gilbert seah

Film Review: LION (Australia 2016)

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lion_movie_posterLION (Australia 2016) **
Directed by Garth Davis

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara, Dev Patel

Review by Gilbert Seah

When a feel-good story as in LION is made into a film, filmmakers often still feel the need to add on additional sweetness. PLAY IT LIKE BECKAM, BILLY ELLIOT and the more recent QUEEN OF KATWE are examples of films that fall into this trap.

Audiences do not seem to mind as observed in the box-office success of the first two aforementioned films though QUEEN OF KATWE bombed. Critics, however are never impressed with sugar-coated feel-good films. Unfortunately, LIONS falls into this category. Director Davis is still not ashamed to show a tear or two dripping from the face of the main protagonist, Saroo (Dev Patel), not once but twice.
Dev Patel (THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE), Rooney Mara and Nicole Kidman star in the true story of Saroo Brierley, who was adopted by an Australian couple after being separated from his family in India at the age of five, and then located his original home using Google Earth 25 years later.

The film begins with overhead shot of Tasmania, Australia before settling, oddly in India. Here, the audience sees precocious five-year-old Saroo Khan (Sunny Pawar) in a very poor family. Over-eager to help his older brother Guddu with any odd job that will provide their family with much-needed money, Saroo follows Guddu everywhere he goes. One night the two boys are separated on a train platform in their native Madhya Pradesh, and Saroo winds up nearly a thousand miles away in Calcutta where he is fortunately taken in by a government orphanage. When an Australian couple (Kidman and David Wenham) adopts him, he is taken to live with them in Hobart, Tasmania. It’s not until Saroo leaves that island as a young Australian man (Dev Patel) that he begins to wonder what became of his first home and the family he so adored. Saroo falls into romaine with an Australian (Rooney Mara) in an awkward romance. It does not take a genius to figure out that Saroo will eventually be united with his mother in India through the help with Google earth.

Adapting Brierley’s own book, A Long Way Home, screenwriter Luke Davies and first-time director Garth Davis infuse the story with just too much heartbreak. Nothing is gained or learnt from this predictable true tale made worse with its tear jerking at every possibility. This is an example of the worst of a based on a true story, tear at your heart-strings film.

The reason the film is called LION is revealed at the very end of the film. Not that it matters any. The film LION arrives with much less than a roar.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ns9XjWKws&t=7s

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Film Review: ALLIED (UK/USA 2016) ****

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allied_movie_poster.jpgDirector: Robert Zemeckis

Writer: Steven Knight

Stars: Brad Pitt, Vincent Ebrahim, Xavier De Guillebon, Marion Cotillard

Review by Gilbert Seah

The World War II romance thriller, ALLIED feels like the old Hollywood war romances like CASABLANCA, the kind that featured top Hollywood stars like Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Part of the reason is at the film’s start, the hero, Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) parachutes down to the Moroccan desert only to land make way to Casablanca where he meets his mission-assigned wife, Mairanne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard).

The story is set in 1942 North Africa. Canadian intelligence officer Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) meets French Resistance fighter Marianne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard) on a secret mission behind enemy lines. The couple reunites in London and get married, eventually having a daughter together. Their relationship is strong and normal but becomes threatened by the brink of war, as Vatan is presented with the possibility that Beausejour is a sleeper spy working for the Germans. Vatan is then placed under considerable pressure to kill Beausejour himself or to be executed for failing to obey orders. Convinced of her innocence, he sets out on a very dangerous mission to clear her name.

Zemeckis creates and maintains a solid tense atmosphere throughout the film. The few action sequences (the assassination of the German ambassador; the prison break) are executed efficiently without much ado, keeping in line that ALLIED is a suspense thriller and not an action flick. The romance between Pitt and Cotillard works. The love scene is executed with finesse and taste with the sexiness intact. The couple make love in the car, the scene ending with the sand storm outside the vehicle blurring the windows of the vehicle.

