Michael Caine the droll wit in new family beach movie

Andy De Emmony’s Four Kids and It (available June 30 on digital, Blu-ray, DVD, and on demand, including major digital platforms including iTunes, Amazon Prime and Vudu) is the perfect start-of-summer film for the whole family, even if the kids - ahem - have been on unofficial holiday with schools closed since March because of the pandemic. The whimsical story is a twist on a more than 100-year-old novel by E. Nesbit and based on the more modern children’s writer Jaqueline Wilson’s ‘Four Children and It.”   It stars a few somewhat known entities like Paula Patton (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) as mom Alice, Matthew Goode (Downton Abbey, The Crown) as dad David and the venerable for all time Michael Caine as the voice of the beach creature Psammead. And there’s a collection of child actors starring as a soon to be blended family, the one with the highest profile – the movie is a vehicle for her possible stardom - Ashley Aufderheide as Smash. The story begins as two families meet up at a vacation rental on the Cornish coast, just to get acquainted and have a little fun. Of course, the kids immediately hate one another and are sullen and suyly to their parents. Smash personifies her name and is the most precocious. “You ruined my life – again!” she shrieks at her hapless mom. But the kids start to get along and go on hikes together. They land at a beach and see some weird movement in the sand. It turns out to be a beyond-prehistoric creature called a Psammead. Whoever designed this grotesque figure did a more than excellent job. It’s a combination of elf, bunny, shriveled human and planetary alien – both horrific and cute as a button. And with the voice of the inimitable Michael Caine it’s all the more charming. The Psammead has magical powers and can grant wishes. There’s a stipulation. The wish runs out at sunset. “Come back tomorrow, if you survive this one,” Psammead guffaws. Meanwhile a dastardly neighbor (Russell Brand) seeks to capture the elusive creature, adding a secondary plot. The most spectacular of the kids’ wishes is the one, of course, involving Smash. And it indeed shows off the child actor’s voluminous talent. Will your family enjoy the film? Probably.  Parents may be a little bored unless they recognize some of their own, ah, poor parenting skills. But for the kids it's a lock with all the essential elements - fantasy, derring-do, a lovable monster and heroic juvenile personalities they can more than relate to.  

Was I surprised the 16th edition of the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) has been cancelled? Not particularly. Though I thought the call might come later than it did last week. After all, WIFF doesn’t run until early November. But it takes a lot of work to plan a festival and I would imagine scheduling films far in advance is part of that. But let’s face it, the organizers were just being prudent. Even though the festival was four months away who can predict the future with this pandemic? As executive director Vincent Georgie told The Windsor Star, what happens if there’s second wave of Covid-19, hitting right around the time of late fall? Last year, the one-time little festival that has grown into an amazing 10 day offering – huge for a midsize Canadian city and IMO the best film festival in either Windsor or Detroit - sold 42,000 tickets. It has the moniker of the #1 Volunteer-run Film Festival by the Toronto International Film Festival Film Circuit.

Revisiting Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto

For a movie featuring the proverbial cast of thousands, with spectacular backdrops, and telling a tumultuous story, check out the Mel Gibson (yes, the actor) film Apocalypto, which Gibson directed in 2006 (on video on demand). The setting is Yucatan Mexico and the subject the Mayan civilization in its literally final days before the Spanish Conquest. This is a harrowing story. A peaceful hunting and gathering tribe are captured by its aggressive neighbors, their village destroyed, and the adults taken prisoners. It’s what happens to the prisoners that is so diabolical. We’ve all seen the Maya pyramids and heard of human sacrifices. Apocalypto immerses into the subject spectacularly, showing this otherworld’s harrowing landscape, figuratively and literally. A surreal feast for the eyes with painstaking sets, costumes, make-up and an astonishing cast of literally thousands. 

Take Me (on Netflix) is a 2017 film directed by Pat Healy in which he also stars as Ray Moody, a wacko businessman who runs a real-life kidnapping service, for clients who, you know, just like to get their kicks that way. These “authentic simulated” experiences are staged and Ray charges a sizable fee for the thrill. One day he gets a call from a woman, Anna St. Clair (Taylor Schilling), who is asking for more than he offers. She’s willing to pay big bucks but he turns her down because it’s against his ethics. She’s persuasive and in the end he can’t resist. All goes as planned. The kidnapping happens but then something takes place – evolve may be the right word - which blurs the line between the fake and the real, or is what’s going on ultimately still fake? The fact the viewer doesn’t know until the very end is the genius of this screwball whodunit with good acting by both Healy and Schilling. There’s a great original score by Heather McIntosh. Only problem? While the storyline keeps you guessing it stretches too long. Chop off 20 minutes and it would be perfect.

