MOVIES: Offering Two Big Choices: CAPTAIN AMERICA OR PADDINGTON

The biggest new film this week is surely Captain America: Brave New World which has a number of attributes to recommend it. Harrison Ford plays an American president with an alter ego. Fans have been clamoring for that story. Anthony Mackie, usually The Falcon, has now been asked by the retired Captain American to take over his job. That's the first time a black character has become a major super hero and the film is directed by a black Nigerian, Julius Onah. 

I don't rate it today though because the studio didn't preview it anywhere in Canada. Maybe not much a loss. An American site I checked, The Wrap, panned it as "hapless and cheap-looking junk" and "a shamelessly pointless motion picture". 

Let's move on to Paddington, a batch of short Oscar contenders and a small Canadian film.     

PADDINGTON IN PERU: Alright, so it isn't as superb as the second film (this being the third) but there's so much to enjoy that I recommend it. And your kids will love it, as did the two that I took to it. And let's not forget that this is the bear that had tea and marmalade sandwiches with Queen Elizabeth. He's more than a treasured celebrity of children's literature, (29 books in all) and now he goes back to where he's from, "darkest Peru." That's where his aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton), who originally sent him to London, lives in a home for retired bears. 

A letter from the reverend mother (Olivia Colman) who administers the home says she's been acting strangely. The Brown family (Hugh Bonneville et al) and Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) travel there to cheer her up but find that she's disappeared. Clues suggest she may have sailed down the Amazon. To follow they hire a posh boat with a captain played by Antonio Banderas. He's having a great time hamming it up in his role but what are all these pictures on the wall of Spanish conquistadors who invaded centuries ago looking for gold? They're the captain's ancestors; he honors them. He also may be after gold and the reverend mother turns out to have ulterior motives too. There's a lot of story squeezed into this zippy film by first time director, Dougal Wilson. His background is in commercials and he brings good fun, a surprise cameo and a kid-friendly ending. (In theaters) 4 out of 5 

MONGRELS: The immigrant experience is explored once again, not too deeply though. Rather than a thorough analysis this is an engrossing story set within that experience. The filmmaker, Jerome Yoo, originally from Korea, now in Vancouver, might see more than we do. He's put elements of his own coming-over into the story and that probably recalls a lot of feelings he had adjusting to a new culture. To us it's pretty subtle. 

The story is of a Korean family, a father, young daughter, teenage son, living in what seems to be rural Alberta. Where is the mother? We're not told. Korean stories often highlight gentle nurturing mothers. When is she coming the daughter asks repeatedly. There's something of a mystery about that and a suggestion of violence or tragedy in the past. 

Meanwhile identity is the driving theme. Dad is gruff and volatile. The daughter misses the mother profoundly and works on a mystical way to bring her back. The son becomes friends with a neighbor's boy and his family. It's a way for him to fit in, and the most direct look at how immigrants adapt. And dad's job is to trap the dozens of wild dogs that are running around in this farming community. The kids don't want to kill. Dad pushes. "Life is full of agony," he says. The film is richly metaphorical. (Watch for it in theaters, starting now at The VIFF center in Vancouver). 3 ½ out of 5       

OSCAR SHORTS: It’s an annual treat and it’s back. All the short films nominated for Academy Awards have again been packaged into three programs: documentary, live action and animation and are playing in select theaters. They’re essential viewing if you’re joining an Oscar pool or even if you’re simply a fan of good, terse story telling. Several of these titles fit that description exactly. Some are slight, and there’s an occasional head scratcher as to what it’s saying. All are worth watching though.

LIVE ACTION: This category includes a film I find the most remarkable of them all. 

INCIDENT recounts a police shooting in Chicago using only real footage from security cameras, cel phones and cameras that police officers wear. By law, the city had to make all that footage public and we see exactly what happened, how it got out of hand and what happened after. A black man walks past five cops, the bulge evident of a gun he’s legally carrying; a cop confronts him, jostling breaks out, he runs out into the street and a young rookie cop shoots him dead.

The officers unite their stories. The man had pulled his gun and threatened to shoot, they said. The video shows that’s not true. A crowd gathers and yells that the man was just a barber, not a hood. The shooter got a two-day suspension. A stark re-creation by artist and filmmaker Bill Morrison. 

