gilbert seah

Film Review: L’ECONOMIE DU COUPLE (AFTER LOVE) (France 2016) ***1/2

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after love.jpgAfter 15 years of marriage, a couple with two kids is about to divorce. Until the husband find a new place to live, they have to cohabit, and figure out how to share their belongings.

Director: Joachim Lafosse
Writers: Fanny Burdino
Stars: Bérénice Bejo, Cédric Kahn, Marthe Keller

Review by Gilbert Seah

Those that know Cédric Kahn will definitely remember his excellent 2004 directed suspense drama FEUX ROUGE (RED LIGHTS) which he also co-wrote. The story concerns the marriage breakdown of a mediocre salesman Antoine (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) and his attractive, successful and increasingly aloof wife, Hélène (Carole Bouquet), as they are en route to pick up their daughter from camp, bickering as usual. The broken relationship is seen from the backdrop of her sudden disappearance when she decides to take the train.

Kahn leaves the director’s chair to play the husband in this equally absorbing broken marriage story of Boris (Cédric Kahn) and Marie (Bérénice Bejo). Though the background is different, both films have similarities and are both equally a difficult watch. The couples have seen their love gone sour and both try to give it a second chance. In this film, the couple have decided to separate after 15 years together. They have two girls that they adore, but tensions rise as cash-strapped Boris continues to live in the family home. Neither of the two is willing to compromise, making their apartment a war zone.

Sexual and emotional tensions remain high. An example is when the Boris accidentally enters the bathroom while Marie is having a bath. He claims that he did not see her inside and just getting his toothbrush. When she is angry he replies that he has seen her naked before. These are words and incidents that will eventually happen, regardless whether by a accident or not and will always lead to confrontation and uneasiness. The scene is done from the point of view of Marie, the camera focused on her expressions while she lies in the bath when the dialogue goes on between the couple.

Lafosse takes no sides. The audience sees the irrationality of both the husband and wife and how emotions blur their better judgement. At one point, they scream uncontrollably in front of their two daughters. The scene in which they both eventually sit down as a family and the parents promise their daughters never to shout at each other is a touching one.

One would imagine that watching a film on this topic be a brutal one. Surprisingly it is not, because Lafosse makes what appears on screen incredibly real than theatrically brutal. The sensitive and humanistic sides are also shown.

Kahn and Bejo, especially are excellent in their roles.

But all is not hate. In one sensitive and brilliant moment, Lafosse demonstrates that the love the couple once felt for each other was present in the past and not forgotten. “I did really love him” says Marie to her friends one evening party before Boris shows up and creates emotional havoc. The one unexpected visit by Marie turns out to be an evening of family warmth with the father and two daughters dancing together, edged on by the mother.

Lafosse leads his remarkable AFTER LOVE to its obvious ending as Boris and Marie eventually separate but for the better.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-zxQXzSpbM

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Film Review: PATTI CAKE$ (USA 2017) ****

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PATTI CAKE$PATTI CAKE$ is centered on aspiring rapper Patricia Dombrowski, a.k.a. Killa P, a.k.a. Patti Cake$, who is fighting an unlikely quest for glory in her downtrodden hometown in New Jersey.

Director: Geremy Jasper
Writer: Geremy Jasper
Stars: Danielle Macdonald, Bridget Everett, Siddharth Dhananjay

Review by Gilbert Seah

PATTI CAKE$ is a story of a big white girl, Patricia “Dumbo” Dombrowski (Danielle Macdonald), from Bergen County, New Jersey who seeks fame and fortune as a rapper. She lives in a really untidy house with her mother (Bridget Everett) and looks after her bed-ridden Nana. The film introduces her as she wakes up in the morning. The camera shows her ‘fat’ side while she does her daily routine like brushing her teeth, while rapping. She swaggers down the street with the camera showing her floating up in the sky – a great start for the movie. Her talent is rapping and she with her best friend Jheri (Siddharth Dhananjay) and new discovery (Mamoudou Athie) hope to make it in the rap scene. The film is their difficult success story.

