Not a good night at the movies

Well, that's $5.99 I’ll never get back. Thank god the streaming price was only $5.99. I could have seen this in a theatre and paid well over $10 not to mention gas and mileage. I’m talking about, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the most award-winning movie in history! - Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) - including scooping seven Oscars and Best Picture. This gonzo, unconventional movie is supposed to be about multiple universes where we have separate selves, with various powers and ways to work out similar scenarios, in spectacular – and vengeful (the film has lots of stomach-churning gratuitous violence) - ways. It’s a comedy and has elements of surrealism, magic realism and visually, looks like a video game, with multiple images sometimes flying at you second by second. It’s so fast paced it’s hard to keep up or figure out what’s going on. How the majority of Academy voters did is beyond me. I gave the film my best shot but clocked out at the 42 minute, 40 second mark, ruing the time I lost. For all its hyper intensive moments Everything left me unmoved and utterly bored.

Having just read one of the best novels in ages, a John Williams's 1960 classic, Butcher’s Crossing, I was eager to see if a movie had ever been made of it, since its plot and atmospherics cry out for film treatment. The book is about a buffalo hunting party in 1870s Kansas, who head to Colorado for a major kill. People who don’t like Westerns, like me, shouldn’t be put off. The writing is astounding, the characters deeply imbued, the dialogue and atmospherics so perfect it’s like Williams was there himself. Some of the elements were so realistic, such as the hunting party’s travel though a drought, I found myself gasping for thirst. And during a blinding blizzard scene I looked out the window and there was a snow squall! It’s like the book had magical powers. Sure enough, there is a film (directed by Gabe Polsky). And it premiered just last year at the Toronto International Film Festival. But I couldn’t find it anywhere online to stream nor even a trailer, just a few still shots. Nicholas Cage plays one of the characters. So, perhaps in vain, I will await a release.

While recently in Spain, I went to see the Irish film, The Quiet Girl (Colm Bairéad), nominated for best international picture at the Oscars. I saw several English-language films this winter in Spain, in original dialogue with Spanish subtitles. But this film, ostensibly in English, was anything but. Ninety-five per cent of the picture is in Gaelic! So the joke was on me. Yes, there were Spanish subtitles - and I picked out various words and phrases I understood. But, thankfully, the plot is fairly simple and dialogue limited, so the movie was easy to follow. That’s not to say this is a bad film, quite the contrary.

   

So bad, it's good?

I was expecting Cocaine Bear (Elizabeth Banks) to be bad, real bad, based on a review by a Toronto critic. And we all know how snobby those Toronto critics can be. In fact, the review was so critical it made me want to see it. You know, so bad it’s good! But having seen it I can’t say it’s that bad. It won’t win any Golden Globe awards, that’s for sure, and you won’t see it at your local art house cinema, not even at a midnight So Bad It’s Good screening. The production values are good. The fast-paced soundtrack takes you back to the 1980s beat, when the movie is set. 1985 to be exact. And it’s kind of based on a true story. About cocaine smugglers whose escapade the “Bluegrass Conspiracy” goes bad. Kingpin Anthony Thornton (Matthew Rhys) bumps his head on the aircraft door as he’s about to parachute out with 30 kilos of cocaine falling to his death. But the cocaine falls separately in a remote northern Georgia forest. Where there are bears. Big black ones. One of these discovers the coke and decides to feast on it. Bad things happen. The film stars Keri Russell and the late Ray Liotta, who died after the film was made (it’s dedicated to him). The movie is billed as a horror and comedy, so take your pick - it's really not all that scary and the horror scenes add to the comedy IMO. The special effects bear is done very well. The cast is essentially a bunch of doofuses with the only heroes mom Sari (Russell), daughter Dee Dee (Brooklyn Prince) and her best friend Henry (Christian Convery). The drug smugglers, cops and park rangers are all bumbling idiots but fun bumbling idiots. Ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) squirts on “European” perfume for a big date in the forest. Her date insists on calling animals “biological friends.” One of the bad guys, told what a gazebo is, says indignantly “I know.” His buddy says, “I don’t.” The movie ends with the bear gobbling more cocaine to Depeche Mode's Just Can’t Get Enough. So, the movie is neither really good nor bad but lighthearted Smokey the Bear stuff. It will probably be popular with park rangers everywhere.

Flying through Toronto last week and having more than seven hours to kill between flights – and being close to downtown at Toronto Island airport – I thought I’d go see a movie. The only Oscar-nominated one (it tops nominations with 11 and which could indeed win best pic) that I wanted to see was Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert). Yet, even in Toronto, Canada’s so-called film capital with several art house cinemas – and only a couple of weeks before the Oscars – it wasn’t showing. Some world class city!

Movie theatres are now doing what the airlines have long done - charging for better seats. AMC is testing “sightline” seats - better seats for increased prices. And yes, cheaper ones too, but for the neck-craning seats in the front row.  Also, it's charging more on opening weekends for blockbusters. That’s in the US. But everything that happens there ends up here.