Canada's biggest festival of documentary films, Hot Docs, now has its schedule on line and though it's still three weeks away, it's not to early to look what's available. And by that I mean, all across Canada by streaming. People in Toronto can catch some of the films in theater.
The highlights I've noticed so far include a study of Tik Tok, the current social media craze, a film about a notorious swindler, a film about the Russian dissident who was poisoned and a study of inequality made by Walt Disney's grandniece. For more check out the Hot Docs website.
And notice this documentary available now. The Last Tourist exposes the downside of modern travel. It opens in select theaters today.
Elsewhere this week, we have these ...
The Bubble: 3 ½ stars
How to Survive a Pandemic: 3 ½
Everything, Everywhere All At Once: 4
Apollo 10 ½: 4
Moonfall: 1 ½
Better Nate Than Ever: 3
Morbius: 2
THE BUBBLE: Judd Apatow wrote and directed this and though there aren't enough laughs for just over two hours of your time there is plenty to relish. This is a view of, occasionally an evisceration of, the big budget, movie industry from an insider. Egos, power trips, , randy libidos, artistic pretensions, insecurities. They're all on display and performed by actors who are well familiar with this world. Keegan-Michael Key, Pedro Pascal, David Duchovney, Karen Gillan, Fred Armisen, Maria Bakalova (remember Borat?), Kate McKinnon, Leslie Mann are here and look closer for John Lithgow, John Cena, James McAvoy and others. Apatow's friends probably, and a couple of relatives.
Like the tales of making the next Jurassic Park movie, he imagines a film shoot during the pandemic. This one is number 6 in a franchise called Cliff Beasts, about flying dinosaurs. The actors are in England, holed up in a hotel (hence the Bubble) and forced to put up with each other with no chance of escape. One tries but is threatened with a lawsuit. A security team of ex-military types enforces rules and sets up an elaborate electronic system. Armisen is the director who sees environmental themes in the story. Duchovny plays the lead, McKinnon, the studio head, Iris Apatow (yes , Judd's daughter) is a Tik Tok star turned actor, Pascal is a serious actor stooping in a popcorn movie, and so on. They're types and each represent an unflattering example of these movie people. It's not deep; but does entertain. And shows more than I've seen in the movies yet of what life has been like under COVID-19. (Netflix) 3 ½ out of 5
HOW TO SURVIVE A PANDEMIC: If you've been following the COVID-19 news these last two years, you may already know much of what this documentary tells us. But it's good to get it all in one place like this as a refresher and a reminder. And there are new angles too. Filmaker David France followed the story as it developed and this feels like an attempt to compile a history. So there are interviews along the way with key players, Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief among them, but also the chairman of Pfizer, public medical officials and vaccine researchers. They're all interviewed by science writer Jon Cohen who asks, prods and sometimes jokes with them. He knows the subject well enough to know where to look.
He centers on the rush to develop a vaccine, documents the pressures on the companies and celebrates when the results come. Remember there was also a controversy over how fast they were working. Donald Trump was pressuring them. Safety was debated. People were dying and the film puts up a new number now and then. Along the way Fauci is almost candid about how he dealt with Trump, the president of Brazil (on TV) says his people should stop being sissies and the head of the World Health Organization tells the rich nations to share. The film is a good digest. (Streaming on CRAVE) 3 ½ out of 5
EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE: There's so much going on here you just might ask more than once, what is all this? But you'll never be bored. You'll be drawn in tight, trying to figure it out and enjoying it anyway. It's a neat example of a simple story broadened out into something huge through metaphor and imagination. The directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert who work under the name The Daniels, made the very strange Swiss Army Man a few years ago but are much more entertaining this time.
Chinese superstar Michelle Yeoh plays an immigrant in California who owns a laundromat, has trouble doing her income tax return and tangles with a rule-stickler at the tax department (Jamie Lee Curtis). Not just tangles, but martial-arts fights too. But that's later. The initial meeting with her brings on a rush of other thoughts as she imagines what her life would have been like in other universes. We see many: she as a movie star (hardly a stretch for Yeoh), a Beijing Opera star, a kung fu fighter, a restaurant chef and maybe the weirdest, a talking rock. All that while her milquetoast of a husband (Ke Huy Quan) is trying to talk divorce and her daughter (Stephanie Hsu) is falling in love with a girlfriend. Oh, and an alternate version of her husband arrives from the metaverse and warns of an evil creature called Jobu Tupaki that's ready to cause chaos. It's a crazy jumble but so intriguing. And full of allusions to well-known movies. (Toronto and Vancouver now, more cities next week) 4 out of 5
APOLLO 10 ½: A SPACE AGE CHILDHOOD: Richard Linklater, the creator of that gem of a film called Boyhood goes back to that time of his life at another angle. He was enamored by the idea of space travel and living in Houston, site of one of the NASA centers, was super excited by the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. He and his family were among the 400 million people who watched the TV coverage. He remembers it in basic but sparkling animation with occasional news clip inserts. But it goes beyond that in two ways. One: he imagines himself part of it. It seems the lunar module was built too small and for the original testing, NASA needed somebody small. He got to go. Imaginary, I'm sure.
