Honey, at least the Tom Cruise movie made it

Here we go again. Another slate of Oscar nominations and the general public are left scratching their heads wondering what the heck are these movies and who the hell has seen them? Even I, deeply into film and of the independent variety that make up most of the tiles, haven’t seen most of them. For Best Picture I’ve seen The Banshees of Inisherin (fun, dark Irish humor but overrated), Triangle of Sadness (something of a con job) and The Fabelmans (self-indulgent and somewhat overrated). I would like to see many more but living in Windsor, well... I’m dying (actually, a bad pun) to see Bill Nighy (Best Actor) in Living though I recently caught the Japanese 1952 original Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa) which was sad and sentimental; will Living, uh, live up to it? Ditto for one my favourite contemporary actresses – scratch, she IS my favourite – Cate Blanchett (Best Actress) (pictured) in Tar. I’ve never been an Elvis fan so any piece of art even remotely related to Mister tacky Shades and Sideburns (oh oh, I’m creating enemies) won’t find me a fan, despite the artistic merit. I still don’t understand why Aftersun (Paul Mescal, Best Actor) which I’ve seen, attracts the plaudits it does. It’s a very competently made first feature by Charlotte Wells, sweet and sentimental but, sorry, not a lot more. I am still looking forward to seeing The Whale (Brendan Fraser, Best Actor; Hong Chau, Best Supporting Actress) and it apparently is coming soon to my local theatre, the  Cine Albéniz, a wonderful art house in Málaga, Spain, near where I’m wintering. Much is being made of Michelle Williams (Best Actress) in The Fabelmans. She’s a wonderful actress but I saw nothing outstanding about the performance. I haven’t even seen Tar and I bet Blanchett has her beat by miles. I can’t believe Ruben Ostlund (Triangle of Sadness) is up for Best Director. Having made respected and probing films like Force Majeure (2014) and The Square (2017) he embarrassed himself with this.  I’m sure All Quiet on the Western Front (Best Picture) is deserving of great accolades. But having read the book in high school (one of the best books I’ve ever read) and being tired of war – all wars – I’m not inclined to see it. I don’t know where to even begin to see Everything Everywhere All at Once (various nominations). I’ve never heard of To Leslie (Andrea Riseborough, Best Actress) or Causeway (Brian Tyree Henry, Supporting Actor). But at least the masses were represented to some degree – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Angela Bassett, Supporting Actress), Avatar: The Way of Water (Best Picture) and Top Gun: Maverick (Best Picture). If it was a peoples’ choice award I know which would win – that starring Mister Scientology and wannabe fighter pilot himself, Tom Cruise. My choice for Best Picture? Tar, and I haven't even seen it. Ha.

The real Casablanca

I arrived in Casablanca the other day on a two-week odyssey of Morocco. Yes, I know it’s the touristy thing to do. But I succumbed (wouldn’t you?). And besides, I can say I’m doing it for research for my film blog. That is, that I checked out the current day facsimile to Rick's Café Américain in the 1942 movie directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. I'm speaking of Casablanca, of course, in my book one of the top three movies of all time. The current facsimilie is called Rick’s Café and it's run by a former American diplomat. Trouble was it was closed (open for lunch, dinner and Sunday night jazz). But there’s a dress code – “business casual” – and

clothing including more casual attire not allowed. So I have to console myself with just seeing the outside of the place. It’s very well kept, as per photo below, and does indeed resemble the real thing in the film, even if the movie was filed on a Hollywood backlot. As the Lonely Planet travel guide states, the film “wonderfully evoked” the city……Walking around Casablanca (pop. 3.3 million) there is evidence of the city’s once glory days of cinemas. Near the medina where I’m staying, in the heart of

downtown, is the Cinema Rif, a 1950s era one-screen classic. Fandango listed M3GAN (Gerard Johnstone) screening there. But when I walked in and asked I was told there are no ‘Anglais’ films, including this creepy one, showing. The lobby has a wonderful installation of vintage projectors. But these vintage cinemas – I came across one other, Cinema Rialto, and what appeared to be signs only for a few other cinemas - Cinema Ritz, Cinema Empire and Cinema ABC. According to Lonely Planet the country's “cinephiles have begun to fear for Morocco’s movie palaces.” Thirty

years ago there were 250 cinemas, in 2010, 30. Only five per cent of the population goes to theatres. Cinema Rif reopened in 2006 screening independent films and documentaries. Regardless, Casablanca and Morocco have long served as settings for a myriad films, from David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) to Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Sheltering Sky (1990) to Mideast war stand-ins such as Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (2001) and Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper (2015). But, with apologies to Bogart’s line to Bergman in the ultimate classic, “we’ll always have Casablanca.”

