Happy Holidays. And then right after Christmas, at least for theaters, it’s the biggest week of the year. More than any other week, it’s when people go to see a movie. Usually anyway. Let’s see if this year is like that. The studios have their Christmas hopes up right now.
Avatar came last week. This week we have Babylon, Matilda, Puss in Boots, the Whitney Houston biopic and more. Women Talking is coming soon and The Whale has quietly crept into a few places. I’ll have to catch up next time.
Sarah Polley’s film Women Talking opened at a Toronto theater. I’ll cover it when it opens everywhere in January.
For today I have:
Babylon: 3 stars
Whitney Houston: I Want To Dance With Someone: 2 ½ stars
No bears: 4
What people are reading
The Super 8 Years: 3 ½
Matilde the Musical: 4
Puss in Boots: 3 ½
BABYLON: Damien Chazelle is young. You may not know that we have seen stories like this many times. Or that we already know that Hollywood can be decadent. He actually knows it because he references Singing in the rain several times and tells a similar story about actors being forced to adapt, or fade away, when sound made it to the movies. He sets the scene very well with great scenes and sequences, parties that are almost orgies and excessive egos and ambitions of everything. But he starts it all off with an elephant pooping on actors and workers. So Damien’s taste, or he’s just hyperbole, is in question. This is quite a setback in his movie. La La Land.
The cast is great. Brad Pitt plays a morning heartthrob with a taste for salsa, Margot Robbie is a rising star with a taste for cocaine, Diego Calva is a studio assistant rising to executive heights, Jovan Adepo is a jazz trumpeter who loves they say he’s not black enough and Jean Smart is an surely Louella Parsons-based gossip columnist who could make or break careers. Chazelle has them all scrambling for power early in Tinseltown.
With so many possibilities, the movie inexplicably drags in parts. It’s over three hours long and really needs more information to keep you enthralled. As it is, it’s a celebration of those old days, a glitzy revisit, and not much else. A great scene shows the difficulties of filming with sound. Many names appear, including Irving Thahlberg, a Mae Wong-like woman, and others, but to little effect. The celebration ends with a montage that shows the history of cinema from the earliest days to now, well Matrix anyway. Movie fans will like that, and maybe some of what comes before it. Although not everything. (In Theaters) 3 of 5
WHITNEY HOUSTON: I WANT TO DANCE WITH SOMEONE: We’ve already had two documentaries and a TV movie about her. So what’s new here? Minimizing, from what I can see. And yes, a celebration of a great singer and the inspiration her rise to the top can bring. She had more #1 songs than the Beatles and she is the most awarded female singer of all time. I learned that from the movie. Also this: Her mother, also a singer, trained her, label owner Clive Davis (played by Stanley Tucci) discovered her and called her “the best voice of her generation,” and Bobby Brown (played by Ashton Sanders) married her. her and brought her. scandal.
Naomi Ackie does a good part and lip syncs over Whitney’s recorded singing voice. Her steps in her ascent are clearly outlined and key performances are staged (singing the anthem at the Super Bowl, a concert honoring Nelson Mandela, a jaw-dropping medley at the American Music Awards). New to me is the close relationship she had with a friend that led to a tabloid headline asking if she is gay. The movie doesn’t answer that, but let the question linger. Meanwhile, her relationship with Bobby Brown is a blur. She spent a lot of money to get him out of legal trouble, but did he get her hooked on drugs? It’s not clear. She finds his stash; he didn’t give it to her. Smoothing the story I didn’t expect from this director, Kasi Lemmons, who made a film about abolitionist Harriet Tubman, and this writer, Anthony McCarten, the screenwriter of Bohemian Rhapsody. This movie is attractive but standard. (In theaters) 2 ½ of 5
NO BEARS: Here’s the latest from Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who is banned from making movies but does it anyway. He did it in secret and it’s partly about making a movie under such restrictions. He plays himself, directs a film across the border in Turkey (via Skype) and gets involved in the suspicions and superstitions of the Iranian village where he is staying. That part of the story is universal: the different attitudes you encounter when traveling. This town seems quite backward and honors and closely follows their traditions. Jafar gets entangled in them.
