You've seen this movie before

Daniel Cohen's Le Chef, which opens at the Main Art Theatre Friday, is one of those films that you swear you’ve seen before. It has all the pat characters and plot. It’s a light comedy. There’s tension between the two protagonists who ally to thwart a dastardly opponent as obstacles get thrown in their way. In this case it’s two chefs – Jean Reno as famed Alexandre Lagarde and Michaël Youn as Jacky Bonnot (pictured) as an upstart and apostolic devotee of Lagarde’s traditional French “gastronomie” or haute cuisine. Jacky is such a purist he gets fired from restaurants for brazenly telling diners what to eat (“you almost hit a guy who put mustard on his sole,” one irate manager tells him). Until one day he hooks up with Alexandre, who must find an assistant after new corporate owner Stanislas Matter (Julien Boisselier) wants to convert his resto to nouveau or “molecular cuisine.” (You know, tiny morsels served with supposed finesse.) Stanislas wants to put Alexandre out to pasture and tries to influence a group of critics that the chef “hasn’t evolved.” To the rescue comes the lowly Jacky, who seems to know Alexandre’s recipes better than the old man and, in a pinch, throws together a “new menu” combining both traditional and new cuisines and that wows the critics. This movie is all very predictable, from Jacky’s lying to his pregnant girlfriend Beatrice (Raphaëlle Agogue) about his “apprenticeship” non-paying job – and she leaving him – to the villainous corporatist Matter. And the French public – surprise to North Americans who hold France as the pinnacle of gastronomic taste – comes in for a drubbing for loving the same bland “steak et frites” as we do. It’s all a rather shopworn plot. Instead I would have liked something more focussed on the two chefs themselves, rivals or not, working intricately to prepare some of the best food around. I think of movies like  Big Night (1996, Campbell Scott, Stanley Tucci) or even Joël Vanhoebrouck 2012’s Brasserie Romantique, which had more intimate settings and a focus on the subtle inner workings of the restaurant. Yes, Le Chef is about food, but food could have been substituted for any number of things over which good versus evil is played out on a wider scale. And there are the stereotypical characters: charming upstart, arrogant master, corrupt capitalist, and poor suffering though beautiful girlfriend. Even the score has the quirky comedic, uh, flavour, of which you’ve heard a hundred variations. This movie will go over well with a certain kind of audience member (fill in the blank) but don’t expect anything less conventional.

This generation's Virginia Woolf

Between/Us (2013, Dan Mirvish) is this generation’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966, Mike Nichols). Like the earlier picture, based on the Edward Albee play, it features two couples. Emotions are revealed, truths uttered too literally. And marriage breakdown is in the offing in this Millennial Generation equivalent of the famous Burton-Taylor combo playing opposite George Segal and Sandy Dennis…..Here we have Taye Diggs and Julia Stiles as the bohemian Brooklyn couple versus David Harbour and Melissa George’s upper crust Midwesterners. Part of the film takes place in the gated community home of the latter, part – in film time a couple of years later – in the cramped messy abode of the former. Lifestyle-wise these couples couldn’t be more different although they had a sinew of friendship. What’s left falls apart over the two meetings, and it ain’t pretty. The movie scores on all points – great direction, acting, hand-held camera often in claustrophobic situations.

There are under-the-radar films – movies one's never heard of – but which apparently did get released. I saw two of these on the weekend…..One, Bigger Than the Sky (2005, Al Corley) stars John Corbett and Patty Duke, of all people. The story is slight. Overly earnest Peter (Marcus Thomas), dumped by his girlfriend, seeks a role in a community theatre company. He’s never acted and the plot is about how he integrates himself into the world of "crazy" theatre people. The movie is plodding and as earnest as the character himself though you have to give it credit for trying to capture the real world of amateur theatre. Corbett and Amy Smart (as the leading lady) are particularly good.……Then there was a movie with a similar title, Reaching for the Moon (2013, Bruno Barreto of 2000’s Bossa Nova and 1976’s Dona Flor and her Two Husbands), a film set in New York and Brazil based on the life of Pulitzer winning post-war poet Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop (Miranda Otto) travels to Brazil for a respite but discovers the wonders of an exotic society and the love of esteemed architect Lota de Macedo Soares (Glória Pires). Unfortunately a ménage à trois develops (the third woman is Mary Morse played by Tracy Middendorf) and we know how those go. This is a pretty good biopic with a lot of subtlety exploring the relationships of these three women. Treat Williams plays poet Robert Lowell.