The film has 3 big plusses and with these three plusses, one can hardly go wrong. The first is a killer rap soundtrack. Director Jasper shows the origins of a song, how the lyrics come about and how the melody is created. The finish product is a marvel. The second are the great performances from the entire cast and thirdly, the script though not flawless, is nevertheless quite good covering many current issues. It is expected that the film has a happy ending and the tacked on turn of events is a bit manipulative.

Australian actress Danielle Macdonald is a real find and should be heading for stardom. Bridget Everett is also winning as Barb, her mother while Cathy Moriaty as Nana is a scene stealer.

Besides rap dance, the film covers a lot of relevant issues though not all to great depth. But it helps keep the film interesting rather than just focused on one issue. Bullying and non-acceptance is the other main issue. Patricia is big and when she does the rap battle, her size comes into play. She is also bullied in the neighbourhood and called “Dumbo’ by almost everyone. The mother and daughter relationship is also covered with satisfactory detail. Her mother has no time for Patricia and has no idea that her daughter is into rap, though she is also a real talented singer. One issue just touched on is the health care. When Nana is taken to hospital with a stroke, Patricia and her mother has to come up with the money. Patricia works extra shifts in her part-time job while the mother juggles the credit cards to pay the hospital bills. The difficulty of getting recognized in the music industry is also eminent throughout the film as the rap group try all measures to get a break.

Besides crooning out the rude lyrics with the ‘f’ word in almost every phrase, the film also shows that in order to survive one has to work very hard and be disciplined. Patricia works long 8-hour shifts as a part-time bartender, forcing a smile on her face all the time, in order to help pay the family bills.
The film is quite a marvel from a first time director. It is my sure bet that this film will win the Toronto Film Critics Association Prize for first film feature. Though the film is a hard watch from start to finish, every minute is worth it.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-591Dqa48g

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Film Review: THE QUEEN OF SPAIN (Spain 2016)

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THE QUEEN OF SPAIN.jpg
The misadventures of a Spanish crew during the filming of an American movie in 1950’s Spain.

Director: Fernando Trueba
Writer: Fernando Trueba
Stars: Penélope Cruz, Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin

Review by Gilbert Seah

THE QUEEN OF SPAIN arrives after its Gala Selection at Berlinale 2017. The film is the sequel to Fernando Trueba’s 1998 drama THE GIRL OF YOUR DREAMS which also starred Penelope Cruz in a story set during the Spanish Civil War with Josef Goebbels falling in love with Macarena Granada. The film, though not many are familiar with in North America won seven Goya Awards including best film and best actress for Cruz. But what is more well known, is that Cruz and director Trueba worked together on the 1992 film BELLE EPOQUE which won the Best Foreign Film Oscar. With that, THE QUEEN OF SPAIN aroused sufficient interest to get commercial distribution.

The film is not as good as the other two, and in fact quite a disappointment, considering the film’s setting and its ambitious political intentions. Trueba injects lots of comedy and melodrama and the kind of goings-on during the filming of a movie. The film is fun to watch but could have developed into much more.

There are many stories – in fact a few too many on display in the film. The most important of all is to the one considering Cruz’s character but a film director, Blas Fontiveros (Antonio Resines) that has got into a lot of political trouble in the past. He suddenly appears at the start of the film, like a ghost as everyone though him dead, but is arrested. With so many people in the new film that he has helped in the past, they decide to spring him. The new film that is made is an American Hollywood film shot in Spain by director John Scott (Clive Revill) who is so old, all he can do is shout ‘action’ or ‘cut’ between his naps. The main star from Hollywood is Marcarena Granada (Penelope Cruz) who falls in love with a grip (Chino Darin) on the set. Other subplots include the dandy American actor, Gary Jones (Cary Elwes) and an assorted Spanish crew including a couple (a lesbian and gay man) who marries for convenience.