ALLIED is a star movie, no doubt about that. The film would be so much less effective if Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard were replaced with lesser known actors, just as CASABLANCA cannot be envisioned without Bogart and Bergman. British actor, handsome Matthew Goode is hardly recognizable in the role of Guy Sangster, whose face is scarred by the war. The film has a gay slant with the addition of Max’s lesbian sister, Bridget (Lizzy Caplan) who in one ironic scene is asked by soldiers as a request to kiss her female companion.

For all the film’s seriousness, Zemeckis adds in some very wry humour, especially in the scene where Max is confronted with orders to kill Beausejour.

Zemickis makes sure these questions remains on the mind of every member of the audience: Is Beausejour really a German spy? If she is, would Max complete his duty and kill her? Despite the obvious answers to the two questions, Zemeckis pulls a good twist to the story at the end.

ALLIED proves once again the talent of director Zemeckis. He has proven his mettle with films of different genres like the BACK TO THE FUTURE films, THE POLAR EXPRESS, WHO FARMED ROGER RABBIT and of course, FORREST GUMP. Allied adds another success to his list.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSCQWX-pUSg
 

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Film Review: THE BIRDWATCHER (Canada 2015) ***

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the_birdwatcher_poster.jpgDirector: Siobhan Devine

Writers: Roslyn Muir, Roslyn Muir

Stars: Camille Sullivan, Gabrielle Rose, Garwin Sanford

Review by Gilbert Seah

 THE BIRDWATCHER is a film where the characters are almost all women. They are strong women, normal women, trying to live out their lives, mistakes and all. But before males can dismiss the above lines as a feminist film to be avoided, Vancouver-based director Siobhan Devine’s female film, based on a script by Roslyn Muir is that rare female film with good strong and smart male characters.

A social worker, Saffron (Camille Sullivan), dying of cancer knows the state-sponsored fate that can await orphaned older children. She is driven by desperation and determination to find her mother and leave a family legacy to her temperamental teen daughter Lucy (Matreya Fedor) and enthusiastically precocious eight-year-old son Jonah (Jakob Davies). Online investigation turns up Birdy (Gabrielle Rose), a famous ornithologist (THE BIRDWATCHER of the film title) as her birth mother.

Birdy has created a blog as a way of connecting with admirers while avoiding human contact. Her quirks are patiently abided by her devoted and more social husband Finch (Garwin Sanford) an artist who shares her life of birdwatching in the B.C. forest while living out of an R.V. in a camping park. So, Saffron and children arrive at Birdy and Finch’s self-contained, somewhat hermit-like paradise. Saffron eventually reveals to Birdy the reason she is there.

Muir’s script is manipulative at times. When Birdy’s publisher, Matt shows up unexpectedly during the camp buffet, it dos not take a genius to guess that he does not bring good news. This also makes the perfect time for Birdy to be confronted with her birth daughter and for the audience to cheer that Birdy’s pompous world will fall apart. It is also predictable who will end up adopting Saffron’s children after she passes on.

The best lines in the film are Birdy’s mutterings about the birds and their habitats and behaviour. They seem too perfect, like quotations right out of a birdwatcher’s manual.

Despite its flaws, director Devine’s film has a strong female perspective. The women in the film and their relationships are laid out bare – Saffron and her birth mother and Saffron and her own feisty daughter, Lucy. All these are on full display without having to trivialize the male characters – a trap that most female directors with female content films fall into. Saffron’s younger son Jonah is a smart, sensitive kid. Devine spends time writing some fine (and humorous) lines for him, making his character stand out besides being Lucy’s obnoxious younger brother. Birdy’s husband Finch is kind, also smart and a sensitive man.

