Every one of us processes grief differently. Most people know the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance—but “In Dust,” a dark comedy starring Matthew Broderick and Géza Röhrig, suggests there are a few phases missing from that list.Röhrig, the Hungarian actor best known as star of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner “Son of Saul,” stars as Shmuel, an upstate New York Hasidic cantor distraught by the sudden passing of his wife Rivkah. Tormented by the thought that her ruach (soul) will not rest until she is turned to dust he becomes obsessed by the rate of her decomposition.
As I said, we all grieve differently.
His anguish pushes him to break religious law and seek guidance outside of his community. A casket salesman (Joseph Siprut), once he realizes Shmuel isn’t in the market to buy a casket, offers no help. “We don’t check their progress,” he says. In desperation he approaches bumbling community college biology professor Albert (Broderick).
The odd couple perform some decidedly non-kosher experiments—most notably with a stolen pig named Harold—to establish a timeline for Rivkah’s decay and put Shmuel’s mind to rest.
“Who doesn’t like bacon?” asks Albert, placing foot firmly in mouth.
First time feature director Shawn Snyder has crafted an offbeat but appealing comedy that offers up laughs as well as bittersweet sensitivity. In what is essentially a two hander, Snyder amps up the absurdity by allowing his actors to be both unlikeable and yet strangely compelling. Röhrig and Broderick are a perfectly matched, if morbid, odd couple.
Röhrig plays Shmuel as a sympathetic character but one who pushes the boundaries of behaviour as he follows through in his tormented obsession. He finds the tragedy and the humour in the situation, equal parts comic exasperation, stubbornness and heartache.
Broderick, often decked out in his ex-wife’s lacy housecoat, is a delight. His Albert has let life pass him by. Hapless and hopeless, he seizes on this experience as a way to reawaken his love of science and life. Broderick is deadpan perfection.
“To Dust” is a one-joke movie but it is a good joke brought to life by two actors who make their extreme characters relatable and recognizable.
A mix-and-match of “The Handmaid’s Tale” and any number of dystopian young adults tales “Level 16” is a powerful statement on the expectations levelled at young women.
The Vestalis Academy is a drab training centre where any deviation from the lesson plans of female virtue—cleanliness, obedience, humility and patience—gets students labelled “unclean” and results in a trip “downstairs” for severe punishment.
The kind of prep school that provides well-trained “daughters” to the highest bidder, its teachers educate on grooming, hygiene and life lessons like, “curiosity is the first vice,” and how to dress like the daughter of a top society family.
It’s also the only home its students have ever known. “When a girl is obedient and sweet the world cannot help but love her,” says Dr. Miro (Peter Outerbridge). “Follow the rules. Be patient. Let us take care of you. “
Each year is a level. “Level 16 is not like the other levels,” lectures the stern head mistress Miss Brixil (Sarah Canning). “All your training has lead up to this moment. Soon our sponsors will arrive to choose their new adopted daughters.” Interestingly, what the schooling doesn’t include are life skills like reading and writing.
The story focuses on Vivien (Katie Douglas) and Sophia (Celina Martin), two students who stop taking the “vitamins” that put them into a coma-like sleep every night. Working together they hatch a plan to save themselves and the others from a hideous fate.
Director Danishka Esterhazy’s “Level 16” details how so-called traditional feminine values can actually be tools of oppression. It’s a powerful message coupled with thoughts on objectification that pays off with a tense and horrifying climax that feels earned by the preceding story. (NO SPOILERS HERE!)
Esterhazy’s colour palate of grey, grey and more grey enhances the institutional nature of the story, helping to create the bleak atmosphere surrounding the students, most of whom find out the hard way that following the rules isn’t always the best path.
Mixing elements of social justice, horror and sci fi, “Level 16” is a genre movie that delivers both intellectually and emotionally.
“Ghost Town Anthology” feels like an episode of “The Twilight Zone” that Rod Serling didn’t get to make. Set in the tiny fictional Quebecois town of Irenee-les-Neiges, it’s a story about a tragedy that mixes the physical and metaphysical.