Christmas film clips

Films you wouldn’t think had a Christmas theme at least indirectly. So we have Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe (1941) with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. A concocted newspaper story builds a fake hero in the name of John Doe (Cooper) who threatens to kill himself on Christmas Eve. Capra is at his everyman best, as strong a story as his Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and the Christmas favorite It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Then there is Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner (1940), starring the other everyman, James Stewart, where our story culminates at Christmas in a classic romantic misunderstanding. Romance also springs eternal at Christmas time in Billy Wilder’s 1960 The Apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, in this Madison Avenue style comedy-drama about commuting husbands and their metropolitan mistresses. Which leads me to Metropolitan (1990), where the modernist preppie director Whit Stillman finds his haute-bourgeoisie 20-somethings gathered in gowns and tuxes on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to talk as much philosophy as back-stabbing gossip, Christmas jingling in the background.

Have to say that I’m disappointed to find that A Charlie Brown Christmas (Bill Melendez, 1965) will no longer be shown on regular television but migrates next year to Apple TV + - but of course.

Meanwhile Love Actually (Richard Curtis 2003) continues to roll as a modern Christmas classic. I loved it when it first came out but watching it a second time a few years ago felt it had degraded all around – in storylines, characters and humor. Unfortunately, not timeless the way I thought it might be.

Windsorites surely are blessed by the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF). Reading The New York Times Weekend Arts section last Friday, the front-page film review was on Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, which won this year’s WIFF People’s Choice Award. And further into the section was a review of Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage, also screened at the festival. These films, folks, are opening only now in New York, but we can brag we saw them two months ago.

Speaking of Love Actually it of course starred well-loved British actor Bill Nighy, who now is in Oliver Hermanus’s Living (photo). I doubt this film will open in Windsor though likely Detroit. The film is based on famed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 Ikiru, about a stern civil servant who ends up confronting his health and himself. That film I can watch on the Criterion Channel.

Two films, by women, about women

I have long been an admirer of the late Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. Her stories of women can range from psychologically probing to exuberantly joyful but in all cases they capture women within particular frameworks. Often described as a feminist filmmaker the films seem to transcend that narrow stricture though undoubtedly could be ascribed to that genre. So I was blown away when Sight and Sound magazine announced Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) as the best movie of all time. Really!? I’d never heard of the film. One of the wonderful things about the high tech world in which we live is often these kind of films are literally at out finger tips, rather than having to travel hours to some art house cinema to see them, even if they were available. Sure enough, Criterion Channel has that exact Sight and Sound list. So I spent three hours watching the flick. It didn’t disappoint. Dielmann stars the famed French actress Delphine Seyrig as an average housewife whose days consist of innumerable

repetitive tasks like cooking dinner, sewing, shining her son’s shoes, shopping for the evening meal and keeping an exquisitely tidy household, manically making sure the lights are turned off each time she leaves a room. But this respectable middle-class woman also has a side gig: she’s an at home afternoon prostitute. All this film does is record, day after day, her quotidian activities. The camera is often still and there are long shots of her doing such humdrum tasks as breading veal cutlets or setting the table. Yet it’s entirely absorbing, thanks in part to the incredible Seyrig. The film of course isn’t only about this. But if you think I’m going to tell you more! In an interview Akerman has said the picture recounts the daily role of tens of millions of women who live for domesticity and doting on their children or spouses. Yet they’re wholly otherwise empty vessels whether they realize it or not …. The second film is Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970). This picture also was entirely unfamiliar to me but on Sight and Sound’s list. Loden was an interesting filmmaker and Broadway actress, who at one time was married to famed director Elia Kazan, and known as the “female counterpart to John Cassavetes.” Wanda is a knockout (and won Best Foreign Film at the Venice Film Festival). Loden stars in the main role in this small budget picture made almost entirely with non-professional actors. As Wanda, she’s a character with no psychological or moral centre, drifting from place to place – and man to man – as the proverbial winds take her. Loden has described the flick as partly autobiographical, someone raised in the rural South and “uneducated.” The film itself has a Cassavetes, French New Wave or Cinéma verité feel to it, objectively capturing a certain time, place and mood. And, like in Dielmann, the main character acts in part in reflection to men…..One other note: Despite Jeanne Dielmann’s attributes, methinks Sight and Sound elevated this to the number one position due to a little political correctness, as is our woke age. It’s a great flick but, with tens of thousands of other movies over the decades to compare with, it’s highly arguable this would make the top of the heap.

