The Golden Globes and the Oscars get most of the talk but let me mention the Annies. They're the top awards in animation. The nominees came out this week and had this surprise: Disney and Pixar are not nominated in the big categories. That hasn't happened before. They are up for some smaller awards, design and music, for instance. And Wish, Disney's biggest of the year, isn't up for anything.
What is? Netflix, surprisingly. Its film Nimona, which I reviewed back in June, got the most nominations, nine. And that's ironic because Disney once owned it but dropped it reportedly because there's a same-sex kiss in it. The next biggest contenders are Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and The Boy and the Heron.
Disney is getting a special achievement award though, as is Marcy Page. an animator and producer at our National Film Board. It happens February 17.
Meanwhile, we have these new films:
Mean Girls: 3 stars
Some Other Woman: 2 ½
Lift: 3
Freud's Last Session: 4
Going to Mars The Nikki Giovanni Project: 4
Weak Layers: 2 ½
MEAN GIRLS: Tina Fey wrote this 20 years ago, saw it become a smash hit then and a fan-favorite ever since, allowed a TV-movie sequel and then created a Broadway musical. Now that version is here as a new movie, bright and energetic but unfortunately not as good as the original. It still has a sharp take on life in highschool, where a fresh-faced newcomer meets a clique run by a “queen bee” who shuns outsiders. And controls who can sit at their lunch table. But adding the songs has the effect of dulling the criticism of how these groups operate and the exclusive status they claim. They're showtunes and that cuts into the realism the story is trying to concoct. Two or three are rousing and memorable. The others are saddled with too much obligation to tell the story. They probably worked better on stage.
Angourie Rice is the new Cady, just-moved from Kenya where she was homeschooled. She's an innocent and a bit unsure of herself. Reneé Rapp is the new Regina George, the queen bee, and for sure the main reason to see the film. She played the role on stage, exudes malice and superiority and in a song asserts “I am a massive deal.” She accepts Cady. Or is it tolerates? But when Cady falls for her ex-boyfriend, an absolute no no in this highschool culture, she's shunned and with a couple of friends plots revenge (which is also the subject of her best song). Cady is in danger of becoming like the queen bee. That, I think, is a new angle, though most of the story sticks very close to the original. Fey and Tim Meadows repeat their roles as teachers, and there are a few cameos that I won't spoil for you. Directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., there a bit of a music video feel in this one. (3 out of 5)
SOME OTHER WOMAN: This one is also a study of women in conflict with each other. It's not at its centre, which is a psychological thriller, but it is there and ends the film with a surprise last thought, a feminist statement. That's a bit of a jolt because what came before seems not so much on that topic. It's more like a mystery that Hitchcock would have made and starts with an old legend. A fishing boat capsized in the Caribbean; the captain's wife drowned but is said to re-appear now and then. That tale comes back several times in dreams and visions but doesn't seem to have much to do with the film's story.
A woman (Amanda Crew) is living in the tropics along with her husband who is there on business. He's played by Tom Felton who you might remember from the Harry Potter films. It was supposed to be a short trip but has stretched over several years. She had to give up her dreams of singing professionally. She's now pregnant, wants a test to confirm it, and hopes motherhood would dispell her anxiety. She's suffered memory loss in the past and has arguments with her husband about basic facts in their life together. She sees a woman (Ashley Greene) in various places around town, feels she's stalking her and taking over bits of her life, including a small office job. She finds her having sex with her husband, who insists the woman is his wife. Is he gaslighting her? Is she delusional? Scattered plotpoints but mysterious and eerie. They'll keep you interested trying to figure them out. (In a few theaters) 2 ½ out of 5
LIFT: Netflix has taken up some of the big action movie space recently. In this latest example we've got Kevin Hart leading a gang trying to heist $500 million in gold bars on an airplane. It's carrying passengers, at 40,000 feet, and has a lower cargo floor that has a safe that needs to be cracked. Its a pure Euro-trash thriller like we used to get in theaters in the summer and is done here with big action and air-borne excitement. And fun, lots of it, even though Hart is not doing his manic-comic usual. He's playing this straight.