Irenee-les-Neiges is a wind swept town of just 215 people. Austere and unwelcoming, the snow bound town has been hit hard by a souring economy. It’s the kind of place where everyone knows everyone’s business so when a popular 21-year-old hockey player Simon Dubé kills himself in a rather dramatic fashion, it is the talk of the town.
Most directly impacted are his older brother Jimmy (Robert Naylor) and parents Gisele (Josee Deschenes) and father Romuald (Jean-Michel Anctil). Jimmy skips through most of the five stages of grief, vacillating between two, anger and depression, while his devastated mother and father search (sometimes literally) for answers. Soon ghosts from the past, including Simon, appear in town as though they had never left. “If you think about it,” says Richard (Normand Carrière), “they’re like us, in a way.”
Written and directed by Denis Côte and based on a novel by Montrealer Laurence Olivier, “Ghost Town Anthology” (“Répertoire des villes disparues”) is not a horror film. There are unsettling moments but the tone is more mournful.
Côte does an admirable job of creating an atmosphere of unease, using handheld cameras and a grainy film stock that emphasizes the stark nature of life in Irenee-les-Neiges.
“Ghost Town Anthology,” in French with English subtitles, is a slow burn that builds to a disquieting climax. These ghosts are not malevolent; they are nostalgia, reminders of what once was. Simon and the others may or may not be real but this isn’t their story. This is a story of the people living in a forgotten place in a changing world thinking about what they have lost, of appraising their past and facing an uncertain future.
On this week’s edition of “Pop Life” performer Sarah Brightman reflects on her natural gifts for the arts and where her career has taken her.
“My mother said I was actually conducting music on the radio before I was speaking,” she says. “I was just natural and I sang really before I could talk. I was so enamoured by the arts and taken in by them. It was what I was meant to do. It kind of defined me actually.”
Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.
Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock superstar Sting, musicians Josh Groban and Sarah Brightman, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, superstar jazz musician Diana Krall, legendary rock star Meatloaf, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actor Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Nigella Lawson, and many more.
The tagline for “Captain Marvel,” the latest Marvel origin story, is “Higher. Further. Faster.” but I would like to suggest another. “In Space, Everyone Can Hear You Scream Whee!” As Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) pierces our atmosphere, her banshee cry of sheer exhilaration pierces the soundtrack. “Whee!” She’s having fun and so should fans of the high-flying character.
There’s a bit of backstory. “Captain Marvel” begins, as all good superhero flicks do, on an alien planet. Hala is the home of the Kree, a race of powerful ETs ruled by an AI leader called the Supreme Intelligence (Annette Bening). Among the inhabitants of the planet are Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), mentor to Vers (Brie, not yet dubbed Captain Marvel). She is being trained as part of an elite band of space cops, who, shooting energy bolts from her wrists, tracks and hunts shapeshifting creatures called the Skrull. An insomniac, she is haunted by nightmares and mysterious images of another life.
To find context for her existence she travels to C-53—earth—during the Clinton years. There, while hunting down Skrulls who are searching for a weapon that would make them unstoppable in the universe, she meets Nick Fury, Agent of the espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D. (Samuel L. Jackson), who becomes entangled in her hunt for the earthbound Skrulls—including the world-weary Talos (Ben Mendelsohn)—and her search for her true identity.
“Captain Marvel” begins with a trippy, time-warping introduction to Vers’s past. It’s an orgy of fast cuts and establishes the film’s spirited tone. There’s a lot going on here, maybe too much, but at least it rips along like a cheetah attacking its prey. Things slow down once the film lands in 1995 California and the “Terminator-esque” story of a benevolent alien with superpowers kicks in.
The high points are lofty.
Larson finds the right tone, playing someone grappling with two identities, otherworldly and stoic one moment, swaggering playfully the next. Vers is a total girl power hero, with no love interest, other than a female best friend, she kicks but while the soundtrack blares “I’m Just A Girl” and tell her male mentor, “I have nothing to prove to you.” Larson keeps her interesting even though through much of the film Vers isn’t quite sure who she is or where she belongs in the universe.
