor Humdinger breaks out of jail, steals a power from them and grows into a Godzilla-sized menace. The pups have to stop him and heal some issues of their own. Skye, for instance, feels left out. There are lessons for the kids and lots of colorful action for anybody. (In theaters) 3 out of 5
REPTILE: You'll be engrossed but maybe, as I was, more than a bit perplexed at the end. This is a murder mystery in which Benicio Del Toro, as a small town cop, tries to figure out who killed a young real estate agent. The story, which Del Toro co-wrote along with the director Grant Singer, offers up many suspects. There's a crazy guy next door, the victim's girlfriend, the man she was separated from and the real estate agent (Justin Timberlake) she had been living with and who found her body. Others too, including Del Toro himself. Other cops also look suspicious, even though they bet among themselves who the perp might be.
Watching the evidence emerge is great fun. DeToro is gruff. His wife (Alicia Silverstone) is amiable. Timberlake is contemptuous and paraded out as a very possible perpetrator. Except for all those others. The answer is larger than you can predict and real estate is involved but not convincingly so. The pace and the dialogue are snappy, so you might not mind. It works as an evening's TV watching. (Netflix) 2 ½ out of 5
VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: I've already reviewed these on previous occasions: Monster (4 stars), Seagrass (3)(a prize-winner in Toronto), Aitamaako'ta ... Before the Sun (3 ½) and here add three more. The images are courtesy of VIFF.
I'M JUST HERE FOR THE RIOT: I remember the night back in 2011 when the Vancouver Canucks lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup final and the downtown exploded into a frenzy of looting, window smashing, car tippings, fights and mayhem. This film by Kathleen S. Jayme (film-fan of the old Grizzlie basketball team) and Asia Youngman shows that moment of anarchy as we haven't seen it before. There's lost of cellphone footage added to the news footage and we get right up close. Sometimes the people who smashed windows didn't seem to know that those phones were watching them.
Video went up on the internet and Jim Chu, the police chief at the time, calls it "The first smartphone riot." Online sites gathered IDs of the people seen rioting; they led to convictions and musings along the lines of were the photographers snitches. That and many other questions are evoked by this terrific film. There are also new interviews and regrets from some of the rioters. Worth seeing, for sure, although how can this happen isn't fully addressed. (Screens Mon + Thurs, and just-added Oct 8) 4 out of 5
THE OLD OAK: Here's more of the humanism and calling out the miscreants that Britain's Ken Loach has sent us so many times. It's one of his best, though ranking is useless. They're all fine examinations of society as he sees it. Bigotry is the theme this time, as people in a small town still suffer the effects of the shut down of the area coal mine. Some take out their frustrations on the people the government has brought in. They're refugees, some from Syria, and the drinkers griping in the local pub think they're getting special privileges.
A youth is beaten up in the street; a woman has her camera damaged. The know-nothing locals called them "Pakis." Loach and his screenwriter Paul Laverty show this small-town xenophobia perfectly and contrast it with the respect shown by the pub owner (Dave Turner) for the woman with the camera (Ebla Mari). She speaks good English, rails against the ills of the Assad regime back home and appreciating the union-hall togetherness that used to be common in town, proposes a community banquet. The gripers don't agree. The film is very moving and argues against standing by and doing nothing. (Tonight, Tues and Fri) 4 out of 5
DEEP RISING: Climate change is a crisis. Automobiles are one of the causes and electric cars are a solution. Well, wait a minute. Where's all that electricity to come from? We hear that asked now and then. Here's another problem that may bring you worry. Batteries will be needed in huge numbers and the elements needed to make them, particularly lithium, are much in demand. That'll only swell and a San Francisco company is promoting a solution: deep sea mining.
It seems the metals just lie around freely down there, as nodules, on the floor of the deepest oceans. A multi-ton machine has been designed to be sent down and just scoop them up. No harm done. Really? There are experts in this film who dispute that and wonderful film of creatures down there that makes you wonder.
Apparently even the free-lying nodules are important parts of their habitat. But a little known international body that's in charge of safeguarding the oceans has given the company permission to investigate further. The film by multi-tasking director Mathieu Rytz says the oceans are fragile and yet the "common heritage of mankind has been privatized." Alarming, I'd say. (Screens Tues and Wed) 3 ½ out of 5
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