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FiveFilms4Freedom 2018

29 Thursday Mar 2018

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FiveFilms4Freedom is part of the BFI Flare: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival currently running until 1 April 2018. These five shorts have been shown as part of the festival, and thanks to an intitiative developed by the British Council and the British Film Institute, have also been made available online during the course of the festival.

Devi (2017) / D: Karishma Dev Dube / 13m

aka Devi: Goddess

Cast: Aditi Vasudev, Priyanka Bose, Tanvi Azmi

Rating: 8/10 – Tara (Vasudev) is a troubled teen who challenges her mother’s sense of tradition and moral certitude at every turn, but takes a step too far when she turns her romantic attentions to Devi (Bose), the housemaid who has helped raise her from a child. Dube’s critique of unyielding Hindi cultural traditions and strict morality plays well until you realise that Tara’s actions are entirely selfish and devoid of any consideration of potential consequences – which then leads the viewer to consider if Tara is quite the sympathetic character she’s made out to be at the start. Dube shows that there will always be victims in these circumstances, and the class divide is sharply illustrated by the inevitable outcome of Tara’s decision to act on her impulses. By exploring not just the cultural divide, but the generational divide as well, Dube shows that Tara’s behaviour is too frivolous to be tolerated by the traditions she’s rebelling against, and that acceptance is still a very long way off indeed.

Handsome and Majestic (2016) / D: Jeff Lee Petry, Nathan Drillot / 12m

With: Milan Halikowski, Lynnell Halikowski, Mike Halikowski

Rating: 7/10 – Milan is a twelve year old transboy living in Canada who has suffered more than his fair share of abuse and violence in his young life, and who has been routinely let down by the teachers at his school. Having endured all this, and gone through a period of depression that saw him try to take his own life, Milan has found the strength to come out as transgender, and in doing so, he’s found a friend in another transboy living just a few streets away. There are few of us who can fully understand what it must be like to feel trapped in our own body, and not to look the way we believe we should. Handsome and Majestic goes some way to explaining what that must be like, but spends too much time illustrating it by having Milan looking at himself in mirrors, and with a sad, pensive expression. Contributions from his family offer (perhaps unintentionally) stark comparisons with Milan’s own struggle, but just seeing him playing with his new friends allows the movie to end on a positive note that didn’t seem to be on the cards at all. It’s a moving, humane documentary, and though it doesn’t delve too deeply into transgender issues, it’s still an informative and engaging examination of one young boy’s wish to be accepted for who he is.

Uninvited (2017) / D: Seung Yeob Lee / 20m

Cast: Sum Lee, Keonyeung Kim, Jinseung Moon

Rating: 7/10 – An impending, and largely unexpected visit from his mother (Kim), prompts still-in-the-closet Jungho (Lee) to get his partner, Jae-ik (Moon), to pack most of his belongings and hide out in a nearby coffee shop while she’s at the flat they live in. Despite his best efforts, though, Jungho’s mother discovers evidence that points to his having a flatmate at best, and a gay lover at worst. Ostensibly a comedy, Uninvited lacks the bite needed to make this as funny as it could be, and Jungho is such a moody complainer it’s amazing anyone, gay or straight, would take him on. Still, this is anchored by a surprisingly compassionate and thoughtful performance from Kim, who never lets on if her character is disappointed or ashamed or appalled by her son being gay, but instead translates passive acceptance into determined support. Like Devi and Goldfish, this is another movie where the main protagonist isn’t the person who’s gay or a lesbian, but the parent whose own cultural identity makes it difficult to accept unreservedly their child’s sexuality.

Goldfish (2017) / D: Yorgos Angelopoulos / 14m

Cast: Michael Ikonomou, Lissandros Kouroumbalis, Eva Angelopoulou

Rating: 7/10 – It’s Stratis’ (Kouroumbalis) seventh birthday, and all he wants is a pet fish. His father, Yorgos (Iknonomou), wants him to get a warrior fish, but Stratis settles for a goldfish. On their way home, Stratis reveals the goldfish is called Tom, after Tom Daley the British diver. Incensed at what he perceives as yet another example of his son’s effeminacy, Stratis’ father throws the goldfish in the river, causing Stratis to run away from home… While it’s a little too broad in its approach – Yorgos is the kind of unreconstructed Greek male that borders on cliché – and the message is rammed home a little too bluntly, nevertheless, Goldfish is an enjoyable examination of how some men feel threatened by the merest hint of homosexuality, and the often absurd reactions they display as a result. Not a movie about being gay, then, but about the unnecessary fear and paranoia that comes from prejudice about homosexuality, and the terrible emotions that take over when the source of that fear and paranoia – your own child – might never be seen again.