Further separating her from her superhero colleagues is a purpose driven mission not born out of revenge but by powerful emotions and a sense of loss. Those motivations alone give the film a slightly different feel from others in the Marvel family.
Visually Vers, harnessing all the hurt of all the times she was told she wasn’t good enough or that girls shouldn’t try to do boy stuff, is a powerful feminist statement that helps drive the story and define the character. That it’s visually stunning is a bonus.
Supporting actors Jackson (we finally learn the unlikely why Fury wears an eye patch) and Mendelsohn find a balance between the film’s dramatic, action and lighter scenes.
Co-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, handle the character work with aplomb. Their previous films, indies like “Half Nelson” and “Mississippi Grind,” are studies in nuance, a trait lost in “Captain Marvel’s” larger set pieces. The action—and there is plenty of it, tends to be of a generic frenetically edited style. The convoluted origin story mixed with the cluttered action sequences suck some of the air out of the theatre but their take on the superhero character as both an outsider and one of us is as refreshing as it is unusual. “Whee!”
“Triple Frontier,” a new thriller starring Oscar Isaac and Ben Affleck, is a ‘let’s get the band back together for one last gig” movie given extra heft by its examination of the treatment of veterans.
Santiago Garcia (Isaac) has his sights set on reclusive South American drug lord Gabriel Lorea (Reynaldo Gallegos). After a failed attempt to infiltrate Lorea’s circle he turns to his former comrades, a group of American Special Forces operatives, now retired. Dangling a huge pay cheque—$17,000 a week and 25% of the $75 million in cash they seize—he lures MMA fighter Ironhead Miller (Charlie Hunnam), Ironhead’s brother and gunslinger Ben (Garrett Hedlund), pilot ‘Catfish’ Morales (Pedro Pascal) and logistics genius turned failed real estate salesman Tom Davies (Affleck).
Each were hotshot Special Forces who have floundered in civilian life. “You’ve been shot five times for your country and you can barely afford to live,” Garcia says to Davies. “That’s the crime.” Once recruited they become a gritty A-Team, who, with the help of an informant (Adria Arjona), plan on raiding Lorea’s heavily fortified house—“The house is the safe.“—killing the drug lord and pocketing millions in cash. “We finally get to use our skills for our own benefit and actually change something,” says Garcia.
The carefully planned mission, however, turns into, some “full on cowboy s**t” when some of their intel proves incorrect. Hundreds of bullets later they make a hasty retreat with only their guns, their wits and hundreds of millions of dollars in duffle bags. Question is, will they complete the mission or will greed het the best of them?
“Triple Frontier” is half heist, half get-away, each section filled with equal parts tension and clichés. Director J.C. Chandor knows how to let anxiety hang in the air, creating a sense of danger that permeates the heist section. The get-a-way is more contemplative, or at least as contemplative as a movie with this kind of body count can offer. A heavy mist of testosterone hangs over both sections making this tale of men, their guns and world weariness feel like something we’ve seen before. Clichéd dialogue—“We’re dancing with the devil here!”—comes hard and fast and by the time the soundtrack blares “Masters of War” it feels as though Chandor is hitting the viewer with a metaphorical billy cub to get his message across.
Once the testosterone settles Chandor’s message of how veterans are treated once they slip out of their uniforms becomes crystal clear. As each of these war scarred men question the way the choices they’ve made with their lives, they also realize it’s the only way they know. They’ve been conditioned to behave a certain way and yet, when they retire they are left without the resources, personally or professionally, to deal with civilian life. It’s a timely and heartfelt message deftly delivered.
First published in 1943 the novella “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is one of the bestselling books of all time. The short tale of a child—the little prince—who travels the universe gaining wisdom still sells almost 200 millions copies a year. “Invisible Essence: The Little Prince,” a new film from director Charles Officer, attempts to dissect the books popularity from an academic, artistic and global perspective.
“Invisible Essence: The Little Prince” mixes talking heads, including The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik, poet Rupi Kaur, filmmaker Mark Osborne, St-Exupéry biographer Stacy Schiff and the author’s great nephew and nephew Olivier and François d’Agay, with the touching story of a seven year-old blind Pakistani-Canadian boy who learns about the fable’s famous line, “what is essential is invisible to the eye” to grasp the book’s fundamental message of respect for humanity.