Le Beau Serge (Criterion Channel) is the very first film of acclaimed French New Wave director Claude Chabrol. Released in 1958 it’s a very human story about two friends: Serge (Gérard Blain) and François (Jean-Claude Brialy). One day François arrives in his childhood village to spend the winter after recovering from a mild case of TB. He immediately seeks out his old friend Serge, only to find him to be an utterly depraved alcoholic, literally the town drunk. He sets his mind to rehabilitate him despite the scowls of Serge’s abused wife Yvonne (Michèle Méritz). Meanwhile, the town flirt Marie (Bernadette Lafont) provides temporary distraction to the fiercely handsome François. And guess what? She’s also having an affair with Serge. What’s best about the film is the incredibly naturalistic acting, especially by Brialy as François…..After the film you can watch a short documentary, featuring Chabrol, about the film’s making and Chabrol’s early life as critic and then filmmaker.

The Windsor International Film Festival usually screens it’s popular Mark Boscariol 48-Hour FlickFest during the festival’s regular run in the fall. But with Covid-19 who knows what’s in store for the festival this October. Meanwhile the festival has released the FlickFest - the short film efforts of 32 teams of filmmakers - on its YouTube channel. An awards ceremony on WIFF’s Facebook page takes place at 8 pm tonight.

My movie week

The Trip to Greece by Michael Winterbottom, on pay-per-view, (photo left) is the fourth and likely last of Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan’s road movies, in which the two well-known British actors hire a car (usually a Land Rover) and hit an exotic European destination. Over several days they stop at bucolic locations and dine at five-star restaurants, all on a British newspaper’s expense account. Meanwhile we’re treated to breathtaking scenery and the usually great wit and story-telling of the two thespians, who joke, mock one another, and try to outdo each other’s impersonations of people like Brando and Hopkins while philosophizing about anything and everything. The shtick has worked up to now but somehow doesn’t catch hold with this flic. Maybe it’s because the boys are just too familiar with the Greek Myths – and the rest of us aren’t – and that a lot of the joking and chatter is too inside the actor’s studio, if you know what I mean. 

The Painter and The Thief (Toronto Hot Docs festival pay-per-view online) by Norwegian director Benjamin Ree certainly tells an interesting and counterintuitive story, and hence a great topic for a documentary. Barbora Kysilkova, a painter of extraordinary naturalistic images, finds two of her paintings stolen. Eventually the thief is found in the person of Karl-Bertil Nordland, an ex con and drug addict. They meet. And instead of fireworks they develop a warm relationship. It may seem antithetical, but it works though Kysilkova is still puzzled by why Nordland stole, something he has no recollection of. “I was wasted and that’s the truth.” The story may be startling but the filming plods along and doesn’t gel until perhaps the second half, about the time Kysilkova’s boyfriend confronts her about having a relationship with such a potentially dangerous figure.

The Booksellers by D. W. Young (Hot Docs festival online pay-per-view) (photo left) is a film for anyone who loves books. The documentary portrays the world of antiquarian booksellers, a rare and, yes, very eccentric, breed, who will go literally to the ends of the Earth to buy – sometimes mortgaging the house – an exceptionally rare volume. We’re treated to interviews with some of the great if unknown (to the public) ones, whose bookstores vary from their own apartments to exquisite libraries or multi-floor old world Manhattan stores. There are also cultural glitterati like wit Fran Lebowitz, long form journalist and author Susan Orlean and one of the original New Journalists Gay Talese. There are stories of Da Vinci’s The Codex Leicester, the most expensive book ever sold, handwritten Jorge Luis Borges’s manuscripts, of jeweled and polished books, even ones made of human skin. If it all seems too fussy and musty – it’s really not – the film explores the up and coming generational world of early hip hop zines and the increasing voices of women making inroads into the heavily male dominated profession. The flic also surveys the overall book industry, lamenting its diminishing role (New York had almost 500 bookstores in the 1950s and has 80 now) in a digital world. But not to despair. Lebowitz says she sees lots of millennials on the subway reading – hold on – paper books.

Life Itself (Netflix) is a 2018 film directed by Dan Fogelman, which I took a chance on and which proved surprisingly engrossing. The subject is small – a multigenerational family – but the story is sprawling, with certain repeated chronological incidents connecting various players over time in ways you don’t expect, a sure sign of first class directing. The central characters are the couple Will (Oscar Isaac) and Abby (Olivia Wilde), their daughter Dylan (Olivia Cooke) and the Gonzalez family. The movie focuses closely on character, intersecting relationships and, yes, the element of chance. It’s like a detective story, keeping you wondering what’s coming around the next corner in these people’s lives. The cast includes Antonio Banderas, Mandy Patinkin and Annette Bening.