The setting is the nostalgic age where Hollywood came to Spain. Clearly director Trueba hates politics and Franco for that matter and has a sort of love/hate relationship with Hollywood as depicted in the film. The McCarthy witch hunt in which screenwriters were banned from working in Hollywood is given a nice touch in the film. One such writer arrives in Spain and works under an assumed name.

THE QUEEN Of SPAIN is a well intentioned film which has taken too much on its plate. It still is an entertaining romp – a tribute to the nostalgic filmmaking times of the 50’s – a film in a film. Following its premiere in Berlin, which was met with a long standing ovation, the film was nominated for five Goya Awards held this past March, including a nomination for Cruz as best actress.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VfVvAlyeJ4

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Film Review: THE ONLY LIVING BOY IN NEW YORK (USA 2017)

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THE ONLY LIVING BOY IN NEW YORK.jpgAdrift in New York City, a recent college graduate’s life is upended by his father’s mistress.

Director: Marc Webb
Writer: Allan Loeb
Stars: Callum Turner, Kate Beckinsale, Pierce Brosnan, Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Nixon, Kiersey Clemons, Tate Donovan, Wallace Shawn

Review by Gilbert Seah 

 It has been 5 years since the announcement of the making of this movie and its completion after many delays and re-casting. Surprisingly, THE ONLY LIVING BOY IN NEW YORK turns out not that bad, but it is a far cry from the director’s first and excellent debut, THE (500) DAYS OF SUMMER.

The lead young actor, Callum Turner of THE ONLY LIVING BIY IN NEW YORK appears to be a clone of Joseph-Gordon Levitt in SUMMER, not only in looks but in certain mannerisms. Turner is not bad, charming, while portraying both the strength of a budding writer and a vulnerable player in the artistic world. The casting director seems unable to resist the casting of Wallace Shawn as a talking artist in one of the family’s famous artist dinner parties.

The script by Allan Loeb feels at times like a Woody Allen one, with multiple relationships going on at one time. No one appears capable of keeping a monogamous less honest relationship without sleeping with another and then substantiating it as all right afterwards. Unlike an Allen film, the guilt comes more into play in this story with each lover trying to right a wrong.

When the film begins, a recent college graduate, Thomas Webb (Turner) is given the news that the girl whom he has been seeing and has fallen in love with, Mimi Pastori (Kiersey Clemons) is leaving him to go abroad. They still love each other as they profess, which really means nothing in a film that tries to be as smug as this one, from the very beginning. Thomas ends up sleeping with his dad, Ethan’s (Pierce Brosnan) mistress, Johanna (Kate Beckinsale), while the poor mother Judith (Cynthia Nixon) looks on. It turns out that mother is not that innocent after all, as will be revealed later on in the story (no spoiler to be revealed here.) In the process of all this, Thomas meets, though too coincidentally, a neighbour stranger named W.F. Gerald (Jeff Bridges) who turns out to be his mentor helping him out both in his love affairs and life.

THE ONLY LIVING BOY IN NEW YORK is a likeable film and director Webb (who also did the SPIDER-MAN movies) knows how to make a likeable film. Love triumphs in many ways and always does. Everyone in the script also ends up with his or her own little happy ending.

THE ONLY LIVING BOY IN NEW YORK, which turns out to be the title of the book a character writes, will be inevitably compared to a Woody Allen movie for its look on the New York art scene and relationships.

This is the difference between Loeb’s script, Webb’s direction and Woody Allen’s works. Life does not always turn out to be happy endings. Allen’s characters suffer more, for their cheating in their love affairs and in general in how things in life eventually turn out. Life is not all plain sailing that turn out well. That is the reason Allen’s films are more endearing and realistic. And Allen knows how to put in more humour and sarcasm into his works as well. This film ends up a too smug arty fairy tale.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkjhAeF3b1g

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Film Review: BUSHWICK (USA 2016)

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bushwick.jpgWhen a Texas military force invades their Brooklyn neighborhood, 20-year-old Lucy and war veteran Stupe must depend on each other to survive.

