Licorce Pizza: what do they mean by that title anyway?

Licorce Pizza is one of those films for which you have such great expectations but then are let down in a massive “HUH?” The film, released late last year, garnered terrific - and I mean terrific – reviews. Chris Knight’s review in National Post gave it five out of five stars, calling it a “glorious trip” back to 1973. Adam Graham in the Detroit News’ headline was a “tale of young love delivers.” What, in fact, is Licorce Pizza, such a strange title, in the first place? It was a Los Angeles record store back in the day. LA is where the film is set. Folks, I have seen many a nostalgic return-to-the Seventies movie and this has to be the blandest and pointless yet. And while there are a few laughs and good performances here, they still come within a viewer’s mindset of “where is this going?” or “get on with it.” Why filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson feel the need to return to their teenage roots is another thing. This movie pales, by comparison, to films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Amy Heckerling, 1982), Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes 1986) or Election (Alexander Payne 1999). Hell, there are loads of genre films that are better. Yes, it’s a coming-of-age tale and, yes, the acting and character connections between Gary (Cooper Hoffman) and Alana (Alana Haim) are decent enough. And there are some riveting if hilarious performances by Sean Penn (Jack Holden) and especially Bradley Cooper as movie producer Jon Peters. But the film is really a slog through two hours and 13 minutes. And so many sub plots are silly or don’t add up. Gary apparently has a film career, then starts selling waterbeds, and is arrested pointlessly. There’s a stupid motorcycle trick (The 1970s Evil Knievel? No, I jest.) And, to take the cake – and in reference to the 1973 oil crisis (you had to be there) – scenes where Gary and Alana are confronted with an obnoxious waterbed customer who’s run out of gas. And an absolutely silly - and boring - box truck running-on-empty scene, meant to be hilarious. Oy! This film only made me long for a stellar high school film, like Ridgemont, Cooley High (Michael Schultz 1975) or even The Breakfast Club (John Hughes 1985).

Philosophical or not, do you need to bring a barf bag?

It was like night and day reading coverage of David Cronenberg’s new film Crimes of the Future. And hilarious too. There couldn’t be more difference between the almost referential coverage of Canadian critics to fellow countryman and auteur’s latest philosophical horror flick. Not referential? Okay, but hardly nary a word of criticism or skepticism either. By contrast, the New York Post’s critic came right out and said this movie might make you throw up.  “You might actually vomit,” says Johnny Oleksinski. It’s hard to know whether Oleksinski thinks the film is up to critical snuff. But it’s hilarious reading his review. “Viewers’ hands flew up to shield their faces from the full-view blood, organs and intestines that enveloped the screen. I was seated in the front row, which was practically a splash zone. Two confused, squirming, squealing women next to me surely got lost on the way to Top Gun: Maverick.” I guess he is critical since he calls the movie’s theme “warped,” saying it “makes the technological apocalypse of Terminator look like a Build-a-Bear Workshop.” And a wink that maybe Cronenberg is really satirizing his own arts community. “We hope that all these offal offenses are meant to satirize our own world’s pretentious artists. Perhaps pale, black-hood-wearing Saul is a stand-in for Tilda Swinton in a glass box at MoMA or a Banksy drawing shredding itself.” Compare that to Canada’s three national newspapers - National Post, The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star – including reviews and lengthy interviews with the director. National Post’s Chris Knight: the film is “a fascinating foray into ideas that have long obsessed the thoughtful Toronto director.” And “The film explores the ways in which we are both at home in our bodies and outside them, treating them as means to get what we need, but also as the very vessels that have those needs.” The Globe’s Barry Hertz says it “is a testament to (Cronenberg’s) singularly twisty, squishy, uncompromising vision” and a “magnificently dirty movie.” Also, “Every millimetre of this film is filthy, decayed, polluted. And thank God for that.” It’s “a ruthlessly meditative film” exploring ideas and “a strangled cry against our self-destructive tendency to poison our own environment.” And Toronto Star’s Marriska Ferandes: “Shocking viewers has never been his intention” but the film is “a dark satire meant to entertain and start a dialogue” on matters like “technology and creativity.” After reading these views you be the judge. I've normally been a Cronenberg fan but after digesting these pieces I'm almost nauseous at the idea of going to the flick. 

Crimes of the Future is playing at Windsor and Detroit-area cinemas.