Windsor Jewish Film Festival opens with winner

I was surprised, even a but shocked, at how few people turned out at the opening night last night at Devonshire cinemas for the Windsor Jewish Film Festival’s first screening. The last time I was there for opening night was in pre-Covid 2018. That year the fest opened with two screens - Cinema 2 and 12 to accommodate the overflow crowds. Last night I attended the slightly larger Cinema 2 and had expected a massive lineup. It wasn’t there. Before the lights went down there was still only a scattering of people in the theatre, perhaps a quarter full. This was very disappointing after screenings in 2018 were almost filled to capacity. I put it down to post-Covid, a lot of people still too frightened to go to the cinema - or not in the habit - mask-wearing or not. Meanwhile, if mask-wearing was a concern, there are no rules at Cineplex though it seemed all staff wore them. This differs from the upcoming Windsor International Film Festival’s (WIFF) May 12 – 14 series at the Capitol Theatre where mask-wearing and 50 per cent capacity along with vaccine checks, are mandatory as per the theatre’s health and safety protocol. Four films are on offer.

Last night’s WJFF opener, Tiger Within (2020, Rafal Zielinksi) is a charming, well-acted film starring veteran – and in his final role - Ed Asner. Up against him is Margot Josefsohn as Casey. The unlikely screen friendship finds Asner, an aged Holocaust survivor, living alone in LA, and accidentally meeting Casey, a cynical teen goth. I’d been expecting something sappy but this film wasn’t that at all. From the opening with inventive artwork unfolding into Casey’s onscreen character, and the brush strokes occasionally accentuating key moments in the movie – a technique I hadn’t seen before but which works – the film’s predictable plot line develops in an unpredictable way and that’s to its strength. Asner is almost unrecognizable due to age, a convincing German accent and superb acting. As Samuel he imparts, incidentally, life lessons to the wild and emotionally cold and depressed Casey, where a true-life spirit finally ignites. Josefsohn’s performance is also very believable. 

But I was disappointed by a film I caught at Devonshire just before the WJFF’s opening. This was the much hyped The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Tom Gormican) starting Nicholas Cage. Reviewers had touted the movie as Cage’s comeback after a series of ‘meh’ outings in Joe, Mandy and Pig, equating it with the dual character roles in 2002’s Adaptation (Spike Jonze). The first half hour of the movie is good with Nick, playing himself – or yet even a more extreme version – in anguish over a new film role. He’s a self-obsessed star whom ex-wife (Sharon Horgan) and daughter (Lily Sheen) can barely tolerate when they’re not bored by his narcissism. Nick’s flown to Mallorca Spain on the promise of getting $1 million to attend a super fan’s birthday party. Thinking the fan, a film buff and wannabe director, Javi (Pedro Pascal), wants to make a buddy movie but which is “character-driven” “nuanced” and “layered” – ha, a send up of art film pretensions - Nick is caught up in an international kidnap plot and enlisted by CIA agents. From here the movie descends into a yawn fest; Adaptation it is not. By aiming to be cleverly hilarious by playing up Cage’s eccentricities the film overshoots and lands in a miasma of derivative run-of-the-mill action flicks.