The plot is contemporary-impossible. An international financier and terrorism supporter (Jean Reno) is sending the gold by plane to Zurich. Interpol suspects it's to finance a massive attack on a utility somewhere and a lead agent (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) hires Kevin Hart and his band of art thieves to foil it. They include Vincent D’Onofrio, as a master of disguise, Billy Magnussen, the safecracker and Úrsula Corberó who will fly the plane in the film's most hair-raising sequence. She has to tilt and swoop to shake off a guy threatening her with a gun. F. Gary Gray, an old hand with action like this, directed this neat thriller. (Netflix) 3 out of 5
FREUD'S LAST SESSION: This one will give your brain something of a workout. Two great minds, Sigmund Freud and the author C.S. Lewis spend an evening discussing whether God exists and incidentally what kind of guy he is as well as other more personal topics. Freud's connection to his daughter, referred to as “attachment disorder” and Lewis's relationship with a friend's mother. And considering that it's Freud, sex, naturally. Anthony Hopkins has a great time playing him with a touch of a cantankerous side. Matthew Goode is more easy going as Lewis.
There's no proof that it ever happened just a recollection that Freud was visited by an Oxford don shortly before his death. That was enough for playwright Mark St. Germain to imagine what they might have talked about. Under Matt Brown's direction it still has the feel of a stage play but then the bulk of it is pure conversation. There are efforts to open it up with a series of flashbacks to the two men's lives, including a harrowing sequence of C.S. Lewis in the trenches in World War I. They're quite a distraction from the dialogue between the two, pondering what kind of God would allow a Hitler to arrive. “God lacks goodness” one says. Of free will we hear: “Man's suffering is the fault of man.” They discuss suicide which Freud is considering because he's suffering cancer of the jaw. And more. It's a captivating discussion and splendidly acted by Hopkins and Goode. (In theaters in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal) 4 out of 5
GOING TO MARS: THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT: She's a new name to me but she's been an accalimed poet and activist in the U.S. for decades. Oprah named her one of her “25 living legends.” Obama had her write and read a poem, for his inauguration and she's won seven NAACP Image Awards as well as honors from other organizations. So it's nice to meet her in this documentary which was a big winner at Sundance. She comes across like a friendly grandmother (she turned 80 last summer) but there's a real bite in what she says, most of it about race relations in the US.
She was enraged by the Birmingham church bombing that killed four young girls, the Emmet Till killing and the assassination of Martin Luther King. That anger persists in her writing. We'll have to move to Mars because the Earth is being destroyed, she says. Blacks will understand because they were forcibly brought to the U.S.
Some of her poetry is read by actor Taraji P. Henson, who is also executive producer of the film. Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster wrote and directed it. They've given up an elegant portrait of this woman. Several times it cuts to a conversation she had with writer James Baldwin in which they compared philosophies. There are clips from TV interviews. Together they give us a strong woman. “I refuse to be unhappy about something I can do nothing about” she says. And this: “I am fortunate that I don't care what people think of me.” (Streaming on CRAVE) 4 out of 5
WEAK LAYERS: The title refers to an unstable layer of snow that can result in an avalanche. I'm not sure what that has to do with the story in this film but there's a fine representation of mountain culture here. It got an honorable mention at Whistler for that.
The story has that loose easy going ambience you expect in a ski communtity. This one is set in Tahoe and created by Katie Burrell who is originally from Revelstoke, B.C., also mountain country. She also stars as one of three friends who are being evicted for non-payment of rent. They borrow a van to live in and she moans: I'm a nobody.”
She tries to become a somebody (and get money to live on) by producing a mountain culture film for a contest. We see lots of examples, extreme skiers going down cliffs and other stunts.
What's her film to be about? “Having a good time,” she says. “The spirit of the mountains.” This film does have that and adds this: Katie competing against men who usually excell in this contest. Her self-esteem has to grow as she gets into it. As a sidestory she gets close to one of the men she's competing against. He, played by Evan Jonigkeit, is back into skiing after some time off and has a small bit of history with her. Obviously it's an attempt to bring some regular drama into the film to make it about more than just mountain culture. A good addition. (Theaters in 20 locations across Canada now, six in interior British Columbia next week) 3 out of 5
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