Landline (2017) / D: Matt Houghton / 12m

Cast: Jem Dobbs, Niamh Blackshaw, Oliver Devoti, Bradley Johnson

Rating: 9/10 – In 2010, Keith Ineson, a chaplain from Cheshire in the UK, set up a helpline for gay farmers, one that allowed them to voice their experiences, their worries, and their concerns. With the helpline still being the only one of its kind anywhere in the world, Landline uses original telephone recordings and visual reconstructions of the events being talked about to paint a powerful, and sometimes disturbing portrait of rural prejudice and intolerance. Director Matt Houghton doesn’t just focus on the negative though: one perfectly judged vignette has the camera tracking through the debris and chaos of what appears to have been a terrible bar fight, only for the recording to reveal that it was one man’s coming out party, and probably the best night of his life. From this it’s worth mentioning the excellent cinematography courtesy of James Blann, which makes this docu-drama visually striking and compelling in equal measure.

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Rush: Time Stand Still (2016)

05 Friday Jan 2018

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D: Dale Heslip / 97m

Narrator: Paul Rudd

With: Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Neil Peart, Ray Danniels, Jillian Maryonovich, Liam Birt, Howard Ungerleider, Brian Hiatt, Arthur “Mac” Mclear, Ray Wawrzyniak, Michael Moore

What does it say about a band that, after over forty years the same three members are still together, still passionate about the music they’ve created, and more importantly, still the best of friends? That’s the case with Rush, the Canadian rock band whose members Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart, have weathered the storms of poor early album sales, record label pressure to “conform”, following their own musical path, personal tragedy (twice), and the debilitating effects of psoriatic arthritis and chronic tendinitis. Alongside all these downs though, there have been some incredible positives: increased critical acclaim, increased album sales, pop cultural relevance, the vocal appreciation of their peers, and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But most important of all, they’ve had the benefit of one of the most loyal fanbases ever.

This is the aspect of Rush’s forty year-plus history that Rush: Time Stand Still explores most effectively, while it also follows the band on what – so far – has proved to be their farewell tour. The tour has come about for a variety of reasons. Peart relates wanting to retire from touring but being persuaded/emotionally blackmailed by Lifeson’s need to go out on the road one last time while he still can, while Lee wants to keep going and going and going… Listening to three friends voice differing opinions about what’s best for each of them, and still managing to find a common accord without any lasting or lingering resentment is a testament to the strength of their friendship, and on a broader basis, the importance of the band itself in their lives. It’s clearly a tough decision that they’ve made though, and all three provide honest perspectives on the end of something that has been a huge part of their lives for such a long time.

The movie covers Rush’s R40 tour from its early stages as the format is decided on, and all the way through to the final show. Along the way there are generous helpings of Rush doing what they do best, and from various stages of their career (and with all the worrying stage outfits they’ve worn over the years). These sequences aren’t just there to illustrate the band’s prowess on stage – though this soon becomes obvious – but the pleasure that the band still derive from performing after so many thousands of shows in so many thousands of venues. Back in the Seventies it seemed as if Rush were only away from the road when they were in the studio recording an album, and though they’ve slowed down as the years have gone by, their enthusiasm and passion for playing live has been retained. It’s the one thing, even beyond the likes of albums such as 2112 (1976), Moving Pictures (1981), and Test for Echo (1996), that has brought Rush their success. The movie reflects this through the thoughts of the band members themselves, and more pertinently, through the thoughts of their fans.

It’s this aspect of Dale Heslip’s documentary that elevates it and makes it more than yet another movie that covers a band on tour, even if it is their last (probably). Correctly recognising that without the fans who have come to their shows over and over Rush’s success might not have been as far-reaching as it has been, Heslip casts a spotlight on the likes of Jillian Maryonovich, who for a time was a White House staffer under Barack Obama by day and the creative director of Rushcon, the band’s fan club, by night, and Ray Wawrzyniak, an obsessive collector of all things Rush including Indonesian cassette releases and his sister’s 8-track copy of 2112 (which he promises he’ll return one day). It’s fans such as these and their passion for the band that gives the movie a sense that there’s a symbiosis going on, that without the fans Rush wouldn’t be having a second documentary made about them – after Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (2010) – or that without the band, their fans wouldn’t have anything quite so joyous in their lives. It’s the power of collective reliance: each needs the other  albeit for different reasons.