Directors: Cary Murnion, Jonathan Milott
Writers: Nick Damici, Graham Reznick
Stars: Dave Bautista, Brittany Snow, Christian Navarro

Review by Gilbert Seah
 

 BUSHWICK is a working-class neighbourhood in the northern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighbourhood, historically a community of Germanic immigrants and their descendants, has been predominantly Hispanic in the late 20th century. The neighbourhood, formerly Brooklyn’s 18th Ward, is now part of Brooklyn Community Board 4. It has been the scene of extreme looting during the 1977 blackout. This low income working-class venue has been chosen as the setting for directors Murnion and Milott apocalyptic tale of destruction, chaos and survival.

When the film opens, directors Murnion and Milot prompts the audience to evaluate their most dreaded fears. As 20-year old Lucy (Brittany Snow) chides her boyfriend for being scared of being in the dark while leaving the underground (subway), he replies that he should get some incentive for not being scared As they converse, they notice that they see no one else. The place is deserted. Then appears from nowhere a man screaming as he is inflamed. The two run to the street level where the boyfriend is shot and she left alone. Lucy then meets Stupe (Dave Bautista) and the two newly met companions bind together to figure out what is going on. The script does not reveal the answer till half way through the film.

The film, written by Nick Damici and Graham Reznick is well shot by Lyle Vincent with an atmosphere of the end of the world scenario. The trouble is that audiences have seen all this before in a dozen or so films of this nature. With only two main characters, the film becomes not only more minimal but hardly credible. How and why has so much happened in the so few minutes that Lucy is in the underground? Do the audience really care? There is hardly any excitement created as no one really cares about these two characters. Also, any reason for this has been already put together in one movie or other.

The script is devoid of humour. The only funny part appears to be the name of the main character – Stupe. The film is quite violent in terms of wounds see on screen like Lucy’s shot-off finger and Stupe’s wound.

Actors Bautista and Snow do their upmost best to keep their characters interesting. The scene where Stupe has to pull out chard of metal from his leg, with Lucy looking on while burning it with red hot metal for at least 5 seconds to kill the germs, seems to be put there to gross out audiences but still with little effect.

The film is nothing more, than running around, shootings, more running around and even more shootings. More people get killed, then more running around and shootings. The film contains a lot of false hopes One is the search for Father John in a church.

Another appears to be evacuation by helicopters at a park. But when the climax comes, nothing much makes much sense. This film is clearly as the saying goes, a film with no head and no tail.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKvNp0PEkHY

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Film Review: BLOOD HONEY (THE HIVE) (Canada 2017) **1/2

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blood honeyTortured by the memory of a childhood trauma, a woman returns after a decade to her family’s fly-in hunting lodge to assist her siblings with their dying father, only to find herself stuck in a life threatening nightmare.

Director: Jeff Kopas
Writers: Jeff Kopas, Doug Taylor
Stars: Shenae Grimes-Beech, Gil Bellows, Kenneth Mitchell

Review by Gilbert Seah
 
The change of title from THE HIVE to BLOOD HONEY is a wise decision since there are already too many films that come up when googled under the film title THE HIVE. But THE HIVE also explains the ‘apparent’ closeness of the protagonist family in a remote northern fly cabin, but one that is forced rather than nurtured.

The word gripping can be used to describe the film as gripping is the emotion felt strongly in just 15 minutes of the film. A lot happens within the opening credits as well – a suicide, a girl’s growing up into a woman and the displayed sibling affection. The audience is set up for a Canadian film in which boring should not come into mind.

Tortured by the memory of a childhood trauma which is the witnessing of her mother’s suicide described in the earlier paragraph, a woman , Jenibel (Shenae Grimes-Beech) returns after a decade to her family’s fly-in hunting lodge to assist her siblings with their dying father, only to find herself stuck in a life threatening nightmare, where she must struggle to survive. She obviously blames her father for her mother’s suicide and has managed to forgive her father prior to her visit. But her father proves more than she expected. (She intends to forgive him but her father does not intend to be forgiven). At the same time, he makes her promise not to sell the lodge or the land. But her family feels otherwise. Bees come into the picture when the dying father commits a grand exit from life by being stung to death by the bees.

