LaBute, Hüller, Hawke, Turturro, Mangiu, Almodovar, Huppert - seven of dozens of reasons to attend this year's WIFF

This week's Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) (Oct. 29 – Nov. 8) press conference was also the official kickoff to ticket sales. Another can't-wait-for event is on tap. There will be 232 films shown (one more than last year!), 47 shorts and more than 300 screenings, 181 from world festivals, 128 in pre-theatrical release and 51 per cent Canadian programming (in a festival that shows more francophone films than any other!) and of course slates of local films in a festival that pays true tribute to its community. But, quipped always ebullient ex director Vincent Georgie, “there’s no 51st state."

So here are a handful of the 50 films I’ve selected and the reasons why:

I’m always interested in what director Neil LaBute puts out and his Murderous quirky psychological thriller looks enticing. You can’t find a better actress today on the world stage (or should that be celluloid or digital) than Germany’s Sandra Hüller so I’m expecting a knockout performance in this gender-obscuring 18th century tale, Rose, by Markus Schleinzer. John Turturro is one of those actors I’d see in anything and so here in Noah Segan’s The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Likewise Ethan Hawke, and with Russell Crowe in Padraic McKinley’s The Weight, you’re getting a double-whammy. How could I resist a documentary about 1960s Brit Invasion musical artist Peter Asher of Peter and Gordon fame in Peter Asher: Everywhere Man (Dayna Goldfine, Daniel Geller)? Maigret and The Dead Lover (Pascal Bonitzer) seems a smart French drawing-room thriller. Once Upon a Time in Harlem (William & David Greaves) looks back on NYC’s Black “Renaissance” artistic elite. Another doc, Captain Newfoundland (Mike Feehan, Jamie Miller) is about the Newfie businessman and eccentric Geoff Sterling, who one time ran a

radio station in Windsor. Another doc, Draw Me a Bridge (Jean-Daniel Lafond) is all about the symbolism of the Gordie Howe Intl Bridge to Windsor and Detroit – how can I resist? La Bola Negra (Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo) is the most talked about film this festival and won People’s Choice in Toronto. It’s also Spanish, a country that makes great films. Fjord, by interesting Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, takes aim at the hypocrisy of political correctness, a rare take in the film world. I’ve always been fascinated in the spousal novelist of contemporary US author Paul Auster, sadly now deceased, so can’t wait to see her in Sabine Lidl’s Siri Hustvedt – Dance Around the Self. Sender (Russell Goldman) seems like the perfect midnight offbeat surreal thriller. Of course, I will go see Spanish master Pedro Almodovar’s latest Bitter Christmas. And not least, my perennial French crush Isabelle Huppert in Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Tales......Check out the full festival lineup at www.windsorfilmfestival.com

Helsinki film lovers and the death of a Montreal festival icon

A delight about my stay in Helsinki over the past week was that my hotel was located immediately across the street from perhaps that city’s only art house theatre Cinema Orion. The elegant theatre dates from 1928 and is run by a non-profit association. Between touring around the city and a one-day visit across the Baltic to Estonia I was able to get at least one screening in, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Jane Schoenbrun) a, well, campy horror flic starring Gillian Anderson. Not really my cup of tea although it did have some funny moments and I’ve always had a crush on said Anderson, here with long flowing blond locks. Also on tap were Oasis: Don’t Look back in Anger (Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace) and Pedro Almodovar’s Autofiction. There was also a monthly series of classic Finnish films, with the first, Ariel (Aki Kaurismäki, 1988) drawing a throng lined up down the block. And no sooner did I leave the screening than someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was a fellow Canuck, who’d overheard me tell the usher how great the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) was. Brynna was from Gimli MB and living in Helsinki three years, loving the place and agreeing with my very positive comments about the city from its calm urban character (little traffic, well planned parks and pedestrian and bike paths) to the sophisticated respectful Finnish people. By the way, the Helsinki Intl. Film Festival is coming up Sept. 17 – 27. If you’re going…

Very sad news that the founder of Montreal’s one-time great festival, Festival des films du monde,  Serge Losique has died. I attended the very first fest in 1977 (then rivalling Toronto’s, which started a year earlier) and was there for virtually every year since, regardless of where I lived in Canada. His cinematic biography traces to when he attended the Sorbonne in Paris where in the early 1960s, he rubbed shoulders with some of the greats of the French Nouvelle Vague especially Jean-Luc Godard. Back in Canada he was a major educator of cinema. The festival became hugely popular in Montreal and always ran in the 10 days prior to Labour Day, an end of summer big exclamation point. But in its last decade it fell on hard times, with allegations of financial mismanagement and sponsors withdrawing. In the last year I attended it lost a major multiplex and small theatres scrambled to reschedule films. Critics unrelentingly decried Losique for being a virtual dictator and creating a chaotic festival that was “uncurated” with titles simply acquired wherever he could get them. Its last year was 2019. 

And finally, when in Finland I stumbled upon one of the country’s major commercial cineplexes FinnKino and – wow. Not only was the lobby massive and high-end it featured wall-length self-serve glass-enclosed cabinets of prepared popcorn and hundreds of types of candy. Nothing like this in Canada!

Sympathy for the Coyote

Coyote vs. Acme is a “live-action animated” movie (meaning it combines cartoons with regular people). It’s a great premise. Anyone who’s a devote of the Bugs Bunny set of cartoons – and who isn’t (okay, maybe Gen Z etc.) – will love the idea. Wile E. Coyote of course is always outwitted by the “beep beep” Road Runner. All Coyote wants is a decent roast after all. And he can never get it. But he’s tireless, tireless. And he has invented innumerable schemes and contraptions to catch his prey only to, literally, fall flat on his face, or experience any number of ignoble endings - crashes, explosions, anvils dropped on his head. But, hey, he’s a “toon” so impervious to death, a cartoon version of picking yourself up and dusting yourself off. The problem – and the point of this movie – is that Coyote relies on so many supposedly innovative products from the Acme Corp. And of course, they don’t work or, uh, literally backfire. So what to do? Well, sue the pants (flaming as they may be) off them. The movie is the first “live-action animated” picture featuring Bugs Bunny type characters since 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Roger Zemeckis). And it’s more than a welcome genre, as few films as there are. In the picture, Wile E. teams up with a cartoon lawyer (he, uh, represents toons) Kevin Avery (Will Forte), a down and out real life lawyer whose office is in a strip mall in, yes, Albuquerque NM. Avery is scared sh-less to go up against the powerful Acme Corp. – literally the biggest corporation in the world (even the picture's maker Warner Bros. is a subsidiary!) -  and its uber bullying lawyer Buddy Crane (John Cena) but his staff and not least a frustrated goading Coyote (who doesn’t speak of course, only make faces and hold signs), push him on. I can’t criticize the mixture of cartoon and real-life actors - I always find this ingenious - but I did find the movie a little slow. And the theatre I was in (packed on a matinee Saturday with Cineplex offering $7 admission) got few laughs even from the kids. Still, I give the filmmakers E for effort. The “trial” that takes place between Coyote and Acme is also an analogy for big corps everywhere that make shoddy products, and makes one think of the 1970s era tobacco companies which conspired to push cancer-causing cigarettes on the populace. And Coyote, always depicted as a villain, is depicted somewhat sympathetically here, given his untiring efforts to capture Road Runner – more a frustrated inventor always rigging gadgets or at his blueprint table. As I say, a fun premise but a little tiring, unlike, uh, Coyote’s endless quest.