Roughing it at the movies

They say camping is roughing it. But on a recent camping trip – travelling around Lake Superior – perhaps the roughest part was finding a decent movie to go to in the evening. I tried to pick campgrounds near towns that were large enough to have at least one movie theatre. In Mackinaw City Michigan, for example, there was the Courtyard. In Iron Wood, Mi. – a stone’s throw from the Wisconsin border in the UP – there was Cloverland Cinemas. And in lovely Sturgeon Bay, Wis. – a tourist and outdoor recreational mecca north of Green Bay – there was good ol’ Cinema 6. In one city, Thunder Bay, Ontario, I decamped in a motel because of a massive downpour.  The helpful clerk at the reservation desk recommended Nicholas Stoller’s Neighbors with Zac Efron and Seth Rogen. But when I discovered my room’s cable had Turner Classic Movies I knew I need not go anywhere else and opted for Howard Hawks’s 1938 Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant and an extremely zany Kate Hepburn. Finally in South Haven, Michigan, the only movie at the Michigan Theatre (how many Michigan / State Theatres are there in the state of Michigan? There are also ones in Ann Arbor and Traverse City) I hadn’t seen was Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past. But by this point I had had my fill of schlock so went back to the campground to make a, well, campfire instead….. The thing to know about small theatres in Anywhere North America is that the offerings are, shall we say, limited (and not in engagement). Let’s call them Top of the Schlock. So in Mackinaw City I chose what I thought was the best, or least worst. That was Robert Stromberg’s Maleficent. In Iron Wood, it was, alas, Neighbors. And in Sturgeon Bay it was Gareth Edwards’s Godzilla. Here are capsule reviews:

Maleficent: It makes sense that Stromberg, who directed the otherworldly and spooky 2006 Pam’s Labyrinth, made this, since Maleficient’s forests are as exotic and creepy. This is a remake of Sleeping Beauty, folks, and the special effects are impressive. If you like sci-fi, chivalry, knights and castles, and all that stuff, this is for you, though it didn’t seem to set the few kids in the audience on fire.

Neighbors: I have to hand it to director Stoller. He threw everything into this kind of Animal House update. The arguments, fighting, and alcohol and drug induced partying seemed all very real, taking me back, er, to my own high school years. But for all the fireworks and mayhem this seemed labored and beside the point.

Godzilla: This very realistic remake has Godzilla battling monster bird like creatures, all feeding off of radiation, as per the reason for the original Godzilla franchise. The scenes of a destroyed Waikiki Beach or San Francisco are extremely well done – what they can do with effects these days! But this is a dark and depressing movie, making one feel there is no human hope to survive powers we cannot control.

Postmodern lifestyle confusion

Chinese Puzzle is French director Cédric Klapisch’s coming to America film. Opening June 6 at Landmark’s Main Art Theatre it portrays the lives of on-the-cusp-of-turning-40 bourgeois bohemians (known as bobos), an ensemble effort with touches of Woody Allen and any number of indie directors. The characters are the requisite creative class types. The lead, Xavier, played by Romain Duris, is a successful novelist who doesn’t particularly feel so. His wife Wendy (Kelly Reilly) works in the cinema. Martine (Audrey Toutou) has some sort of ethical business promoting tea exports. Basically Xavier finds life “complicated” and embarks on a novel, called Chinese Puzzle, with that very theme in mind. After all, the poor shmuck has been dumped twice by women (Wendy and Martine) and is relegated to sperm donor for his lesbian friend Isabelle (Cécile de France) and her live in lover Ju (Sandrine Holt). Now with wife Wendy leaving him – with their two children in tow of course – for a new life and love in New York, Xavier is forced to follow if only to be near his kids. This is one lost soul indeed, who seeks out advice from the German philosophers like Schopenhauer and Hegel, who materialize in period garb to sit down beside him and commiserate. Xavier is an example of many modern men, who love their families and only want to stay married, contrary to often popular belief. They’re devastated when their wives leave them, and doubly so when they take the children. Xavier fraudulently gets a green card by marrying a Chinese woman (the Chinese theme is repeated constantly throughout the film, and many of its scenes take place in Chinatown) while harassed by the INS. This movie is a comedy drama but overall I found it melancholy. Here is modern man thrown on the heap of discarded alienated victims of the post-modern lifestyle. He’s a hollow character. When his dad visits – another person from whom he’s estranged – he finds a small sentimental sidewalk carving of initials and a heart drawn by his dad and mom many years ago. The engraving is “a kind of fundamental proof my birth wasn’t to be an accident,” he muses. By the end of the film Xavier hooks up with Martine (and her two kids) and they apparently will now live happily ever after, which seems a clichéd and schmaltzy plot conclusion. Klapisch indeed is inventive with images of magic realism represented by animated cardboard type pastiches which jump out to identify particular moods, something I’ve never seen in a movie before. And while some scenes and conversation will bring you a smile the overall mood is perplexing. There are just too many Xaviers out there.

