The movie writers are on strike and that will probably slow down the flow of new films sometime in the future. But not yet. Even with the slowdown already caused by COVID, there's much that's new today. Two Canadians get bio pics and Marvel delivers its best in some time. Also note I deal with a few more documentaries from the Hot Docs and DOXA festivals. Lots of choice.
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie: 3 ½ stars
Offside: The Harold Ballard Story: 4
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3: 3
Before the Sun: 3 ½
Veranada: 3 ½
Silvicola: 4
Carmen: 2 ½
STILL: A MICHAEL J. FOX MOVIE: The title is apt. This is just as engrossing as a good movie. It's not just a bio pic. This one-man's personal struggle delivers drama and much to think about. A bio pic too. We learn about the rise he enjoyed from a highschool kid in a Vancouver suburb (the drama club is where the girls were, he says), past the original newspaper ad that drew him to audition for a CBC-TV, series to Hollywood stardom with a huge TV series (Family Ties) a classic movie (Back to the Future) and more. And a very likeable public image.
The film by Davis Guggenheim (Oscar winner for An Inconvenient Truth) lets Fox tells us more, much more. He speaks right to us, with a raspy, shaky voice, about that rise and then the decline with the diagnosis that shocked him: Parkinson's Disease. Incurable, progressive, easy to hide for a while but not forever. He talks about every stage. How he managed to keep it secret but eventually revealed it on a TV talk show. How he became an alcoholic in response and how he started mistreating people. And how he regrets all that now. The film has many clips of his movies and TV appearances and it's hard to watch the cheery-faced kid grow older before our eyes. It includes some re-enactments and gets repetitive but the drama is there and it affects. (Two more screenings at Hot Docs this weekend and streaming on Apple TV starting May 12) 3 ½ out of 5
OFFSIDE: THE HAROLD BALLARD STORY: The Maple Leafs are in the second round of the National Hockey League playoffs. If you're wondering at all about the massive euphoria that erupted among Toronto fans when that came about, you'll get lots of answers in this film. It explains what the team came back from. It hadn't made it to the second round in 19 years. It won the Stanley Cup 13 times before Harold Ballard took over as owner and not again since. Writers blamed it on “the Ballard Curse.”
There's a massive amount of information in this film to support that ...
... briskly assembled by director Jason Priestley, the actor and apparent hockey fan. He scoured the archives, found old interviews and did new ones with people who watched Ballard at work. Don Cherry said “He's my kind of guy” while Tiger Williams, equally succint, says “He was just a bad person. A snake.” Alan Eagleson, Jim Gregory, reporters and former players like Rick Vaive, Lanny MacDonald and Darryl Sittler have strong assessments. Sittler couldn't be traded, so in spite, Ballard traded his best friend, Lanny. Hockey fans will delight in all the history the film recalls, including the arrival of Yolanda MacMillan who acted like his wife. There's a terrific clip of him telling Barbara Frum to mind her own business. And he ever charming and smiling when he needed to be, and in control. (Streaming at 3 sites including CBC Gem). 4 out of 5
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, Vol. 3: About an hour into this new visit with this gang of misfits, two characters have a brief interchange about metaphore and analogy. It feels unusual, maybe a bit comical as this series from Marvel has proven to be in the past. But soon, and surely by the end you appreciate it as a meta reference, a statement about how to understand this chapter. Part of it is obvious: the guardians face off against a character who is playing God. Not trying to control the universe as Marvel villains do, but “perfecting it.” Another part is less obvious and involves the racoon guardian, Rocket. We learn his back story (experimented upon by an evil corporation, confused by self-doubt and needing confidence to accept what he is) and watch his pals try to save his life. He's had a device installed that will shut him off unless they can find the code to deactivate it.
