Be very afraid in Beau is Afraid

I’m not given to over-the-top superlatives when describing films and most films, even good ones, often leave me slightly disappointed. So, it’s with pleasure to discover a film that is innovative and pushes the limits of what the medium can do. I’m speaking of Ari Aster’s Beau is Afraid, starring Joaquin Phoenix (photo). From the very first moment this film is a visual knockout and a spellbinding human and psychological tale. Coming in at one minute under three hours it’s one of those flicks that, as we used to say so long ago,  “blew my mind.” The film is very appropriately described as “surreal tragicomedy horror." Joaquin as usual is brilliant. If you have a mother complex you might want to skip the film; it’s full of Oedipal symbolism. But there’s other themes – the plight of  many American cities (though it was shot in Montreal - ha) – near dystopian cesspools where criminals’ rule and cops don’t, and where graffiti and vandalism reign and human decency doesn't. The story centres around Phoenix’s character Beau, a fragile soul just trying to get by. I won’t say more lest to spoil an incredibly unspooling plot. And visually the film’s a stunner – wide angle and close up shots and vivid clashing colours depicting a surreal universe, mixed with magic realism and animation. 

I’ve ignored Matt Johnson’s Blackberry after reading a searing critique of it last week in National Post. A former executive who worked with Blackberry founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie eviscerated it as essentially a complete fraud – a farce and cartoonish – of how the once iconic Canadian tech company started and grew. “It was all made up,” Dennis Kavelman writes. And “seems to go out of its way to diminish and tarnish the legacy and employees of one of Canada’s great technology stories.” I know movies take liberties, but I drew the line here.

Meanwhile, sometimes you have no choice about which movie you want to see, especially if a friend suggests it and there’s little alternative at the local Bijou. Hence, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (Kelly Fremon Craig) based on the tween and teen-themed novelist Judy Blume’s book. Yes, this is a female tween movie par excellence, right down to girls chanting how to bump their breasts to longing - "please God!" -  for their first menstrual cycle. Good acting, though, especially by Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret and Rachel McAdams as mom Barbara.

And anyone expecting the much-ballyhooed Air (it’s number nine at the box office) to be a film about the athletic feats of b’ball great Michael Jordan should pause. This is nothing other than a business procedural through and through, with Nike execs trying to draw Jordan to a contract to boost their court shoes division. It features an especially well acted Matt Damon as scout Sunny Vaccaro though Matt has gotten grayer and put on a little weight. And the visuals remind us of how tacky the 1980s were. The film might be better suited for Business 101.

Finally, both Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and Air follow a lot of movies lately with their pop music sondtracks of Baby Boomer nostalgia - the early 1970s for the first film, the mid-1980s for the second. Sometimes I think these films' producers want to show off the music of their youth as much as they want to make a movie.

20 years, and many still don't know local festival exists

I got to four films at this year’s Windsor Jewish Film Festival (last week). The opening night Farewell Mr. Haffmann (Fred Cavayé) starring perhaps France’s biggest male film star Daniel Auteuil turned out to be a treat – an acting duo between him and co-star Gilles Lellouche as Francois Mercier - which could have been set during the Holocaust or at any time or place. It’s a morality tale pure and simple, turning on honor and betrayal between two men…..Next up was the Tango Shalom (Gabriel Bologna), a zany comedy about an Orthodox rabbi (Jos Laniado) who must come up with funds to save his cash-starved shul. He’s an amateur dancer and when he hears about a tango competition with boffo winning bucks decides to enter. Problem: he can’t touch a woman other than his wife. An ingenious solution is found in this enjoyable ensemble family flick (think My Greek Fat Greek Wedding), though a tad long, with a both predictable and unpredictable ending…..The Replacement (Óscar Aibar), a Spanish crime thriller, was inspired by true events of the early 1980s. Cocaine smuggling, a policeman’s suspicious death and a certain expatriate community all come together in this fast-paced and well acted police procedural…..Time to Say Goodbye (Viviane Andereggen), is a story about a 12-year-old Hamburg boy about to face his Bar Mitzvah. He’s captivated by a certain religious surgical procedure. But the movie is really a kind of Wonder Years story about coming of age and the misty eyed crushes boys can have on beautiful adult mentors. 

It still surprises me that so many people in Windsor aren't aware of the Jewish film festival, which celeberated its 20th anniversary this year and is older than the better known Windsor International Film Festival. I ran into two people who were attending for the first time and were astonished they didn't previously know the festival existed. 

Meanwhile, I almost fell out of my chair when I opened The Detroit News’ entertainment section and saw a film review of the newly released How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Daniel Goldhaber). What? A film endorsing terrorism? But apparently this is simply pro forma now. And critics will write reviews without passing judgement on the contents (can you imagine if it was called How to Blow Up an Abortion Clinic?), as per the News. I found it sickening.