The other beyond is in his memories, as spoken by Jack Black in narration. He recalls what life was like for him, from fears of war (Viet Nam), the nuclear arms race and safety drills at school. Also TV shows everybody watched, hit movies, the packaged foods they ate, games like Red Rover, fun with prank calls and technological advances like push-buttons replacing the dial phones. There's much more: Joni Mitchell on Johnny Cash's TV show, Walter Cronkite voice about almost everything and “no sense of history” in the suburbs growing everywhere. The film is great nostalgia and a real time capsule. (Netflix) 4 out of 5
MOONFALL: This is almost a must-see and for all the wrong reasons. First, it's a big, expensive disaster movie with known stars, Halle Berry. Patrick Wilson, Donald Sutherland (briefly), made by a disaster-movie specialist, Roland Emmerich. It's absolutely new to us. It was not released in Canadian theaters possibly because it did so badly in the US. It may be one of the all-time movie bombs.
Another reason to see it: to marvel at how ludicrous the story is. The moon is spinning off its orbit and will crash into the earth in three weeks. Halle Berry figures out why? She, as a former NASA astronaut frantically tries to tell the world that the moon is hollow, it was constructed by aliens and a swarm of flying things comes out like a giant tentacle now and then. Two people actually believe her. One is also a former astronaut (Wilson); the other is a conspiracy theorist played by John Bradley, who I read was in Game of Thrones. He goes on about “megastructures” and asks “What would Elon do?” What indeed. Before the military types get out the nukes, our trio decide to fly right into the moon. And it gets weirder. Jaded? Bored? Looking for the unusual? You're ripe for this. (Prime Video) 1 ½ out of 5
BETTER NATE THAN EVER: Tim Federle, who directed and wrote both the film and the book it's based on, says he had two movies in mind when he made it : Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Billy Elliott. Good models to aim for. He doesn't quite match them but he does create a similar energy and a story that young teens can relate to. It tells them to follow their dreams and accept who they are. There's a sexual orientation theme in here, quite subtly though. This is a Disney film after all. Far more prominent is a young boy's dream of performing on Broadway and setting out to try for it.
The only role he's offered in a school play is a tree. In New York there's a casting call for a musical version of the film Lilo & Stitch and he (Rueby Wood) and best friend Libby (Aria Brooks) hop on a bus to go there. A bit of deception gets them in but he doesn't impress. But when he sings On Broadway in a crowd out of the street, a smart phone video goes viral on Tik Tok, and you can see where this is going. He even bumps into George Benson, who had a big hit with the song years earlier. And he needs the help of an aunt (Lisa Kudrow) who knows the Broadway scene but never made it big herself and now works as a caterer. We're rapt watching his efforts. The two teens are charming and the film, mild as it is, would make a good family evening. (Disney+) 3 out of 5
MORBIUS: Just one week after The Batman and not long before the next Spider-Man here's a weak comic-book movie from Marvel. It's badly paced, thinly written, heavy handed and close to ludicrous. And yet that's Oscar winner Jared Leto in the lead and former Dr. Who, Matt Smith playing his longtime friend. There's a break though and they are the ones who fight each other in the final battle that these movies always give us. Were the stakes better written we might care.
Morbius has a rare blood disorder and has dedicated his life to find a cure. He's become a research scientist and has won a Nobel Prize for developing artificial blood. Drinking it keeps his own problems under control. But the remedy is fading and he has brought bats from Costa Rica to experiment further. He combines his own and their DNA and you know that can't be good. They're vampire bats, he turns into a vampire, the police can't solve a series of bloody murders in the streets and his lab assistant (Adria Arjona) is an almost-love interest and almost incidental in the story. His pal Milo though is on to him and through a not well-written progression turns against him. Hence the fight. Daniel Espinosa directed and two added scenes in the end credits suggest more is planned. I can wait. (In theaters) 2 out of 5
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