The sheer enthusiasm for the band that the fans display is best expressed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. The master of ceremonies, Jann Wenner, announces each inductee and there’s a healthy amount of applause for each one, but when it comes to Rush, the whole place erupts. As Geddy Lee says, “It was impressive. These guys put us in the Hall of Fame. And they were celebrating their moment. And I still get choked up when I think about it.” That acknowledgment is perhaps the most illuminating moment in the whole movie, and gives credence to the idea that Rush aren’t just a band that have a loyal following – instead they have fans who care over and above in terms of the usual relationship fans have with a band. Whether or not this is actually a good thing, the movie doesn’t take the time to pursue. Instead it highlights the fans’ passion for the band, and the band’s reciprocal feelings for their fans. Criticism is useless because nothing will change.

Although the overwhelming love for Rush on display does border on the pathologically obsessive, and some fans may want to get out of their parents’ basements a bit more often, the movie also relies heavily on the thoughts and feelings of the band themselves. All three are eloquent, thoughtful interviewees whose experiences as a touring band for over forty years has provided them with insights into the rock and roll life that are sometimes sobering, sometimes surprising, but always interesting, and the differing emotions that each has about retiring from the road are given honestly and with a great deal of thought towards the feelings of each other. The band have clearly enjoyed their journey to the last tour, and though the movie is a celebration of the end of that journey, there’s a bittersweet undertone that is present and which adds poignancy to the aftermath of the last show. But that poignancy is soon replaced by something more touching. The fans we see look bereft; what on earth are they going to do now that their heroes, in terms of live shows, have retired both themselves and their fans?

Rating: 8/10 – a documentary that benefits from the commitment and openness of both Rush and their fans, Rush: Time Stand Still is a fascinating look at a band who became successful the hard way and made both their lives and the lives of their fans something to cherish; die-hard fans will lap up every minute, while those new to Rush may find themselves perplexed by the depth of the fans’ devotion, but either way this is a movie that captures the spirit and the heart of a relationship that, after forty-plus years, has never wavered on either side.

Yoga Hosers (2016) – Or, Whatever Happened to Kevin Smith

09 Sunday Apr 2017

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D: Kevin Smith / 88m

Cast: Lily-Rose Depp, Harley Quinn Smith, Johnny Depp, Austin Butler, Tyler Posey, Justin Long, Tony Hale, Natasha Lyonne, Adam Brody, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, Genesis Rodriguez, Vanessa Paradis, Haley Joel Osment, Ralph Garman, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith

Twenty-three years ago, a young, bearded denizen of New Jersey made his first movie, the very low-budget indie comedy, Clerks. It was an overnight sensation: acutely funny within the milieu it created, and introducing audiences to two unforgettable characters in the stoner forms of Jay and Silent Bob. The young movie maker who maxed out around a dozen credit cards and sold off a large portion of his comic book collection to make his first movie was, of course, Kevin Smith. He followed it up with Mallrats (1995), a TV pilot, Hiatus (1996), Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999), an unreleased Prince documentary, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), a string of projects that cemented Smith’s reputation, increased his fanbase, and garnered a fair amount of critical approval.

But somewhere around the time of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Smith’s energies seemed to wane. Both Jersey Girl (2004) and Clerks II (2006) felt as if Smith was treading water, while Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), despite the kind of premise that Smith could have had a lot of fun with, proved to be even more underwhelming than his previous two movies. He followed Zack and Miri… with the dreadful Cop Out (2010), a director-for-hire gig that made audiences and critics wonder why the King of Static Camerawork would be asked to make an action comedy. Red State (2011) came next, and while it was well-received by critics, and looked on as a return to form, it’s still a movie that only needs to be watched once. Smith took a break, and didn’t return to our screens until 2014, with Tusk. That particular movie, a Kafka-esque body horror comedy, was even more of a return to form (and despite an unnecessary cameo from Johnny Depp). Now, Smith has chosen to follow Tusk with Yoga Hosers, a movie for kids, and the second in the True North trilogy (Moose Jaws will complete the series).