That brings the group (think of it as a family) to this giant adventure. It's complex and a bit too long. Fans will be able to follow it and newbies will just abide the details. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), the leader, is still mourning the loss of Gamora, though she (Zoe Saldana) returns from another dimension but quite changed. Dave Bautista as Drax finds his true self. Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) is still a standout among the others. The villains include Warlock (Will Poulter) who installed that kill-switch and the head of the evil corporation (played by (Chukwudi Iwuji). His vision of a perfect society looks a lot like suburbia. He's got children in cages for training, or programming. Sylvester Stallone also show up, briefly. There's a big battle at the end and spectacular special effects along the way. A typical Marvel movie but better than most, directed by James Gunn, who, made all three of these films and has now moved over to the rival DC studio. (In theaters) 3 out of 5
AITAMAAKO'TA MISSKAPI NATOSI: BEFORE THE SUN: That's from the language of the Blackfoot people in Alberta. It's unknown to many of us but the film it names is a rich statement about both Indigenous culture and about pushing yourself to succeed. It's a documentary about Logan Red Crow from the Siksika nation near Calgary and her drive to succeed in a sport that lets few women in. Bareback horse racing. It's organized as a relay. You ride one horse, get off and jump on another, maybe on a third further along and race against others before a crowd, sometimes as big as the Calgary Stampede. It's fun to watch on film, and surely in person too. And it's gruelling, and precise. You have to know just when to drop off one horse and how to climb on the next. You have to communicate with the horse. “Talk to the horse,” Logan says.
She's trying to get to the world championship in Casper, Wyoming, and we see the heavy training she undergoes, an injury at one point, and the caution she gets from her dad about how dangerous it can be. Best of all we get its connection to her culture in which horses go way back. Working with them helped her dad overcome the bad affects of residential school. The cinematogrpahy is very good. The final image is all in a reflection in a horse's ye. All that, plus an exciting climactic race, is well presented by director Banchi Hanuse, who is Indigenous herself and lives in Bella Coola, B.C. ( Streaming from Hot Docs until May 9) 3 ½ out of 5
VERANADA: This is another film with a strong environmental message delivered relatively gently. It's from Argentina, where in the Andes Mountains sheep and goatherders are living with a drought that's been on for five years. Radio beings them news and interviews that blame climate change. It's been the hottest September in 150 years they say. Change is coming at “a frightening pace,” They listen and .agree. “This year is ruined,” one says.
The film is done like a tone poem. A horseback rider visits various farms, kicking up clouds of dust as he goes, hoping to find a better place for his animals. He gets only indications that it's bad every where. There's not a cloud in the sky. The rivers are now only streams and there are arguments about who should be able to divert water. The documentary, by Dominique Chaumont, is a simple but very effective statement about the climate crisis. (DOXA May 11 and streaming May 15-24) 3 ½ out of 5
SILVICOLA: This is an unusually bright and elegeic film about forestry, even though much of it is about old growth forests and how they're being cut down. The issues, the objections and the techniques are all here but they're not stated as grimly as usual. The approach is probably more effective this way. It's more convincing, not hectoring.
The people we see here are all in the business of logging some way. They run small sawmills or cut blocks. One uses tree scraps that are left behind. "I'm part of the good thing," he says. The people talking have a philosophical bent. They reflect on millions of years of evolution in the forests, how trees store carbon, how cutting must be done with a sense of "social responsibility". One says he's not against clear-cuts, just the scale it's done in. Indigenous people say they've been foresters forever. The forest was our Walmart, one says. In contrast, huge machines come into the picture now and then, cutting and de-limbing trees. So it's a rounded picture we get in this film by Jean-Philippe Marquis, along with stunning images of Vancouver Island and the B.C. coast. (Screening Saturday at DOXA and streaming until Tuesday from Hot Docs) 4 out of 5
CARMEN: In this film I don't detect any similarity with the classic opera, though both are drawn from the same source, a novella by Prosper Mérimée and a poem by Alexander Pushkin. Lets drop a few more names. The director. Benjamin Millepied, a choreographer here making his movie directing debut, is best known for creating the dances in the film Black Swan, which starred his wife, Natalie Portman. He directs this like a musical, but instead of characters breaking out in song at key points, they break out in dance. In a desert, in streets and most oddly at a boxing match.
The story is an odd mix of influences. It starts in Mexico, deals with migrants trying to get across the border in the US and with guards and volunteers trying to foil them. Paul Mescal plays a volunteer who switches sides after a shootout at the border. He helps a woman (Melissa Barrera) avoid capture and we already know her story. We saw her mother dancing at the start of the film. Gunmen killed her and the daughter fled, after burning down their house. She's trying to get to Los Angeles. Mescal, as the volunteer, gets her to a gritty nightclub run by her godmother played by Rossy de Palma. Her mask-like face is familiar from Almodovar films and she projects an eerie ambience here. Later, at the boxing match, a rap star named The D.O.C. Appears as an organizer, emcee and voice over. You watch all this and hope it'll grab you. It doesn't. It's far too arty and disconnected. (Arthouse theaters: Toronto and Vancouver now, Ottawa and Montreal next week) 2 ½ out of 5
Comments