Taut psychological drama along the motorway

Locke directed by Steven Knight and starring Tom Hardy, currently screening at the Uptown Birmingham 8 and Michigan Theatre, is a road movie with a difference. Ivan Knight, a construction engineer, knocks off his shift on the eve of the biggest concrete pour in Europe, gets into his car and drives one and a half hours from Birmingham to London. Over that time he will have several crucial decisions to make, affecting both his professional and personal lives. This is a searing emotionally tightrope he’s on and we’re there with him literally on the edge of our seats. Locke must ensure that the pour goes off without a hitch despite tremendous odds against it. And he must somehow resolve a major family conflict created by his own making. All the while, we see him at the wheel of his BMW, driving along the M1 motorway, connecting on and off via Bluetooth with any number of people with whom he’s variously negotiating, persuading, and pleading, while trying to keep a balanced rational mind, as befits a low key engineer whose life is marked by methodical calculations. The film is one of the best I’ve seen in months, not only because of how well acted and directed it is but because it deals with an unusual – for filmmakers – topic: an ordinary man in an everyday industry. The movie, story-wise, is a one man show. All we see is Locke in his car as he drives to London in the darkness of night, illuminated by passing headlights and overhead directional signs. The freeway environment lends its own personality. There are other actors but we just hear their voices, representing work colleagues, friends and family members. The film was shot realistically on a motorway by three cameras from different angles while Hardy is driving. It’s astonishingly real as Locke negotiates its three lanes of often busy and quite anonymous traffic, one man in one car among a river of others, each driver no doubt with their own riveting story, if only they had a director this good to tell it.

Fest coordinator acknowledges "dark" films

A recap on the Jewish film festival. Coordinator Stuart Selby tells me this 12th edition saw increased attendance and “from all appearances, this was the most successful WJFF yet”….. He acknowledges there were comments about the “dark” or serious nature of most of the films – many dealing with the Holocaust or Middle East terrorism - which tends to be typical – but he’s at a bit of a loss to know what to do about it. “That is the nature of all Jewish film festivals.” True, some of these same films were screened earlier at the Lenore Marwil festival in Detroit and later this month at the Montreal Israeli Film Festival. But each of those fests had larger programs, probably because of the cities’ sizes, which provided a little more diversity. “We look strenuously for lighter material, but there isn’t that much available,” Selby said. He said that while films like Bethlehem, The Attack (picture above) and Aftermath may have been dark indeed, “they are also films of such dramatic and historic quality that intelligent film goers come anyway, knowing that they will see films made for adults dealing with adult issues.” But as my seatmate said after one particular film, “there is always Mel Brooks!” Well, I wouldn’t go that far……Meanwhile Selby had high praise for Devonshire Cineplex. Instead of turning people away as in the past from the always highly popular opening night film (Ilan Duran Cohen’s The Jewish Cardinal) theatre staff provided a larger auditorium for the night. The theatre also changed auditoriums throughout the festival based on a film’s expected attendance.

Drama, comedy & docs at Windsor Jewish Film Festival

The 12th annual Windsor Jewish Film Festival opened last night with The Jewish Cardinal (2013, Ilan Duran Cohen) with from all reports a great performance by Laurent Lucas based on the true story of the Archbishop of Paris, in real life a Jew who converted to Catholicism at a young age and became a priest, and presided during the Nazi Occupation…..Altogether this year’s festival features 11 films from seven countries and runs through Thursday at the Devonshire Cineplex, where stadium seating affords a very comfortable way to see a film, festival or not…..Today there is the golden oldie Crossing Delancey (1988, Joan Micklin Silver) starring Amy Irving, and then The Consul of Bordeaux (2011, João Correa Francisco Manso), about the Portuguese Consul who rescued thousands of Jews and others during the Holocaust by granting safe passage to his country. And at 8 pm a documentary Brave Miss World (2013, Cecilia Peck) about a woman’s abduction and rape just weeks before she, Linor Abargil, has to represent Italy in the Miss World competition, and who later becomes a lawyer and activist…..On Wednesday there are also a couple of back-to-back docs beginning 2 pm including one about how The New York Times downplayed the Holocaust during World War II. Hmmm. In the evening – the two films I plan to attend – Aftermath (2012, Władysław Pasikowski), a contemporary thriller about an American returning to his family’s Polish birthplace, and Bethlehem (2013, Yuval Adler; poster above), winner of last year’s top award at the Venice film festival - the story of the complex relationship between an Israeli Secret Service officer and a young Palestinian informant….Finally on Thursday, three films: The Zigzag Kid (2012, Vincent Bal), For a Woman (2014, Diane Kurys) and The Attack (2012, Ziad Doueiri), which I have seen and highly recommend for a nuanced look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with plenty of drama and insight. For complete listings and descriptions go to Windsor Jewish Community Centre website.