For all that Smith has been making strides in regaining the kind of critical and audience mass that went with his work in the Nineties, Yoga Hosers remains Smith’s worst movie to date, a sprawling, endlessly disappointing concoction that lies flat on the screen like the title character in The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) (and without that character’s internal life to help it). By taking two minor characters from Tusk – the store clerks who didn’t even have names – and spinning a whole movie around them, Smith has managed to do three things all at the same time: one, write his lamest script yet; two, bring back Depp’s eye-swivelling private detective Guy Lapointe to no greater effect than before; and three, prove that nepotism is alive and well when it comes to making movies.

This time, the two store clerks are given names – Colleen Collette (Depp) and Colleen McKenzie (Smith) – and are portrayed as vacuous fifteen year olds who can’t live without their phones for more than five seconds, who disparage everyone and everything around them, and who seem destined to be the lead characters in Clerks III (should Smith ever write it). Working at the store owned by Colleen C’s dad (Hale), the pair spend much of their worktime rehearsing songs with their only other bandmate, drummer Ichabod (Brody) (cue a string of “inspired” jokes such as “Dickabod” that will give you an idea of the level Smith is aiming for). One night, one of their customers is murdered in a nearby park (though why in a park is a mystery the movie doesn’t have an answer for). The killer? Ah, there’s the rub (as Shakespeare would put it), because the killer is a six-inch tall Nazi bratwurst – or Bratzi.

Inevitably, there’s a back story, a tale of Nazis in Canada, and the legacy of Aryan supremo Andronicus Arcane (Garman). There’s cryogenesis, an arrested experiment that gives rise to the Bratzis, and a Bratzi-filled creature that’s made out of body parts and is technically inanimate, but which can still be kicked between the legs as a means of hindering it. And in an extended scene that matches Lapointe’s lone scene in Tusk for abject pointlessness, Garman gets to monologue by doing impressions of actors such as Al Pacino (‘hoo-ah!”) and Sylvester Stallone. So clever is Smith’s script, he has the Colleens unable to recognise any of Arcane’s impressions, thus reinforcing the notion (already made several times) that they don’t know about anyone or anything that hasn’t happened within their lifetime, or who isn’t their friend on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. (When Smith includes social commentary like that, it’s a shame he doesn’t realise how much it’s been done before.)

But being clever, and putting together a script that gels in all the right ways, is something that Smith seems unable to do anymore. Along with the Bratzis, the Colleens have to endure Collette C’s irritating stepmom (Lyonne) (quite lame), two teen Satanists (Butler, Posey) out to claim their virgin souls (very lame), and the snarky comments of their customers (not lame, just boring). What’s most dispiriting about the script is that Smith no longer seems to have that distinctive ear for dialogue that he had back in the days of the Quick Stop. Here, it’s all about providing the Colleens with the kind of empty-headed dialogue that confirms their latent idiocy, while poking fun at the Canadian accent, particularly the way they say words like about, which sounds like ah-boot, as in “I’m sorry ah-boot that”. Stress the word once and it’s mildly funny; stress it a hundred times and it becomes tedious.

Ultimately, the whole thing looks and sounds like a mess that’s been made off the back of a draft script that Smith couldn’t be bothered to tidy up or give a proper shape to. The performances range from grating (Depp as Lapointe, Rodriguez as the Colleens Phys Ed teacher), to one-note (Depp as Lapointe, Lyonne, Hale, Posey, Garman), to passable (Depp as Colleen C, Smith as Colleen M, Long as their yoga teacher), but it’s hard to stand out when the script you’re working from is determined to be as juvenile as possible while also trying to hold onto a semi-adult sensibility (this is only a movie for kids if those kids are fourteen to seventeen in age). Smith just doesn’t seem to have the focus or the fire that would make this movie even partially entertaining, and long stretches of it pass by without making any difference to the plot, any of the storylines, or any of the characters. And the Colleens remain the same at the end as they were at the beginning.

Whatever’s going on with Smith at the moment, one thing is very clear: like Austin Powers in The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Smith needs to get his mojo back. How he’s going to do that – or if he can – remains to be seen, but right now he’s fast becoming a member of that singular group of movie makers, the ones who are fast out of the gate with their first movie, but who struggle to maintain the initial quality of their work. Directors such as Tobe Hooper and Spike Lee, movie makers for whom the news of a new project is no longer cause for the kind of interest they garnered earlier in their career. Smith is at that point, where his career may be better suited to podcasting and one-man shows than it is to making movies. Time, perhaps, for a rethink going forward, before his career is littered with more bad movies than good.