The new documentary footage is underscored by excerpts from a 1974 audio adaptation of the story starring Richard Burton and Jonathan Winters, clips from Osborne’s animated feature, a live action feature from director Stanley Donen and scenes from Guillaume Côté’s 2016 production at the National Ballet of Canada.
The result is a deep dive not only into the book but, just as importantly, the influence the book has had on several generations of artists and readers. It essays how imagination and inspiration are inextricably linked, and how both, plus a love of aviation fuelled Saint-Exupéry’s creation of “The Little Prince.”
With the release of “A Madea Family Funeral” Tyler Perry is putting to rest his most famous character. The actor-director has been playing the elderly, sharp-tongued Mabel “Madea” Simmons on screen since 2005’s “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” but now says, “I just don’t want to be her age, playing her.”
Is the titular funeral for Madea? There will be no spoilers here but I can tell you Perry gives “Krump’s” era Eddie Murphy a run for this money, not just playing four characters in “A Madea Family Funeral,” but also writing, directing and producing. For all we know he also did the catering and best boy duties.
The set up for the action revolves around a family reunion in rural Georgia. The family, including Madea, Joe, Brian (all played by Perry) and Madea’s brother, a Vietnam war vet Heathrow (Perry again). When tragedy strikes the family must arrange a funeral (NO SPOILERS HERE!) “If I’m not in the will I tell you that funeral will be messed up,” says Joe. There’s more at stake than the money in the will, however. Personal secrets threaten to tear the once tight knit family apart.
If you are not already a fan of Madea’s rough-and-tumble humour “A Madea Family Funeral” is unlikely to convert you. Perry’s trademarked mix of slapstick, social commentary, soap opera melodrama and sentimentality is sloppily applied with scenes that recklessly veer from smiles to schmaltz at the speed of light.
The film’s funniest scene is also it’s most disturbing. On the way to the reunion Brian and family are pulled over by an over-enthusiastic cop whose escalating behaviour seems bound for a violent outcome uses humour to portray an all too familiar powder keg situation. It’s the movie’s only concession to current events. The rest feels as though Madea’s sitcom and a soap opera had a baby and named it “A Madea Family Funeral.”
Like the title suggests, Hungarian animator Milorad Krstić’s first feature film “Ruben Brandt, Collector” springs from a collection of inspirations. From Dalí to art deco and Eisenstein to The Pink Panther, the director draws on various forms of visual art to create a beguiling heist film.
Psychotherapist Ruben Brandt (voice of Iván Kamarás) is troubled by bad dreams of famous artworks come life. Warhol’s Double Elvis takes pot shots at him and Botticelli’s Venus becomes a Lovecraftian horror. “My nightmares are getting stronger and stronger,” he says.
Meanwhile a daring cat burglar named Mimi (Gabriella Hámori) is on the run after a daring robbery. Crossing paths with Brandt, she learns of the doctor’s troubles by listening in on his Dictaphone. To help ease his troubled mind Mimi relies on the advice the doctor has often given to others, “Possess your problems to conquer them.” To this end she recruits four of his shadiest patients, all thieves, to steal the thirteen paintings that plague is thoughts. Cue the capers as they raid the Louvre, Tate, Uffizi, Hermitage and Museum of Modern Art. Trouble is, the police put a $100 million price on “the collector’s” head.
“Ruben Brandt, Collector” is so rich with visual imagery it feels like flipping through a thick copy of “Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine.” Even the name Ruben Brandt is a sly reference, culled from the names Rubens and Rembrandt but this isn’t just style over substance, it’s style as substance. It’s a loving pop culture pastiche that is a reverential as it is action packed. There are car chases and heist scenes that owe as much to cubism as they do to William Friedkin.
You’ll want to watch “Ruben Brandt, Collector” more than once just to catch all the references. The imagery will seem familiar—who hasn’t at least glimpsed Picasso’s cubist paintings?—but like “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” this movie takes familiar images and tropes and forms them into something fresh and exciting.