Triangle of Sadness vs The Menu

Triangle of Sadness has been gaining some social plaudits this fall, not least being the buzz at the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) last month. But I'd wager that half those who were buzzing probably had buyers' regret after seeing it. I know many people walked out. There are several problems and "meh" aspects of the film. The movie is in three chapters and the third - set on the island where the "Gilligan's Island" ship wreckers land - goes on way, way too long. The second chapter - aboard the ill-fated luxury liner - is the best. The cinematography is great as Swedish director Ruben Östlund (who otherwise had sound films in Force Majeure (2014) and The Square (2017)) and crew catch the chaos and absurd personal dramas of a sea bound voyage disrupted by a storm. The first chapter - seemingly unrelated to the two others except for the main characters - has a humorous sketch about dating and masculine and feminine roles. I’m sure lots of people could relate. But what does it all add up to? First of all the movie is derivative by half, of films such as those by the great Spanish director Luis Buñuel like The Exterminating Angel, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeousie (1972) and The Phantom of Liberty (1974). Or, more recently South Korea's Bong Joon-Ho's 2019 forgettable, to my mind, Parasite. They’re surreal or black comedies with the theme "Eat the Rich." One has to ask why Östlund would go through the trouble of creating the elaborate boat scene, special effects and all, with myriad scenes of people barfing and a toilet exploding, to make yet another cliched point. Now if you really want to do an Eat the Rich commentary right, check out Mark Mylod's The Menu (photo), currently in cinemas. This is a taut beginning to end thriller, of the culinary kind, of course. Again, the theme is the Privileged Get Their Comeuppance, but the direction and cinematography are done so much better, with close ups and great acting by the main characters Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult. From one course to the next in this most exclusive of restaurants we don’t know whether the diners are being treated to the ultimate in gourmet food or something more malevolent, with an ending I'm glad I never suspected. So while both these films are derivative and have Eat the Rich themes, at least one is up to full movie making snuff. Of course, all this Eat the Rich stuff is ultimately boring. I'm waiting for a film with the theme Eat the Well-Paid Bureaucrats but that's something we'll probably never see. ..... Walking out of the Imagine Lakeshore Cinemas last week an old cardboard movie display caught my eye. It was for the James Bond No Time to Die release, somehow still in storage off the theatre's corridor, with the ominous wording "Opens April 2020." Now that is a real horror flashback. 

My top 10 films at WIFF

Of the films I saw at this year’s WIFF here are my top 10:

1. Lost Illusions – This is Xavier Giannoli’s almost perfect period retelling of a story for the ages based on a Honoré de Balzac novel. A provincial idealistic poet (Benjamin Voisin) moves to Paris and slowly becomes corrupted. Unlike many period films this one, at two-and-half hours, doesn’t detour into tangents and keeps a coherent and absorbing flow. It’s also a revelation of the early days of popular journalism, the antecedents of which – good and bad – are around us still.

2. There have been stories of men living double lives but in Madeline Collins (Antoine Barraud) we have Virginie Efira as a woman who has two families, constantly travelling, with made up excuses like business conferences, between them in Paris and Switzerland.  Efira’s stunning performance is equal to the absorbing plot in this psychological thriller worthy of Hitchcock.

3. Another French firm, Zero Fucks Given (Julie Lecoustre & Emmanuel Marre), is a highly realistic portrayal of flight attendants at a European discount airline. The focus is on one of them, Cassandre (Adèle Exarchopoulos – Blue is the Warmest Colour) whose daily life is at the whims of haphazard airline schedules and strict management rules with romance a sometimes sidebar. 

4. Metronom – Romania, one of the most former authoritarian Stalinist regimes, in 1972, is not the place to flirt with anything Western, as these high school students find after having a party where they listened to, of all things, The Doors and Led Zeppelin. Ana (Mara Bugarin) tries to hold out against secret police pressure only to find that the only way to continue to exist is to succumb. Alexandru Belc is the director.

5. The Killing of a Journalist. This documentary by Matt Sarnecki tells a true story of an event that convulsed the Eastern European country of Slovakia in 2018, a major news event we never heard of. The intricately told story pieces together links that show how the Slovakian “Mafia” infiltrated the country’s government at the highest levels and murdered an investigative journalist who was in the forefront of exposing the links. His killing resulting in massive street demonstrations that brought down the regime.