Rating: 3/10 – if this is what Kevin Smith is happy to see released with his name attached, then Yoga Hosers is a sign that any ideas relating to originality he may have had have long since left the building; he’s already proven that low budget doesn’t have to mean low quality, but this has all the hallmarks of a movie made cheaply and with the idea of making a quick return before anyone realises just how awful it is.

Zoom (2015)

11 Sunday Sep 2016

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zoom

D: Pedro Morelli / 93m

Cast: Gael García Bernal, Alison Pill, Mariana Ximenes, Tyler Labine, Don McKellar, Claudia Ohana, Michael Eklund, Jennifer Irwin, Jason Priestley, Clé Bennett

A worker in a factory that produces state of the art love dolls. A movie director trying to make an artistic masterpiece. A model who discovers she has a talent for writing. Three people who aren’t connected. Or are they?

That’s the question you’ll be asking yourself if you watch Zoom, a freewheeling, energetic look at three lives that may or may not be intertwined, and one of which is presented in the same rotoscopic animation style as A Scanner Darkly (2006). Unafraid to take chances with its narrative, the movie invites the viewer along on a cleverly structured, and constructed, meta-ride that rewards them over and over again as the movie progresses. It’s a likeable, good-natured movie that appears to veer off in unlikely directions in an effort to be “different”. But this veering off is a major part of the movie’s charm, and while some twists and turns may seem frivolous, they all add to the huge amount of fun that can be had from Matt Hansen’s lively screenplay.

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It certainly begins in an unexpected fashion, with two workers at a love doll factory, Emma (Pill) and Bob (Labine), having sex surrounded by the fruits of their labours. It’s both funny and disconcerting to see Emma and Bob being “watched” while they copulate, but it’s done in such a matter-of-fact way that the disconcerting aspect soon goes away (even if the love dolls’ voyeuristic perspective doesn’t). Alas, Bob’s post-coital attempts at conversation soon fall flat and he makes unflattering comments about the size of Emma’s breasts. An aspiring comic book artist, Emma has drawn a picture of herself as a voluptuous warrior princess; using this and Bob’s attitude as a spur for doing so, she goes ahead and has a breast enlargement.

Emma has also been chronicling the story of a movie director, Edward (Bernal), as he nears completion of his latest feature. Edward is known for making popular action movies but wants to make an artistic statement this time round, a fact he’s trying desperately hard to hide from studio head Marissa (Irwin). Meanwhile he lives a hedonistic lifestyle, often bedding two women at the same time. When Emma decides to put an end to this behaviour by severely reducing the size of his penis, Edward’s resulting loss of confidence begins to affect his ability in making his movie. And when Marissa finally sees a rough cut that ends too abruptly for her liking, Edward is persuaded to oversee further shooting that will add an action climax much like the ones he’s famous for.

Edward’s movie is about a Brazilian model, Michelle (Ximenes), whose career is far from fulfilling. An encounter with a publisher leads her to turn her back on modelling in order to write a novel. She leaves behind her less than supportive boyfriend, Dale (Priestley), and heads for a beach town in Brazil where she continues to write her story about a young woman who works in a love doll factory and wants bigger breasts. As Zoom continues, each story, already inextricably linked, reveals different facets of the wider story being told, and challenges our notions of what’s real and what’s fantasy.

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Morelli juggles the various storylines and multiple perspectives with a confidence that draws out the subtle nuances and refinements of the script. Visual clues and riffs abound throughout, and there are a number of verbal references that serve to enhance the quick-witted nature of the narrative, and it all helps to take the viewer on a multi-stranded journey of discovery that never skimps on invention. Emma and Bob find themselves in possession of a large quantity of cocaine, the sale of which will help pay for the breast reduction she now wants. Michelle finds herself on the verge of a relationship with local bar owner, Alice (Ohana). Edward goes to ever-increasing lengths (no pun intended) to reassert his masculinity, even as his control over his movie defaults to his scheming colleague, Horowitz (McKellar). Each story grows closer and more connected to each other, until Hansen and Morelli manage to pull off something of a magic trick: three narratives become one and they all fit seamlessly together.