THE BIRDWATCHER has already been widely acclaimed, with various awards – best film, director, actress and supporting actress awards and nominations at the Indie Gathering Independent Film Festival in Ohio, Toronto’s Female Eye Film Festival, the U.K.’s Southampton Film Festival, B.C.’s Leo Awards and the UBCP/ACTRA Awards. A small film that will likely draw a small audience, THE BIRDWATCHER is by no means a perfect film, but director Devine certainly deserves credit for her debut feature. The film begins a limited run at the Carlton Cinemas, Toronto.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/120997445

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Special Film Review: THE BIRTH OF A NATION (USA 2016)

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birth_of_a_nation_poster.jpgDirected by Nate Parker

Starring: Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Penelope Ann Miller

Review by Gilbert Seah

Writer/director Nate Parker debut drama uses the same title of one of the most instrumental films in early cinema history. D.W. Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION was considered one of the best films in early cinema and one that would influence filmmakers everywhere and at any time. But Griffith’s film was racist against the African American and boosted white supremacy and the KKK Ku-Klax clan. Parker uses the same film title hoping it to be a corrective reclamation of cinematic history. This is all very ambitious, especially for a young filmmaker, and even more so for one that has been accused, though acquitted of the rape of a fellow student.

Whether one can argue that an artist should be separated from his work and real life, it is difficult to care for the words of an accused rapist – guilty or not. The result is that the film will likely be ignored by the Academy during Oscar season.

Born into slavery in Virginia’s Southampton County, young Nat (Nate Parker) is given to dreams in which his African ancestors anoint him a prophet. He is favoured by his masters, learns to read, and is given a Bible. By the time he is an adult, Turner has become a preacher capable of rousing oratory. He convinces his master Samuel Turner (a barely recognizable bearded Armie Hammer) to purchase Cherry (Aja Naomi King), whom Turner eventually weds. Their romance proves a fleeting idyll, however. Turner is rented out to preach at other plantations where, after years of relatively humane treatment, he becomes fully aware of the depravity and torture wreaked upon slaves — and decides that sermons are no longer a sufficient response to such appalling injustice.

Finally Nat leads a slave revolt. It lasts 48 hours but the result is disastrous. The Whites retaliate by hanging 200 innocent slaves. Nat turns himself in, and is hung.

Earnest as Parker’s film may be, its is an ambitious fone – and too ambitious to a fault. At times, Parker does not know where to go, just as his main character is lost after his initial revolt. The character Nat Parker has failed to realize the consequences of his actions – how much more firepower and strength the Whites have. Even if successful, where are all the freed salves going to go? And where to work and live and survive in a blackless commercial world. There is also one scene with a slave cutting the beard of Samuel Turner with a pair of very sharp scissors with Nat looking on. A puzzling scene which appears to be a nod to the Oprah Winfrey shaving scene in Steven Spielberg’s A COLOUR PURPLE.

The transition from one period to another in a character’s is often difficult. The transition of young Nat to Nat the adult is observed in the fade out and in of a cotton plantation where Nat re-appears as an adult.

The film though jolting at times (Nat’s lashing after baptizing a White; the violent slave uprising; the hanging), Parker’s film is a
conventional told tale, chronologically laid out and inevitably offering audiences what is expected from such a film (wealthy white folk living in a big white mansion in a plantation; cruel slave hunters;
insufferable slave living condition et al.). One would expect more from a film with an ambitious a title like THE BIRTH OF A NATION. Still, it is a story, well told and challenging enough transmitted through Parker’s craft.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezWiUTXB11A

 

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Film Review: QUAND ON A 17 ANS (BEING 17) (France 2016) ****

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being_17QUAND ON A 17 ANS (BEING 17) (France 2016) ****
Directed by Andre Téchiné

Starring: Sandrine Kiberlain, Kacey Mottet Klein, Corentin Fila

Review by Gilbert Seah

Directed by Téchiné with a script he wrote in collaboration with Céline Sciamma, the film follows the romantic and sexual awakening of two seventeen year old boys as their initial animosity, expressed in violence, morphs into love. For the not-so French literate, Being 17 borrows its title from the second half-line of the first verse of Roman, (1870) by Arthur Rimbaud: On n’est pas sérieux quand on a dix-sept ans.

This is not their first collaboration. Téchiné and Sciamma have worked on several films before including the quite similar and excellent LES ROSEAUX SAUVAGES (WILD REEDS) in 1994 also about young gay love.

The film unfolds in 3 trimesters (three French school terms in a year). The first occurs in winter and the final after summer. The protagonist is 17-year old Damien, a smart (good in math) and sensitive (good in poetry) who lives with his doctor mother and absent father, Nathan a fighter pilot abroad. They lead a relatively comfortable life in a small town located in a valley among the mountains of the Hautes-Pyrénées. Mother and son miss Nathan who comes home occasionally when the military allows.