Director and co-writer Kopas (with Doug Taylor of SPLICE, a film I hated) says that his film is influenced by by classic old school thrillers such as Rosemary’s Baby, Vertigo, The Shining, and Jacob’s Ladder. This might be true but the film never reaches those heights or even remotely close, as these are high standards. There are a few good elements in the story, like the woman discovering she is slowly being poisoned.

The film lags in the middle when the woman is unclear what is happening, and the film relies on too may flashbacks and false alarms.

The script also never makes it clear the reason the father behaves in such a way causing the wife to commit suicide. His erratic behaviour is assumed to be caused by his guilt. The woman’s final escape also leaves too many credibility gaps.

The film was shot in the small local town of Britt in the Parry Sound District of the Province of Ontario. The film has a limited run beginning Friday September, 1st with a red carpet screening at the Cineplex Yonge and Dundas on Thursday August 31, 2017 6:30pm

The following talent from the film will be in attendance:
Don McKellar,
Gil Bellows,
Rosemary Dunsmore,
Natalie Brown,
Ken Mitchell,
Krystal Nausbaum
Director Jeff Kopas
Producers: Rob Budreau, Ryan Reaney, Jeff Kopas
Executive Producers: Marina Cordoni, Douglas Taylor and
CoProducer: David Anselmo

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/217438652
 

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Film Review: LOGAN LUCKY (USA 2017) ***

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logan luckyTwo brothers attempt to pull off a heist during a NASCAR race in North Carolina.

Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: Rebecca Blunt
Stars: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig

Review by Gilbert Seah

 Veteran director Steven Soderbergh, most famous for his OCEANS ELEVEN trilogy and for his Oscar winning ERIN BROCKOVICH and critically acclaimed films like KAFKA and THE LIMEY was supposed to have retired after his last film UNDER THE CANDELABRA . But after reading the script for LOGAN LUCKY, he was supposedly so enamoured that he decided to direct it. LOGAN LUCKY is a stylish crime caper, a sort of anti-OCEAN’s ELEVEN film without the glamour. Everything is seedy on LOGAN LUCKY, the props, the heist and life depicted in the film.

Soderbergh said of LUCKY LOGAN: “Nobody dresses nice. Nobody has nice stuff. They have no money. They have no technology. It’s all rubber band technology”.
The film involves two brothers. Trying to reverse a family curse (as lame as excuses come), siblings Jimmy (Channing Tatum), Mellie (Riley Keough), and Clyde Logan (Adam Driver) set out to execute an elaborate robbery during the Coca-Cola 600 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina during Memorial Day weekend. Simple though the plot might seem, the story is complicated by all the baggage brought on by the characters.

These are a few examples: (proving Soderbergh’s liking for the script)
Jimmy is separated and has a daughter that is entering a talent contest, which he should support. She performs John Denver’s famous song “Country Road”, in one of the film’s best scenes.

Clyde has lost his hand during the Iraq war. He still serves a mean martini as a bartender using only one arm, and his hand is sucked into the vacuum during the heist.

Special Agent Sarah Grayson (Hilary Swank) has a no-nonsense role as an investigator who hates tight alibis and coincidences

Warden Burns (Dwight Yoakam) as a 9-year old veteran who believes his prison to be the best and escapee proof.

Because of all these distractions, the film runs almost two hours. Though the story actually gets a bit convoluted and also a bit complicated at times, no one really cares, as Soderbergh always surprises with his style and dead-pan humour, reminiscent of KAFKA, my favourite film of his.

The heist segment is executed with a combination of more wry humour than suspense. The home made bomb form the film’s funniest part. Note that there are no exciting car races in this car race heist film.