A tremendous amount of thought has been put into Zoom, and though a handful of scenes have the feel of having been added during shooting, the movie as a whole has a gleefully anarchic approach that is helped immeasurably by the commitment of its cast. Bernal, his performance augmented by the comic book style animation his storyline is presented in, plays Edward as a combination of preening pleasure seeker and tortured artist, and does so without making his character seem at odds with himself. Ximenes has arguably the most dramatic role, but acquits herself well, portraying Michelle’s determination and vulnerability with a poise and conviction that feels entirely natural. Labine provides his usual slacker screen persona (which isn’t a bad thing; he hasn’t worn out his welcome in the way that Seth Rogen has, for example), Michael Eklund adds another oddball role to his CV as a love doll customer with an uncomfortable demeanour, and McKellar is suitably venal and crafty as Edward’s “successor”.

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But it’s Pill who most impresses. As the outwardly mousy Emma, Pill delivers a pitch perfect portrayal of a woman with bigger (pun intended) plans than anyone can imagine. Always undervalued and unappreciated for herself, Emma has a better focus on her life and what she wants than anyone else, and Pill is the movie’s consistent source of emotional honesty. Her open, expressive features (even when hidden behind some very large frames) have the ability to convey so many different feelings and emotions that watching her is always a pleasure. Just watch her in the scene where she tries to insist that her breast enlargement be reversed; the combination of her countenance and her vocal delivery is expressed with such delicacy that it’s a shame when the scene ends.

Zoom premiered a year ago today at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, but has since been released in only a handful of countries. This is a shame as it’s an imaginative, skilfully handled tale that wears its quirkiness on its sleeve with pride, and offers anyone lucky enough to see it a very good time indeed. Morelli, Hansen, the cast, and everyone else involved in the movie should all be congratulated for achieving something that doesn’t conform to the moribund excesses of current Hollywood movie making.

Rating: 8/10 – an extremely pleasing mix of animation and standard photography, Zoom establishes each of its three storylines with speed and efficiency, and never relaxes in its efforts to surprise and entertain the viewer; a small-scale gem that deserves a wider audience – like so many other indie movies out there – it’s diverting and rewarding in equal measure and well worth checking out.

Spaceman (2016)

23 Tuesday Aug 2016

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Spaceman

D: Brett Rapkin / 90m

Cast: Josh Duhamel, W. Earl Brown, Winter Ave Zoli, Ernie Hudson, Carlos Leal, Caroline Aaron, Claude Duhamel, Stefan Rollins, Wallace Langham

If you’ve heard of Bill Lee, one-time pitcher (and a left-handed pitcher at that) for the Boston Red Sox and the Montreal Expos, then chances are you also know about his drug-related background, his independence and need to challenge authority, plus his support for Maoist China, Greenpeace and school busing in Boston (amongst others). He was a well-known counterculture figure who appeared in an issue of the pro-marijuana magazine, High Times, and who once threatened to bite off the ear of an umpire in a 1975 World Series game. In later life, while still involved with baseball on a variety of levels, he was also asked to run for President of the United States on behalf of the Rhinoceros Party (his slogan: “No guns, no butter. Both can kill.”) If nothing else, Bill Lee has led an extraordinarily rich and eventful life.

Which makes Spaceman all the more confusing for focusing on the period that immediately follows the end of his professional career. Fired for one challenge to authority too many (walking out before a game in protest at the release of a fellow player), Lee (Duhamel) expects to get right back in the game, so confident is he that his unique skills as a pitcher will be more than enough to offset his off-the-pitch behaviour. But when the offers don’t come rolling in, Lee finds himself at a loss. His agent (and friend), Dick Dennis (Brown), keeps getting the runaround when he tries to contact the big league teams, and soon the message gets through: nobody wants him because everyone is tired of his shenanigans. He’s also thirty-six, and time isn’t on his side.

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Lee’s also trying to do right by his three kids. He’s separated from his wife (Zoli) and can only have them over by arrangement. He’s as unorthodox a parent as he is a baseball player, but his relationships with his children are one of the few aspects of his life that he gets right. Otherwise, Lee smokes a lot of weed, drinks a lot of booze, and dreams of making it back into the Big Leagues. But the offers don’t come, his eventual divorce sees him deprived of any visitation rights, and to cap it all he receives an invitation to play for a Canadian seniors team. Intrigued and offended at the same time, Lee attends one of their matches, and helps them win. His need to play keeps him with the team for a while, until Dennis swings him a tryout for San Fran at their training facility in Phoenix. Lee motors all the way down there, only for the head coach (Langham) to dismiss him, and for Lee to learn that he won’t ever be taken back into the Big Leagues. A coaching offer comes along too, but the lure of playing sees him contemplating returning to Canada and resuming playing in the Seniors’ league.