In high school, Damien gets picked on by Thomas, a classmate, who trips him in the middle of class for no apparent reason. From then on there are constant altercations between them while playing sports and in the schoolyard. Both are outsiders at school chosen last for sports teams. In order to protect himself, Damien takes self-defense classes with Paulo, an ex-military family friend. The film goes from there with the story turning into young love – with raging hormones expected of youth at the age of 17.

The main story is supported by significantly moving subplots about Thomas’ adoptive mother bearing a child and Damien’s father’s death, the catastrophe that eventually brings the two boys together.

The change of seasons reflect the sexual awakening of the boys. When the boys are in school the first trimester is set in winter, their sexual desires are as if, hidden in the cold. As spring approaches, Damien’s sexual attraction towards Thomas awakens. An excellent segment also occurs later in the film when the two study Latin and discuss the difference between desire and need. Desire is natural but superfluous and pretentious, the reason Thomas tripped Damien in the classroom as he deemed Damien’s poem as open pretentiousness.

The shooting of the film in the winter in the mountains of the Hautes-Pyrénées makes stunning scenery. And the sight of the small town from the mountain top, as shown by Thomas to Damien’s mother is breathtaking.

For a director over 70, Téchiné captures the vibrance of youth. This can be observed best in the scenes in Damien’s school as the kids goof around, take part in sports or take lessons in the classroom. It is also rare in films that both adults and youth are treated as intelligent. In fact, every character is intelligent enough to have a valid say in the story. BEING 17 is both a moving and enlightening entertainment that marks once again another superior work from Téchiné.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOSPninRQwI

 

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Film Review: AN EYE FOR AN EYE (Documentary)

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an_eye_for_an_eye_poster.jpgAN EYE FOR AN EYE (USA/Canada 2016) **
Directed by Ilan Ziv

Review by Gilbert Seah

Israeli filmmaker Ilan Ziv’s (SIX DAYS IN JUNE) documentary tells the story of death row inmate Mark Stroman and the friendship he forges with one of his surviving victims Rais Bhuiyan, who set about to save Stroman from death row as part of his Muslim faith beliefs.

From 2004 and for the next 7 years, filmmaker Ilan Ziv met and befriended Mark Stroman on Texas’ infamous Death Row, where he had been since his capital murder conviction in 2002. At trial Stroman was described by the prosecutor as a “monster, a cancer to society”, yet Ilan was perplexed to meet a complex man full of contradictions, who shared the same troubled soul as the most recent “lone wolves” who used Jihad as a cover for their personal failings and justification for their crimes. By then, Stroman had become a man in search of meaning and redemption. So Ziv set out to document what he called “the enigma of Mark Stroman.”

Unfortunately the film concentrates on Stroman. The interviews conducted by Ziv’s visits in prison depict Stroman as not a very bright person. A film is often as interesting as its subject – and Stroman is simple minded fellow. Stroman declared himself a ‘lone wolf’ and began killing random Arabs in retaliation for the 9/11 town towers attacks. But Stroman believed his victims were Muslims from the Middle East – but they were actually immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and a Hindu from India who had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. He killed two and partially blinded a young man from Bangladesh. Arrested and sentenced to death in the state of Texas, this man’s life is just one big mistake that few can feel sorry for.

Ziv spends too much time in the film trying to convince the audience that Stroman is not a bad guy. When the film begins, Ziv says in voiceover, that when he first visited Stroman he expected to see the eyes of a killer but did not. Ziv also shows the explosions of the twin towers in all their horror not once but twice in the film to convince the audience the reason for Stroman’s motive. He further explains Stroman’s childhood background – how he was always beaten by his step-father and arrested at the early age of 12. Despite the horrors of Stroman’s crime, Stroman is not a very interesting person, so investing so much interview time on him drags the film. Stroman’s former boss/employer’s description of Stroman sheds more light on him.