The cast is impressive with well-known actors including James Bond 007’s Daniel Craig playing against time as a sprung convict, Joe Bang as well as 6 NASCAR drivers playing minor roles. Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch play West Virginia state troopers, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano are security guards, Kyle Larson is a limo driver, and Ryan Blaney is a delivery boy. Everyone in the cast and crd appear to he having fun and the fun shows.

Not the best of the Soderbergh’s films, but LOGAN LUKCY is still an entertaining watch from a director who knows how to entertain, especially with a good caper comedy.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzvKH8AVf0

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Film Review: BLOW-UP (Italy/UK 1966) *****

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blow-upA mod London photographer finds something very suspicious in the shots he has taken of a mysterious beauty in a desolate park.

>Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers: Michelangelo Antonioni (story), Julio Cortázar (short story “Las babas del diablo”) (as Julio Cortazar) »
Stars: David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles

Review by Gilbert Seah

 Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s first of three English Language films under contract with Carlo Ponti is arguably the best of the three and sets the standard for the 60’s and 79’s film look of fashionable London. It is also the film that shot David Hemmings and Oscar Winner Vanessa Redgrave to fame.

The plot was inspired by the short story, “Las babas del diablo” or “The Devil’s Drool”. The film follows the the life of a swinging extremely successful photographer, David Bailey (Hemmings). He is so successful that all the pretty birds in London are willing to sleep with him just to be photographed by him.

The story involves his random photographing of a lady, Jane in the park (Redgrave). He chases her around London and developes a love/hate relationship with her. Upon closer examination of the photograph, and blowing it up (hence the film’s title), he discovers an image of a corpse in the park. Wondering whether there was a murder, strange things start happening like missing things in his studio and strangers following him. But this murder mystery is not the aim of Antonioni’s film.

Antonioni’s films have not been murder or suspense films. He is no Master of Suspense, but his works have been equally praised for its insight on society, especially on youth, as in his two other English features, THE PASSENGER and ZABRIESKI POINT, which I had not seen since it was first released.

Another trait of Antonioni is his spontaneity in film. This can be observed in three of the film’s segments that basically make this movie. The first is David’s shooting in his studio of real life model, Veruschka von Lehndorff. Veruschka plays herself in a 5-minute long photo-shoot sequence.

The second and the film’s best scene also occurs at random. When David goes into town, he sees Jane and follows her into a club where The Yardbirds, featuring both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck on guitar and Keith Relf on vocals, are seen performing the song “Stroll On.” This is an extended club scene where Antonioni captures perfectly both the spirit of the band and the crowd. A buzz in Beck’s amplifier angers him so much he smashes his guitar on stage, then throws its neck into the crowd. David grabs the neck and runs out of the club before anyone can snatch it from him. The roar of the crowd, the uncontrollability of the situation and the pure madness are all magnificently caught on camera.

The third segment forms the film’s sexiest part where David wrestles with two topless birds (Jill Kennington and Peggy Moffitt) in his studio. This constituted explicit sexual content of contemporary standards by a major Hollywood studio that was in direct defiance of the Production Code at the time.
BLOW-UP won the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, the festival’s highest honour. It is the film’s 50th Anniversary and has a Special Screening on August the 16th Thursday at 9 pm at the Bell Lightbox. A must-see for cinephiles.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xz1utzILj4

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Film Review: GOOD TIME (USA 2017 ) ****

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GOOD TIMEA bank robber finds himself unable to evade those who are looking for him.

Directors: Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie
Writers: Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie
Stars: Robert Pattinson, Benny Safdie, Taliah Webster

Review by Gilbert Seah
 
GOOD TIME features Robert Pattinson in the role of bank robber unable to display love for his brother that will have critics screaming that Pattinson can act.

Though the film is called GOOD TIME, no one in the film appears to having one at any point. The film begins with Nick (Ben Safdie) under psychiatric treatment before his brother Connie (Robert Pattinson) takes him on a botched bank robbery where he is arrested and put into hospital after running through a glass door. Connie tries to spring Nick out but takes another felon, Ray instead.