Director Brett Rapkin has been here before. In 2003, he and fellow movie maker Josh Dixon joined Lee on a trip he was making to Cuba. The resulting footage made up the bulk of the documentary Spaceman: A Baseball Odyssey (2006). Ten years on and Rapkin’s decision to revisit Lee’s life (or at least a part of it) has led to his making a movie that starts off strong with Lee’s determination to stand up for his teammate, but then it settles into an amiable groove that is pleasant to watch but eventually becomes so placid that not even the scene where he loses his visitation rights scores any dramatic depth.

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By focusing on a period when Lee wasn’t playing baseball, it seems that Rapkin (who also wrote the screenplay) has chosen to explore the nature of the man behind the legend. But when the man is the legend, there’s little room for any real exploration, and so we have several moments where Lee informs anyone who’ll listen that he needs to play baseball, several scenes where Lee mooches around at home in his Y-fronts, and even more scenes set in a bar where he squanders his time in playing the wounded, unappreciated hero. With the introduction of the Canadian seniors team, the movie does find something more interesting to focus on, but even then it continues to be more amiable than sharply detailed.

As the Spaceman, Duhamel makes up for his appearance in the dreadful Misconduct (2016) by infusing Lee with a great deal of charm and affability. The employment of a scruffy beard adds to the character, while his scenes with Zoli reveal the pain Lee is suffering at the collapse of his marriage (something that didn’t happen in real life). But on the whole, Duhamel has little to work with, and while he’s able to give a warm, occasionally disarming performance, he’s too confined by the conventional nature of the material and the flatly handled narrative. The supporting cast have even less to hang a performance on, with only Zoli making any kind of impression, playing Lee’s wife with a brittle dismay that seems all too appropriate.

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While the movie as a whole is affectionate in its view of Lee and his anti-establishment outbursts, and his self-aggrandising, it does make an effort to remind viewers that for all his grandstanding he was an exceptional pitcher. At the San Fran tryouts, and before he’s sent on his way, Lee’s gift with a baseball is used to outclass an arrogant batsman, a scene that trades on an overly familiar scenario in sports movies while doing so with a valid sincerity (look closely at any shots of Lee pitching though and you’ll see that the shot has been reversed; Duhamel isn’t a leftie). Sadly, there are too few scenes of Lee doing what he did best, but thankfully, when there are they lift the movie out of the doldrums.

Rating: 5/10 – not a bad movie per se, but one that never aspires to be anything more than good-natured, Spaceman struggles to find any dramatic traction that might keep an audience from losing interest; ultimately, Rapkin’s debut feature shows him working at a purposely even keel and forgetting to add some highs and lows to give texture to his otherwise genial look at a baseball hero and his fall from the Big Leagues.

10 Reasons to Remember Arthur Hiller (1923-2016)

17 Wednesday Aug 2016

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Arthur Hiller (22 November 1923 – 17 August 2016)

Arthur Hiller

Born in Edmonton, Canada to Jewish parents who had immigrated from Poland in 1912, Arthur Hiller grew up in an environment where a love of music and theatre was instilled in him from a young age. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force at the start of World War II, and became a navigator, flying numerous missions over Europe. In the early Fifties he began directing for Canadian television; this led to his being offered a job directing with NBC. Over the next ten years he worked steadily in television, contributing to shows such as Playhouse 90, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Route 66.

During this period he made his feature debut, the coming-of-age romantic drama The Careless Years (1957), but it wasn’t until he worked for Disney on Miracle of the White Stallions (1963) that his movie career began to take off. By then, Hiller’s ability to work within different genres was standing him in good stead, enough for him to move away from television (almost) altogether. After 1965, his TV work consisted of three episodes of the series Insight, episodes that were made over an eleven-year period. Hiller soon allied himself with screenwriters of the calibre of Paddy Chayefsky and Neil Simon, and developed a reputation for making comedies that had a surprising depth to them.