When Stroman asked for forgiveness from his victims, one of his surviving victims Bhuiyan publicly forgave him, in the name of his religion and its notion of mercy. The film shifts to the two months before Mark’s execution when Rais waged a legal and public relations campaign against the State of Texas and Governor Rick Perry, to have his attacker spared from the death penalty.

The film has one moving part when director Ziv is invited by Stroman to witness his execution. Ziv says that this is the time he crossed the line from a reporter to being Stroman’s friend.

What does not work in the film is Ziv attempts to create some excitement in the film by counting down of the days before Stroman’s execution while showing the desperate legal tactics used one by one by the lawyers till there were none left.

Ziv’s film has a strong message of peace and redemption. He uses the wrong devices to deliver the message ending up sentimentalizing and muddling up the film’s power.

Please note that in a special appearance, the inspiring and hopeful Rais Bhuiyan will engage in discussion at screenings of AN EYE FOR AN EYE on Monday, November 14th at 5:20 p.m. and 7:50 p.m. at Canada Square Cinemas, 2190 Yonge St, Toronto.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/177747964

 

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European Union Film Festival (from Nov 10 to Nov 24, 2016) – FREE!

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European Union Film Festival ventures into new programming territory with exhibitions, short films and a round table discussion

The 2016 edition of the festival will take place November 10 to 24 at the Royal Cinema euffto.com

TORONTO – The European Union Film Festival (EUFF) is thrilled to announce that for 2016 it’s venturing into new programming territory. In addition to showing 28 feature films from each of the 28 EU member countries, this year EUFF will include a round table discussion with award-winning filmmakers from the region, be part of two cinema-focused exhibitions, and showcase a selection of short films, all firsts for the Festival.

On November 12, during the EUFF’s first weekend, audiences will be able to enjoy a round table discussion on what makes a film European. Participants include Greek film industry veteran and founding member of the Hellenic Film Academy Panos Karkanevatos, the Netherlands’ multi-award-winning director Joram Lürsen, who has received both critical acclaim and great box office success with his films, and German-born, Montreal-based filmmaker Wiebke von Carolsfeld, best known for her feature Marion Bridge, which introduced a very young Ellen Page. Her latest, The Saver, has already earned her countless international nominations and will be distributed in the US in the winter.

Opening on November 16 at the Alliance Française de Toronto, the exhibition CINEMA FACES will showcase the work of Toronto-based photographer Jean-Baptiste Le Mercier, whose portrait sessions at TIFF captured the highlights of the presence of French cinema at the Festival. It will run until December 16, 2016.

EUFF is also co-presenting an exhibition, with the Goethe Institut and TIFF, celebrating New German Cinema Director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, which will feature film posters and statements from prominent international directors, including Atom Egoyan and François Ozon.  FASSBINDER 1945-1982 will run October 21 to December 20, 2016 at Toronto’s Goethe Institut.

Showcasing short films for the first time at the Festival, EUFF will be showing six student shorts from the EU, each screening in front of a feature. The titles and pairings for this selection will be announced with the Festival’s full film line-up on October 13.

About the European Union Film Festival

The European Union Film Festival (EUFF), a not-for-profit organization, strives to reflect the excellence, innovation, and diversity of European cinema in Toronto, the world’s most multicultural city. Founded in 2004 as a salve to Hollywood monotony, this free festival has grown to now showcase 28 contemporary films drawn from each of the EU’s member countries. The EUFF is a unique festival and the only one in the world to bring together disparate EU Consulates and local cultural institutes for collaboration. Represented countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom. EUFFTO.COM

General Admission to EUFF events is FREE. Availability works on a first-come, first-served basis.