About, uh, that streaming service

I have a sense of schadenfreude (that’s laughing at others misfortune) with the recent Netflix numbers. The most wonderful streaming service (wink) lost 200,000 subscribers in the last quarter and believe it or not is expecting another drop of two million the next one. There are various reasons, say those maybe in the know. Among these are that there are so many more competitors these days, like Amazon Prime, Apple TV, BritBox, Crave, etc. etc. Another is that the pandemic is over – over! – get it? People are sick of watching movies in their basements no matter how large the screen. Elon Musk, mischievous as he is, even suggested so much of Netflix’s content is “woke” (politically correct) and therefore “unwatchable.” Let me weigh in. I’ve long found Netflix unwatchable, having complained about it a number of times, and last summer snipped the electronic cord by cancelling my virtual subscription. It wasn’t necessarily wokeness that did me in, though I can see what Musk means, but the fact so much of the inventory held no interest for me. I’m not a television watcher so, despite how supposedly great content was (Peaky Blinders vile premise – please!), I had no interest in “binge” watching. It was movies for me. But Netflix never offered up much in the way of classic, foreign or independent films and their current offerings with few exceptions (Roma (Alfonso Cuaron, 2018), Copenhagen (Mark Raso 2014), Panoptic (Rana Eid 2017), Life Itself (Dan Fogelman, 2018)) just didn’t appeal. Months would go by before I watched another Netflix movie. I’d go on the site, scroll and scroll and scroll and never find anything to watch. But truth be told, in recent months I’ve reconsidered. My main movie outlets have been Criterion Channel and Turner Classic Movies, and since I was in Europe for two months, had no access to the latter. I wanted more content and thought I should re-open the Netflix window. That remains to be seen. Meanwhile, I have to smile at the great streaming service’s (wink) bad news.

Finally, I took an interest in the Oscars

I finally took an interest in the Academy Awards, Of course, it wasn’t the night of the awards ceremony but the day after and only after I’d seen some reference – after all, it was everywhere - to an outrageous event that had taken place the evening before. It was of course "the slap heard round the world" that Will Smith had delivered on emcee Chris Rock. Rock apparently had made a joke about Smith’s wife’s Jada Pinkett Smith’s baldish head as her being in “GI Jane 2” a reference to Demi Moore’s shorn locks in 1997‘s film GI Jane (Ridley Scott). Jada, not amused (yes, I watched the video) rolled her eyes. After laughing apparently hilariously at the joke, Will, perhaps eyeing his wife’s reaction, lost the smile, and left his seat and walking on to the stage slapped – slapped, why not punched? - the comedian across the face. Normally even an event like this wouldn’t get me too excited but it captured my imagination – perhaps it was a slow news week. My immediate reaction was that Smith should be condemned, censured, arrested and even banished from Hollywood. This was assault pure and simple. But of course none of that has happened (yet). According to a show producer LA police were on hand to make an arrest but Rock, being the stand-up guy (and not just comedian) he is, didn’t want charges pressed. Will Smith, in the days afterward, became more contrite, fully apologizing (eventually to Rock) and resigned from the Academy. It will be interesting if the slug – sorry, slap – will tarnish his career and reports indicate some productions are reviewing the great actor's status. I couldn’t believe the audience at the Oscars actually seemed to come to Smith's defense, with actors like Denzel Washington and Bradley Cooper “comforting” him. And then the guy gets a standing ovation later in the ceremony when he accepts the best actor award for his role in King Richard (Reinaldo Marcus Green). (That, by the way, is the only award I know of from last week’s Oscars). Well, I thought, that’s Hollywood for you. Always siding with the bad guys. You have to ask why. Wasn’t Smith the guilty party for making an assault? It doesn’t particularly matter what the reason was – defending his wife’s “honor” (so chivalrous!)? - and then perhaps only after Jada didn’t find the joke amusing. Rock indeed should have been called out for joking about a health issue – Jada's alopecia or hair loss. But he claims he knew nothing about it. But a slap across the kisser or cheek or wherever the slap landed? But, hey, it got me interested in the Oscars, if only in hindsight. And, you know what, I still don’t know which film won for best picture.  

Very excited about the Criterion Channel’s April releases, with the new French film from France’s Bruno Dumont called, well, France the first name of a glamorous TV journalist (Léa Seydoux) whose life is upturned by a freak accident. There’s also a retrospective of actress Delphine Seyrig’s career. I had had no idea who Seyrig was but recently caught her in Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) (see March 21 post) and last night – finally – watched Alain Resnais’s Last Year at Marienbad (1960), in which she stars. She’s glamorous (photo), but with a script by the novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, whose revolutionary spare writing style is the equivalent of Minimalist art, this may not be your cup of espresso, in more ways than one.  Other major groups of films released by Criterion this month include the Blaxploitation films of the 1970's, Ethan Hawke’s personal picks, 14 films by John Ford and Asian American filmmaking 2000-2009.