1970 saw the release of Hiller’s most famous, and enduring movie of all, Love Story. The success of the movie cemented his success, and throughout the Seventies, Hiller had a run of hit movies that made him an A-list director. His was a brisk, authoritative style, but there was also a looseness, a sense of fun to his movies that made them more enjoyable than most comedies of the era. He was inspired by a post-War screening of Rome, Open City (1945), and he never lost sight of the emotional truth of his movies, even if some of his later works, such as Carpool (1996) weren’t as effective – or as amusing – as they could have been.

In 1989, he took on the role of President of the Directors Guild of America, a position he held until 1993, when he became President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the next four years. He made one last movie, the less than pardonable National Lampoon’s Pucked (2006) (a career nadir for both Hiller and its star, Jon Bon Jovi), before retiring. Hiller will be fondly remembered for the way in which his movies resonated with audiences, their effortless likeability, and the almost timeless quality they carry, and the unassuming yet quietly confident way in which he directed them.

The Americanization of Emily

1 – The Americanization of Emily (1964)

2 – The Out of Towners (1970)

3 – Love Story (1970)

4 – Plaza Suite (1971)

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5 – The Hospital (1971)

6 – The Man in the Glass Booth (1975)

7 – Silver Streak (1976)

Silver Streak

8 – The In-Laws (1979)

9 – The Lonely Guy (1984)

10 – Outrageous Fortune (1987)

Outrageous Fortune

Mini-Review: The Calling (2014)

23 Friday Jan 2015

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Calling, The

D: Jason Stone / 108m

Cast: Susan Sarandon, Gil Bellows, Ellen Burstyn, Topher Grace, Christopher Heyerdahl, Donald Sutherland, Kristin Booth, Ella Ballentine, Jane Moffat

Asked to look in on an old woman as a courtesy, Fort Dundas police inspector Hazel Micallef (Sarandon) finds the woman has been murdered, her throat cut and her mouth manipulated to make it look like she’s screaming. With help from fellow detective Ray Green (Bellows) she begins to investigate the murder but when another victim is discovered in similar circumstances, she begins to suspect a serial killer is responsible. She asks for help on the case and is sent Ben Wingate (Grace), an officer from Toronto; he’s a bit wet behind the ears but eager to help.

As previous victims are identified, Hazel discovers a religious aspect to the murders. She consults with Father Price (Sutherland) who tells her of a biblical portent that relates to the belief in the resurrection of the dead through the sacrifice of twelve willing individuals. Further murders occur but clues lead to a man named Simon (Heyerdahl); they also show the trail he appears to be taking across the country and the way in which he chooses his victims. Armed with this knowledge, Hazel takes a risk and sends Wingate to the home of Simon’s next intended victim…

Calling, The - scene

Pitched somewhere between Fargo (1996) and Se7en (1995), The Calling is a serial killer movie that, like many others before it, takes a biblical angle and makes it sound preposterous. It’s always difficult to provide a religious-minded serial killer with an entirely plausible reason for their actions, but this movie, with its otherwise cleverly constructed script by Scott Abramovitch (based on Inger Ash Wolfe’s novel), has a hard time making Simon’s motive credible, and fares even less well when it comes to the sacrificial elements – why does his victims have to be killed so horribly? It’s all too confusing and muddled to work properly and hampers a movie that goes about its business with a moody, unrelenting seriousness.

There’s a sterling performance from Sarandon as a detective with a drink problem, but even she can’t avoid comparisons with Frances McDormand in Fargo – though her level of world-weariness is more pronounced. Bellows and Grace offer solid support, as does Burstyn as Hazel’s over-protective mother, but it’s Heyerdahl who makes the most impact, his portrayal of Simon both unnerving and chilling in its quiet intensity. One scene with the daughter of a waitress is so unsettling it’ll stay with you long after the rest of the movie has faded from your memory. Stone directs with the eagerness of someone making their first feature (which he is), but reigns in the desire to show off and throw in everything including the kitchen sink. He has a pleasingly straightforward approach to framing and composition, and isn’t afraid to embrace some of the more awkward plot developments (basically, anything involving Sutherland). It’s a confident outing for Stone, but sadly, it only gets him so far.

Rating: 5/10 – an interesting premise that’s let down by its own explanation, The Calling is left feeling overcooked and underwhelming; fans of this sort of thing will see the final scene coming from a mile off, while anyone else will have lost any initial enthusiasm once Hazel consults with Father Price.