——

 CAPSULE REVIEWS of selected Films:

CLOSING NIGHT FILM:

EVA NOVA (Slovakia 2015)  ***

Directed by Marko Skop

EVA NOVA is the closing night film for the EUFF.  The film title is also the name of the protagonist of Marko Skop’s film of redemption.   Eva was at the peak of her career as an actress when her drinking caused a downward spiral in both her family life and career. Now, at the age of 62, she is dead set on staying sober and determined to reconcile with those whose confidence she lost during the worst years of her addiction.  More than anything else, she wants to regain the love of the person she values most in life, her son Dodo.  At one point in the film, Eva complains about young directors not having enough emotion in their films.  Well, there are lots of emotion in this film, that’s for sure, particularly Eva’s.  Emília Vásáryová delivers an impressive performance as the distraught Eva.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BaWGVaslcQ

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KAISA’S ENCHANTED FOREST (FINLAND 2016) ***
Directed by Katja Gauriloff

A weird documentary about the wilderness nomadic people in Finland called Skots, the film traces the tales told to the protagonist Robert Crottet (1908-1987) by an old Skots lady called Kaisa.  One of her fairly tale sessions is enough to fill two books.  The film is shot partly in black and white with grainy scratches, reminiscent of the typical Guy Maddin film.  And just as odd too.  An additional bonus is the animation added into the storytelling.  The film is a period piece that spans the second world war and celebrates land and nature.  It also pays homage to the first settlers in Finland, displaying their way of life in term of reading reindeer, cooking and storytelling.  Never mind the loose narrative – just sit back and enjoy the story telling and wonderful black and white cinematography.  The director is Kaisa’s great grandson

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X_o1cQd5oA

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OPENING NIGHT FILM:

A NOBLE INTENTION (Publieke Werken) (Netherlands 2015) ***1/2

Directed by Joram Lürsen 

This Dutch period piece that celebrates the toil of the poor Dutch people who stand for their principles is the perfect selection for the opening film at the European Union Film Festival.  There are several stories on display, the main one being the building of the historic Victorian Hotel near the new Central Station in Amsterdam.  Old Vedder has to step aside and sell his shop making violins as it is part of the site of the planned Victoria Hotel.   Meanwhile, his cousin Anijs, pharmacist, has gotten into a fix after illegal medical practices and is looking for a way out.  For himself and his wife but also for some peat cutters whom he promises a future in the United States.   Vedder is to use the sale of his shop to finance the emigrants.  But he is too stubborn to come down in the price with the result that the Hotel builders decide to build around his who instead.  The film is quite a downer with hopelessness always in the atmosphere, despite the tacked unhappy ending.  I checked the history of the Victoria Hotel and it says that the hotel built around two ships that the owners of the hotel could to agree with.  

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/161025449 

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WHILE AYA WAS SLEEPING (Bulgaria 2015) **
Directed by Tsvetodar Markov

Seven year old Aya spends a lot of time in the theatre because her father, Asen, is an actor.   One night Aya falls asleep in the control room.  After the end of the show, intrigue, betrayal and tension in the theatre group gradually escalate all of which occur WHILE AYA WAS ASLEEP.  Asen’s illusions collapse, when he finds out that the television star, Boyan, will replace him in an upcoming premiere. Aya’s father provokes a scandal, which turns into a drunken brawl.  Will Asen succeed to rediscover himself with the unreserved support of his wife and the selfless love of his daughter?  It does not help that Ansen is depicted as a drunken hopeless has-been.  The film clearly wants the audience to side with him, but unfortunately the film does not do him justice with no redeeming qualities.  A sad, boring film about the ins and outs of theatre life that no one really cares for.  The climax of the brawl is funny but not enough to save the movie.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMZqco81AC0

Film Review: BLEED FOR THIS (USA 2014) ***1/2

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bleed_for_this_movie_posterDirector: Ben Younger
Writers: Pippa Bianco (story), Angelo Pizzo (story), Ben Younger (Screenplay)
Stars: Miles Teller, Christine Evangelista, Katey Sagal, Aaron Eckhart, Ciarán Hinds, Ted Levine

 As the title of the film suggests, the success of a boxer depends also on how well he can receive hard punishment in the ring. For real-life Rhode Island boxer Vinnie Paz, the biggest hit he was dealt with was not in the ring, but in life, getting into a car accident that left him almost paralysed.

