WIFF capsule reviews (1)

Capsule reviews from the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF), now on until Nov.11: 

DAY 1: Neil Labute’s Murderous comes across like a stage play (a genre which he also writes) with stilted dialogue, which I find typical of theatre. But it’s absorbing and that’s all that matters. A successful writer & filmmaker (Gia Crovatin) living remotely is visited by various people (an ex-lover (Kevin Kilner) to begin with) who all want something from her……La Gradiva is a first time outing for Marine Atlan in this cinéma vérité of a group of students on a bus trip to Naples and Pompeii. Personal conflicts as teacher (Antonia Buresi) tries to keep them in line while professing the glories of antiquity. A partial “gay film” the subsidiary story is the rocky relationship between Toni (Colas Quignard)  and James (Mitia Capellier-Audat).…..Queen at Sea (Lance Hammer) has a great cast in Juliette Binoche, Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall, about a daughter (Bincohe) struggling with her mother’s dementia and father’s insensitivity. Binoche is superb as always, this time as the reflective daughter trying to support her mother while guard railing her dad. However a sub plot about her daughter (Florence Hunt) and her boyfriend added nothing…..I was really expecting more from Rose (Markus Schleinzer) with Sandra Hüller the lead to this unconventional historical storyline about gender as well as having been filmed in gloomy black and white. But it came across as a rather prosaic story only reaching tension towards the end.....

DAY 2: John Turturro, who always seems to have an edge, was the main reason I went to see The Only Living Pickpocket in New York (Noah Segan). And while he's good enough the picture soon loses any novelty and becomes another made-for-TV dramedy as his character's life takes a turn.....Run Terry Run, with filmmaker Sean Menard (and even Terry' bro Darrell) in attendance, is a riveting emotional rewind in time to 1980, and a very different Canada, charting the Canadian hero's ill-fated run across the country. It's so good Cineplex picked it up.....

DAY 3: Israeli film Dead Language (Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnun) is a hard nut to crack in this absorbing feature about a woman alienated from her marriage and whose romantic quests boomerang....The more I see of Ethan Hawke the more I'm convinced he's one of the best actors of our time. And here's another superlative performance in Padraic McKinley's The Weight also starring Russell Crowe. It's worth seeing if only for Hawke's character's Murphy's grit.....Quebec nationalist and feminist chanteuse Pauline Julien Femme Pays was as iconic as they came during the years of that province's Quiet Revolution. In this biodrama of the same name by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, Suzanne Clément captures much of her character. But as a sometime student of Quebec politics I didn't know her SO was famous QC cabinet minister and poet Gérald Godin.....WIFF Local Shorts 1 gave us five locally made movies from 47 submitted, showing some of the technical prowess of budding local cineastes. These were: Fruitball (Jett Shields), a funny spoof on brotherly competition, Luna (Julia MacDonald), an absorbing exploring of mood and human attraction, Mingoya: Land of Ornithologists (Juan Esteban Quintero & Nelsy Niño), a glittering animation about Colombia's bird culture, Subjkt (Julian Ferro), an inventive digital horror lost in an old school Commodore, and A Young Doctor's Friend & Guide, a humorous absurd take on, yes, castration - you have to be there.....Influenced (Rachel Israel) is an intended hilarious send up of self-absorbed nouveau niche Manhattan East Side femmes. Think Sex & The City sideways. Still, its over the top antics left me bored  and an hour and half I'll never get back....Peter Asher (Dayna Goldfine & Daniel Geller) is a superb doc about Brit Invasion star Peter Asher of Peter & Gordon fame, who went on to become one of the top music producers in the world. It covers everything from Swinging Sixties' London to the 70s and 80s southern California pop music scene - highly engaging and highly enjoyable.