I AM READY, WARDEN is about capital punishment but doesn’t take a side on the issue. It just tells the facts: a killer in Texas, runs off and hides for four years in Mexico, is arrested, tried and sentenced to die. In court we hear about the hard life he had as a child, the religion he had just turned to and the regret he felt. Also the relief: “My suffering is over,” he says. Not for two young men though: both his and his victim’s son speak in the film. Someone says “he’s an ignorant violent person.” In a last video message he says he’s sorry and laments that his son is a victim too. Strong film.   

DEATH BY NUMBERS is also grim. Remember the high school shooting in Parkland Florida where 14 people died and a student campaign arose to work for tougher gun laws? This film tells the story through the memory and journal of Samantha Fuentes. She was shot, was patched up with 15 stitches and supplies the voice over for the film. She gives the facts and what she makes of them. “You’ve embedded yourself in my identity, in my soul” she says of the shooter. 

And in court she says to him directly: “Without your stupid gun, you are nothing.” Very powerful.

And in a lighter mood:

INSTRUMENTS OF A BEATING HEART shows a class of grade one students learning to perform Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and THE ONLY GIRL IN THE ORCHESTRA gives us the first woman hired as a full-time double-bass player at the New York Philharmonic and the male doubts she had to overcome. Both films are endearing. 

LIVE ACTION: These episodes are brief but feel very real.

I AM NOT A ROBOT: Starts comically as a woman struggles to deal with impediments to getting into a website. Say that you’re not a robot. Click all the cars you see here. That sort of thing. We’ve all had to do that and really feel for the frustration that builds inside her. She has to call support because  she can’t prove she’s not a robot. Not to the support person’s satisfaction either. The story echoes a similar film in theaters right now. No further hints from me.

THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT REMAIN SILENT perfectly conjures up the fear that autocratic power brings on. This film from Croatia shows Serbian soldiers board a train to root out Muslim passengers.

 It’s based on a true incident, a massacre, from 1993 and is perfectly concise and chilling to watch. 

LIEN is an eerie reminder of what’s going on in the US today, the effort to find and deport undocumented immigrants. An American woman, her immigrant partner and their daughter are called in by Homeland Security for some routine paperwork. There’s a glimpse of Trump on a TV, a lot of ICE Officers and an harrowing feel everywhere.

ANUJA from India is a more slight film but dealing with big issues: women’s rights, child labor, tough working conditions. Two sisters sew tote bags in a sweatshop. Anuja has an exam coming up; she’s a whiz at math and could win a scholarship. Her sister has found a clever way to steal to make the money she needs. A mean-spirited boss gets in the way with threats. So what to do? Also very engrossing.

THE LAST RANGER shows atrocious mistreatment of wildlife by poachers in South Africa. Rhinoceros horns are said to be aphrodisiacs when ground up. Poachers kills them, cut the horns with chain saws and leave the body to rot. A female ranger with a young girl along for the ride comes across a kill and puts herself in danger despite the violence that looms. “These animals are my family,” she insists. Urgent and informative. 

ANIMATION: I saw less innovation and experimental drawing in this category this year. I seem to remember more of that in years past. However up in the full-length category Flow has all that and makes up for it all by itself. And down here in the shorts we have a couple of gems and a surprising subject to start us off.

BEAUTIFUL MEN is about male vanity as three guys go to Istanbul for hair transplants. Baldness puts their vulnerable masculinity at risk in this film from Belgium. 

IN THE SHADOW OF THE CYPRESS is from Iran and explores the PTSD that war has brought on for a former captain of a naval ship. He lives with his daughter at the seashore, has violent fits and gets unexpected redemption when they find, and help, a beached whale in distress. The drawing is nicely different: thin watercolor. 

MAGIC CANDIES is a charmer from Japan about a boy who feels lonely, can’t get others to let him play with them and finds a diversion.

He buys candies that he thinks are marbles but when in his mouth cause things nearby to talk to him. A sofa, for instance, has a lot to say. He’s transformed but the film is merely a clever idea with obscure meaning.   

YUCK! Is a French film about one fragment of growing up. Children at a summer resort act nauseated when they see grownups kissing. They see the lips glow red. They giggle and mock; “I’ll never so it,” says one.

But then one boy-and-girl pair feel their lips glowing. Are they feeling an attraction? Not conclusive but also charming. 

WANDER TO WONDER: This is the most imaginative of the bunch. It’s from Holland, Belgium and France and made by Nina Gantz who lives in England. It took her eight years (it’s in stop-motion which is laborious) to create this story of loss and grief about three tiny performers on a children’s TV show who are on their own when their creator dies. They wander in a wasteland. You get light humor cutting through the sadness and then resilience and hope. It’s a potential winner.