BLEED FOR THIS is a boxing drama/action film which lies somewhere between David O. Russell’s THE FIGHTER and Stallone’s ROCKY films in terms of action and drama. The film is so called because the boxer, Vinny Paz (Miles Teller) is able to receive bloody punishment in the ring with almost no bounds. Audiences beware! There is a lot of brutal an bloody fight scenes in BLEED FOR THIS.

The film is a true story of boxer Vinnie Paz. The boxer’s ring name is the Pazmanian Devil. Paz is one of few American boxers to hold world titles (encouraged by his coach) in three different weight categories, had his ascent interrupted by a cataclysmic accident. Family is everything to young Vinny. There’s his father, Angelo (Ciarán Hinds), his religious mother, Louise (Katey Sagal), who avoids her son’s televised fights by hiding in a hallway-closet Catholic shrine, and several fractious siblings. They are all trying to make their way in working-class Rhode Island, and their hopes are pinned on Vinny’s boxing. He has every intention of fulfilling everyone’s dreams, but he just can’t seem to find the edge he needs to get ahead. That changes when he meets Kevin Rooney (Aaron Eckhart), a coach whose problems with alcohol have led to the destruction of his own career. Each finds in the other a second chance. The two bond, they train hard, and Vinny’s success seems assured — until a terrible car accident leaves him with a broken neck. The prognosis is that he will never walk again, let alone enter the ring. This is a story of a comeback, and part of it is a redemption story. Director Younger succeeds in showing both the painful but rewarding sides of the story.

Despite the serious nature of the film, director Younger (BOILER ROOM), who also wrote the film, is smart enough to inject humour at various parts of his storytelling. Most of the moments are provided by Eckhart, hamming it ip as Vinnie’s trainer.

There are three excellent performances that deserve mention. The first, of course is the lead performance by Miles Teller. Teller was then pudgy and played the pudgy, obnoxious male friend trying to get a date in THAT AWKWARD MOVEMENT. Teller proved his acting ability in WHIPLASH, showing he was just as good as Oscar Winner J.K. Simmons. In BLEED FOR THIS, Teller has also bulked up to the physique of a boxer.

He captures the drama with both the pain and exhilarance of fighting in the ring. The other two are the supporting actors. The handsome Aaron Eckhart has done the opposite, putting on weight to be a pudgy alcoholic trainer while Ciaran Hinds plays Vinnie’s fiery and domineering father. All three are deserving of an Oscar nomination in the acting category.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ6ny-fROX8

Director Ben Younger on the set of BLEED FOR THIS.
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Film Review: THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN (USA 2016)

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the_edge_of_seventeen_movie_poster.jpgDirector: Kelly Fremon Craig
Writer: Kelly Fremon Craig
Stars: Hailee Steinfeld, Haley Lu Richardson, Blake Jenner, Kyra Sedgwick, Woody Harrelson

THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN is writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig’s debut feature. It is a coming-of-age story of a very awkward high-school junior, Nadine (played by Oscar Nominee Hailee Steinfeld from TRUE GRIT) who cannot get along with anyone including her own family – except for her father who dies early in the film and one best friend that she loses. Nadine mopes about the entire film till she finally grows up. For a film about such a loser, Craig’s film is surprisingly edge, funny and feel-good, though her script can be quite manipulative at times. But manipulative in a good way, one could also argue.

The film begins with Nadine assailing her history teacher, a laid back Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson), with her umpteenth breathless — and phoney crises. Tired of Nadine’s high drama, Mr. Bruner refuses to offer token consolation, though he does offer her half his cookie. The film goes back in time with humorous voice-over from Nadine providing her awkward point of view on her life. As a child, she never gets along with her mother ( Kyra Sedgwick) or her brother. But she bears a bond with her loving father. But the disaster strikes twice when father dies from a car accident and her only best friend, Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), has starts dating Nadine’s annoyingly earnest fitness-nut older brother Darian (Blake Jenner). In the meantime she accidentally sends a lewd text message to the cute, aloof boy who works at the pet store in the mall. The result is disastrous. One might think that all Nadine’s high jinx activities are trivial, but director Craig accomplishes the task of having the audience care, even when Nadine is a character with more faults than plusses.