When taking photos at a village celebration, he suddenly becomes a target. The elders demand to see the footage as they believe it shows a young couple talking. Both the man and the woman want it because they are in danger. Another young man wants it because he believes that the woman should be his. The three are agitated because they believe that they have violated an old tradition of the town. “People around here are just looking for trouble,” says the woman. There is also a side plot about a couple looking for a fake passport and how best to use it.
Jafar is asked why he is here. Does it have anything to do with smuggling or human traffickers in the area? The movie pulls you in as it exposes all the difficulties, the superstitions behind them, and the stories behind those local traditions. And what the title means. An exciting movie. (Author theaters) 4 out of 5
THE SUPER 8 YEARS: This is a very personal film by the French writer and Nobel Prize winner, Annie Ernaux. There was recently a movie here made from her novel Her Happening, about an abortion. This one is very different. It’s exactly like watching someone’s home movies and hearing the stories behind them. Ernaux’s ex-husband filmed most of these movies because he said they would never happen again. Ernaux and her son made them into a movie, and she added erudite, slightly left-wing narration.
We see children of various ages but also in various places. The parents wanted to broaden their vision of the world and took them to Chile (where they praised what Allende was doing and lamented soon after that it was all gone), Albania, where they felt watched by the secret police, Portugal, Morocco, England before Thatcher and Moscow where they were impressed by the story. It’s interesting to watch, maybe even feel nostalgic for, the times they show (the 1970s and early 1980s) and, along with their words, they perfectly capture the attitudes and worldview of liberal, middle-class folks at that time. moment. The film is short but eloquent. (In theaters: Montreal now and Jan. 6, Vancouver starting Monday, and Toronto Jan. 13) 3 ½ of 5
PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH: Here is another very nice children’s film, but I would say only for adults, and certainly for teenagers and adults. For two reasons. One: endlessly play with classic fairy tales. It’s from Dreamworks, which has done that for years with its Shrek movies, one of which brought in Puss (voiced by Antonio Banderas). Then she got his own movie and now this sequel where he’s still the self-centered swordsman but has a kind of mid-life crisis. He has spent eight of his nine lives and now fears death. That is reason number two. This movie is mostly about death. It reminds us that we will all die one day. Heady stuff for a kids movie.
Death is represented by the ferocious wolf. He appears to Gato repeatedly, taunting him and brandishing two scythes. He tells her it’s just a matter of time, watch out.
Gato is desperate and sets out to find a legendary “wishing star” that he hopes can restore their lost lives. Others are after him too. For example, Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Florence Pugh, Olivia Colman, Ray Winstone, and Samson Kayo). Also Little Jack Horner (voiced by John Mulaney), who as a glutton has become enormous and wants to personally control all the magic in the world. A cricket that sounds more than a little like Jimmy Stewart is a conscience spewing ethical ideas at him. Like I said, heady stuff. Puss also meets up with her ex-partner Kitty Softpaws (voiced by Salma Hayek) and they share their history together. All the characters are given a backstory, some quite touching. The film is rich in detail, good animation, and an explosion of visual imagination. (In theaters) 3 ½ of 5
MATILDA THE MUSICAL: You’ve never seen Emma Thompson like this before, not even in the two Nanny McPhee movies (now airing on CRAVE) and now being turned into a musical. In those, she was just a no-nonsense babysitter. Here she is an educator who is like a cruel prison guard who runs her school. She is a former shot put athlete and with a bulky posture and grumpy face berates the students mercilessly. She calls them “worms”.
A sign at Crunchem Hall reads “You’re not special” and an engraving on a statue reads “Don’t whine.” This is the classic Roald Dahl attitude. He wrote Willie Wonka but also some very well twisted short stories. Matilda was already filmed 26 years ago, then staged as a musical and now this. Your children will love it. They’ll identify with the sweet, smart and imaginative Matilda (Alisha Weir), cringe at her narcissistic parents (Dad tears up his copy of The Grapes of Wrath), and cringe at Emma’s Agatha Trunchbull. That name describes her perfectly. Best of all, the students organize a rebellion and it’s moving. Lashana Lynch plays a good librarian who recognizes that Matilda is special. Some cleverly written songs add to the fun. It is directed by Matthew Warchus, who won awards in both New York and London for the stage version. (Netflix as of Christmas Day) 4 of 5