6. Jennifer Tiexiera’s Subject is a documentary about the making of documentaries and raises ethical questions about what should be subject matter when filmmakers intrude into the personal lives of people (“subjects”) to make films about extraordinary events or people’s traumatic life stories. The probe really has wider implications for all forms of journalism.

7. Yann Gozlan’s Black Box was the most edge-of-your-seat thriller I saw. The French/Belgium collaborative is a whoodunit about a cover up of who was responsible for the downing of a passenger aircraft. Our hero, Matthieu (Pierre Niney) is the classic outsider, a nerd, part of the country’s civil aeronautics investigation agency, who’s accused of overthinking the case and taking a stand contrary to an official accident conclusion.  

8. Eo (Jerzy Skolimowski), based on a 1966 Robert Bresson film, in turn based on a Dostoyevsky story, follows Eo, a donkey, on his life journey among various owners and situations, good and bad, of the human beings all around him. Isabelle Huppert makes a surprise appearance.

9. Rogue Agent (Declan Lawn, Adam Patterson), based on a true story, is a stylish British thriller about a sociopath who charmingly disarms his subjects while fleecing them of emotions as much as their money.

10. Two British faves – Sally Hawkins and Steve Coogan, star in The Lost King, another film based on a true story in Stephen Frears's, perhaps Britain’s top filmmaker, latest. Hawkins as Philippa Langley becomes absorbed with the story of Richard III, long tarred, as per Shakespeare, as a villainous opportunist when numerous historical records show his altruistic character and benevolence, aiding the poor and bringing early judicial reform.  The recovery of his bones under a municipal parking lot leads to his historical rehabilitation.

   

Congratulations WIFF! And a post-mortem

Another great year at the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) – expanded to 11 days – and in the wake of two years closure due to Covid, more than 45,000 tickets sold – a new record! That’s surprising and not surprising. It’s surprising given that some in WIFF’s audience may have been reluctant to return to indoor spaces in the wake of the worst of the pandemic. An extra day also means more tickets sold. And yet it’s not surprising because WIFF has garnered such enthusiasm with each growing year. I’ll review some of the movies I saw (having been out of town, I only got to the last half of the festival) in a later post. For right now, some general observations, not so much about the festival but about its downtown venues or footprint. WIFF organizers in part have ensured the festival remains highly accessible from an audience perspective. The three theatre venues are all within five minutes’ walking distance from one another. That’s a contrast to other festivals, where the venues can be as much as a half hour walk or even require transit or a drive to reach. Partly this is a reflection of Windsor downtown’s compact nature and the fact appropriate venues, like the Capitol and Chrysler theatres, already existed. Organizers have taken advantage of this small footprint by enhancing it through, for example, the WIFF Alley movie themed mural showcase - the ‘natural shortcut’ moviegoers use to walk from the Capitol to Chrysler theatres. But here are some concerns/suggestions for future festivals. Why can’t the city suspend parking meter enforcement during WIFF’s 11 days? Arguably WIFF draws more people downtown than any other event except fireworks night and parades. Yet blocks and blocks of streets remained empty of cars because people were reluctant to plug parking meters. The two-hour maximums (photo) also inhibited use since most films verge on two hours or longer; not to mention the $2/hour fee. Sure enough, despite the few cars, a parking enforcement Commissionaires SUV was seen tagging expired parked vehicles. Suspending parking enforcement would show the city’s continuing support for the festival as well as for downtown retailers, which would derive more business from the fact people could park and get to theatres and businesses easier. Second, not all restaurants were open. One, a natural for lunchtime fare, was closed but opened for dinner. Third, could not the block immediately in front of the main venue - the Capitol Theatre and WIFF ticket office - have been blocked off? The next block east where WIFF’s entertainment tent was set up was cordoned off. But regular motor traffic continued immediately in front of the theatre, where filmgoers may have spilled out on to the street from sidewalk lines or mingled, or indeed crossed mid-block to walk to the Chrysler. Fourth, the neighbourhood around the WIFF footprint should be more secure. Walking west along University Ave., especially at night, there were a number of sketchy individuals present. A woman I spoke to was reluctant to park more than a block from the Capitol for fear for her safety. And I in fact was attacked. Nothing serious, but an individual broke from a group of about a dozen, some apparently drunk, and walked over and pretended to punch me out with a series of fist pumps. That’s intimidation enough! Perhaps there could be a better show of police. In any case, it was wonderful to have the festival back and good luck to organizers for next year, though I’m confident WIFF will continue to grow and be exceptionally great.