One thing noticeable about Craig’s writing is that all her characters are inherently good in nature no matter how bad their actions might be. The overbearing brother ends up being there for his sister at the end. Mr. Bruner turns out to be an exceptionally kind family man and human being despite deceiving outward appearances.

The entire cast of the film is picture perfect, especially the boys. It seems that a requirement of being in the cast is to be of GQ quality. Take for example, Nadine’s Korean boyfriend, (Hayden Szeto) who is I bet, the cutest Asian on the planet.

But director Craig has also created a movie (short feature) within a movie. The utterly charming animated feature entered by the Korean in a film competition demonstrates Craig to be a mature filmmaker who can also create fake but excellent student films.

THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN succeeds as one of those very few films about a walking disaster case which can still turn out to be a feel-good film. And this is achieved not by silly sugar coated set-pieces but by edgy comedy, as demonstrated by the animated short which forms the climax to this thoroughly entertaining coming-of-age film.

The film closed this years’s Toronto International Film Festival with positive reviews.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB6Gecy6IP8

 

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Film Review: ARRIVAL (USA 2016) ****

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arrival_poster.jpgARRIVAL (USA 2016) ****
Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Starring: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker

Review by Gilbert Seah

The Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve has never failed to impress. From his early French Canadian films UN 32 AOUT SUR TERRE and MAELSTROM to his English Hollywood films SICARIO, PRISONERS and ENEMY, Villenueve has transcended different genres though his films share one common trait. There is the human angst mixed into a thriller/mystery story. The same can be said in his latest, most ambitious and biggest production to date – ARRIVAL. The ARRIVAL here could refer ever to the first contact of the aliens or the birth of the baby girl to the film’s protagonist, Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams).

As in any good mystery thriller, Villenueve whets the audience’s appetite at the film’s start by teasing them with the voiceover by Dr. Banks. “I used to think this was the beginning of your story that we are bound by time and by its order.” And then as she holds up her baby daughter, saying: “Come back to me.” Why is she saying this to her baby and why is the order of time being questioned. The question is answered as the film unfolds. The pleasure of this film lies not in an action packed climax but the revelation of the mystery of the reason the aliens arrive, in 12 simultaneous locations around the world. ARRIVAL is a thinking man’s sci-fi and also a very satisfying one.

When the film opens, 12 alien spacecraft land around the world. Linguistics expert Dr. Louise Banks and theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) are recruited by the US military to obtain the answer to one question: “What do they want?” Arriving in Montana, working under the leadership of Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker), Louise and Ian are only remotely aware that their lives and the future of humanity are about to become inextricably linked. As the unlikely pair collaborate to solve this extraterrestrial translation puzzle, 11 other teams around the world are attempting to do the same.

Unlike other films like GRAVITY, ARRIVAL begins with the intimate personal story of Dr. Banks and ties the worldly events to her. In contrast to GRAVITY, for example, where the personal life of Sandra Bullock’s character is only tied in (her miscarriage) half way through the film or in THE MARTIAN where Matt Damon’s personal life is next to non-existent, the only mention being his tenure at a university. ARRIVAL has the audience connected with the protagonist well way before the alien arrival and the arrival totally affects her life.

The film also cleverly teases with questions like: Why do the doors of the spaceship open every 18 hours? Or “Why are there spaceships in 12 simultaneous locations?

The film also celebrates the human being’s ability to communicate by focusing on the fundamentals. The spill by Dr. Banks on how for example, a language like chess could affect mis-communication is excellent thinking fodder.

Bradford Young’s arresting cinematography, Johanna Jóhannsson’s haunting score (especially during the beginning and ending credits), and long-time collaborator Patrice Vermette’s minimalist production design (the monolithic look of the spaceship) all aid in creating the mystery atmosphere surrounding the alien arrival.

ARRIVAL also challenges the audience’s logic in appreciating the science of time. Though the notion is rather incredible, the film succeeds in making the audience think that all is possible. A true test of a good film is whether the film survives a repeat screening. After first seeing ARRIVAL first at TIFF and now again, ARRIVAL still amazes.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFMo3UJ4B4g

 

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