The scene where Ray, already half beaten up with his face covered in bandages, scales a high fence, finally falling to the other side hurting his bad shoulder even more, best describes the entire film. Intense, f***ed-up and painful to watch! But Ben and Safdie’s film is a minor miracle, already garnering accolades of praises after Cannes, in the desperate journey of Constantine “Connie” Nikas (Robert Pattinson) in trying to right a wrong.

It is interesting to note that at one point in the film – Connie’s somewhat mentally challenged brother has been replaced by Ray, the wrong guy Connie springs out of the hospital. Not only do the two look somewhat alike, but if the film had gone on with the brother instead of Ray, not much would have changed and the film could have resulted in the same sorry outcome. The only difference in the plot would be the bottle of acid that Ray came up with. This is a bromance that has gone totally wrong, and one in which Connie wants to show love towards his brother or to Ray for that matter, but is unable to do so.

The directors are fond of close-ups, with the bank robbery shot mainly with close ups without the camera moving back at all to show what the rest of the customers at the bank are doing. The close-ups of the faces, often revealing the film’s characters in trouble, heightens the intensity of the film.

‘Oneohtrix Point Never’ won the Cannes soundtrack award in creating a one-of-a-kind soundtrack containing in many parts, a screeching metallic sound that is as unnerving as the film’s plot. The film also features an original song.

Pattinson delivers what might be the best performance of his career, as the edgy bank robber trying to help spring his brother while keeping himself out of the law’s reach. Jennifer Jason Leigh has a small role as Corey and one wishes there would be more of her. Co-director Ben Safdie whom plays the brother and Buddy Duress as Ray are equally good but the small role by Barkhad Abdi as the poor amusement park security caught in the crossfire deserves mention. Abdi can be best remembered for his role as the pirate in CAPTAIN PHILLIPS that earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

The film shifts focus between Connie and his brother. At the film’s start and end, the camera is on Nick and what is happening to him. While the majority of the film switches and stays with Connie, the film oddly leaves out what has happened to him after his arrest.

The film is bookended by Nick in his prison psychiatric sessions. The film also questions the effectiveness of the prison system is rehabilitating criminals who are not all there mentally. The film’s most disturbing segment is the prison scene where Nick is beaten up for changing the TV channel while another fight breaks two between two black inmates.

Ben and Josh Safdie is to be commended in their absorbing, fresh and exciting caper movie that captures the seediness and desperation of NYC street life.

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

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TIFF 2017 Movie Review: PORCUPINE LAKE (Canada 2017) ***1/2

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2017. Go to TIFF 2017 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

PORCUPINE LAKE-1.jpgPorcupine Lake is a story of bravery and the secret life of girls set in Northern Ontario during a hot and hazy summertime when adulthood has not yet arrived, but childhood is quickly vanishing.

Director: Ingrid Veninger
Writer: Ingrid Veninger
Stars: Delphine Roussel, Christopher Bolton, Lucinda Armstrong Hall

Review by Gilbert Seah

Canada’s darling Ingrid Veninger has always been a director of films with strong female content. Who then best to write and direct PORCUPINE LAKE, a story of bravery and the secret life of girls set in Georgian Bay, Northern Ontario during a hot and hazy summertime when adulthood has not yet arrived, but childhood is quickly vanishing?

Ally (Delphine Roussel) arrives with 13-year old daughter, Bea (Charlotte Salisbury) in tow from Toronto to meet up with her husband, Scotty (Christopher Bolton). Bea learns through a local, Kate (Australian Lucinda Armstrong Hall) independence, as well as the facts of life about boys and growing up. Kate is the companionship Bea’s mother is unable to offer, and the two bond a strong friendship.

PORCUPINE LAKE is the most ambitious and strongest of Veninger’s films (also beautifully shot by Benjamin Lichty), her popular film ONLY being screened at a local cinema that Bea and Kate attend at one point in the film. Veninger proves once again, she is always in control of her material and meticulously drives her film to its emotional climax and coming-of-age mesage.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0Lm-EC3e5s