The awards at VIFF this year included a lot of films I saw near the end. Watch for them when they come back. The best B.C. Film was Handle With Care: The Legend of the Notic Streetball Crew, which is about much more than basketball. Best Canadian: Sin La Habana. Coextinction won the environmental Rob Stewart Eco Warrior Award, and Official Competition (Spanish, very funny) and The In-Laws (black humour from Poland) were among the audience favorites. Our Oscars submission Drunken Birds got a special mention in the Canadian category.
Back to the regular movie scene, here's what's new ...
The Last Duel: 3 stars
I'm Your Man: 3½
Muppets Haunted Mansion: 4
Mass: 4
Hard Luck Love Song: 3
THE LAST DUEL: A 14th-century #MeToo tale strives to show that it has always been so. Men control, women are victims. Under Ridley Scott's direction and the visual eyes of the art directors, it almost works. But it's also too long and drags at times because of its structure. There's a rape, the story is told in three versions, each from a separate point of view: the woman (Jodie Comer), her husband (Matt Damon), and the perpetrator (Adam Driver), if it actually was a rape. A court will decide that, and if not, God will, in who he lets win a duel.
It happened in France in 1386 and has fascinated historians ever since and also the novelist Eric Jager, the source for this film. Driver and Damon play best friends who have a falling out over land and a promotion that went to Driver's character instead of Damon's. They come off differently in the three stories, naturally, depending on who is telling it. But facts vary only subtly, and it feels like we're getting them three times. It's also a stretch to accept these actors as people in medieval France. Damon's accent wanders, Driver's is steadier, but Ben Affleck as a cousin of the king doesn't even try an accent. Comer (well-known from TV’s Killing Eve) fits in best. She's smart and varied in how she plays the victim, especially under the misogynistic questioning in court. The duel, which we're promised from the very beginning, is brutal when it comes. The rest of the story feels like we've heard it before. (5th Avenue, International Village, Marine Gateway, and many suburban theatres.) 3 out of 5
I’M YOUR MAN: The title is clever because he's not a man at all. He's a robot. (Android, to sci-fi buffs, because he's so lifelike.) He's also polite, attentive, and very smart. He can cite obscure percentage figures about accidents, and when he draws a bubble bath adorned with rose blossoms, he can tell you that 93 per cent of German women prefer that. The film is Germany's submission to the next Academy Awards and has already won prizes nationally and at festivals. And it's delightful.
Dan Stevens (remember him from Game of Thrones?) plays him wide-eyed and a little bit eerie, speaking German with an English accent. He's programmed with algorithms that pretty well make him the perfect man. Maren Eggert won Berlin’s 2021 Silver Bear for her performance as a woman who is assigned to host him for three weeks to see if he really is so perfect. He doesn't get angry, but on request can simulate anger. He orders in a coffee shop but later admits he didn't really know anything he wanted. She's perplexed, pleased, and annoyed. The early scenes are very funny, playing on what some women may want from an ideal man. Then a competing realization sets in, but the film, directed by Maria Schrader, doesn't stick with it and tacks on a superfluous twist. Still, it's very entertaining. (Vancity Theatre.) 3½ out of 5
MUPPETS HAUNTED MANSION: The lead-up to Halloween brings back horror classics (see the Rio Theatre schedule) and even artful horror (check out The Cinematheque) and a new one or two (like this week's too-late-promoted Halloween Kills), but give a thought to what the Muppets have been up to. They've done Christmas, Treasure Island, and space, and now (for the first time) Halloween. Gonzo and Pepe dare to spend the night in a haunted mansion once owned by a great magician. That's to honour him and replicate the ride offered in several Disney theme parks. The film is short, only 52 minutes, and with its easy mix of light scares and Muppet Show nostalgia is a good family event.
At the mansion, Will Arnett is the greeter, celebrities show up like Sasheer Zamata, Danny Trejo, Taraji P. Henson, Pat Sajak, and Ed Asner (as a ghost, one of his last roles), and just about every Muppet you can remember is there: Animal, Sam the Eagle, Fozzie Bear, and on and on. Kermit in one scene is costumed as Miss Piggy.
People who remember them from the TV show will probably enjoy it the most. It's full of references back, in-jokes, and the same wacky humour. A break is explained as “a union thing” but we get this assurance: “Don't worry, folks, we're not going to be explaining all the jokes.” They make a lot of them, though. It's fun. (Disney+.) 4 out of 5
MASS: When I read about school shootings, that bow and arrow attack just this week, or any incidents like them, I think not only about the victims but also the parents of the shooter. What must they be thinking? Do they feel any blame? Could they have seen warning signs? This film tackles those questions head-on with a fictional story of two sets of parents meeting and talking. Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton play parents who lost a son when a teen took a rifle to school and shot up his class and the library. Reed Birney and Ann Dowd play the shooter's parents. The talk they have around a table at a local church is excruciating in the emotions it raises. It's devastating, may alert you, but since it's so real, could get you overly worried.
Plimpton plays a sullen mom. She doesn't want to meet the other parents, and eventually gets vindictive. Isaacs, as the dad, tries to keep things calm. On the other side, Birney says he didn't know that his son was depressed. He was a loner, got good grades, and spent too much time on his computer, but that didn't seem unusual. “None of us knew.” Plimpton insists they must have known or should have. The dad is full of regret and his wife breaks down crying at one point. All four recall stories about their children that figure into the arguments, but also deepen the grief. “I promised him his life would mean something,” Plimpton's character says of her son. This is a deeply felt drama by actor Fran Kranz making a powerful debut as writer and director. (International Village, also Victoria and Kelowna.) 4 out of 5
HARD LUCK LOVE SONG: This is one of those small films about people who hang out in country bars, live in cheap motels, and try to have a life. It's one of the better ones, easy to take, and coming across as reality-based, like some of the better country songs. No surprise, that. It's based on a song, Just Like Old Times by Todd Snider, who is seen performing it alongside the end credits. It's about a guy drifting into town in Texas, playing some pool to make money, and reconnecting with a woman he hasn't seen since that time in New Orleans. Typical country lyrics, right? The film matches them and expands on them a bit.
Michael Dorman plays the guy; a songwriter, he says, for a couple of mid-level artists. The woman (Sophia Bush) is now working as a prostitute (she'll do anything you want except breakdancing). He calls her up, and they get together even though she recalls he was “scheming and manipulating” and had “destroyed everything.” He seems pretty nice now, although not when playing pool. He's a hustler and gets beaten up for it. Dermot Mulroney, Eric Roberts, and RZA cross his path. Also, a surprisingly understanding cop. As the song says, it's about “living out our own kind of American dream.” (Rio Theatre, Sunday and Wednesday.) 3 out of 5
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