Giant creatures are grabbing attention, screens and crowds this week. However, look below for some worthy films that will leave a much smaller footprint. And notice there’s one on CRAVE where I also want to direct your attention, if you haven’t been there yet, to a series called The regime. I rarely write about series, but I will mention this one because it is very well done. It is also timely (because of the parallels that can be detected in the modern world) and very cynical (about that modern world and the behavior of governments).
Kate Winslet plays the head of state of a Central European country that is under pressure from the United States to try to control its cobalt mines. Kate wants a deal with the Chinese, but they warn her that they are an even bigger threat to control. She is a hypochondriac and narcissist and to safeguard her and eternally control the humidity of the air around her, she hires a colonel (Matthias Schoenaerts) to follow her everywhere. However, she manages to destroy the sugar beet industry and that sparks a rebellion.
It is a great series and very effective in making fun of bureaucracy, leaders and the motives behind their policies. Hugh Grant appears in a small role and Andrea Riseborough in a large one. Four of the six episodes are already underway, with number 5 starting on Sunday and the finale next week. Highly recommended.
And in other places we have…
GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE: The name doesn’t mean much. What new empire? What is the x about? Don’t be fooled by these mysteries or the presence of good actors, Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens and Brian Tyree Henry. This is a continuation of a long string of these films, a sequel to the one from three years ago and woefully inferior to an unrelated one that recently won an Oscar for special effects. However, the effects are what you’re looking for in this one. You want the two monsters to hit each other and destroy buildings galore as they do so. The story is manufactured to take you from one battle to another as quickly as possible.
That said, it’s also unnecessarily twisted and, at times, absurd. Godzilla and Kong divided the world a movie or two ago. Godzilla rules on the surface (he sleeps in the Colosseum in Rome) while Kong is underground in the Hollow Earth.
Our human characters detect signals from down there and go to investigate, taking with them a young woman who is said to be the last survivor of a primitive tribe that lived on Kong’s Skull Island. Godzilla heads to the Arctic to confront a huge monster up there, and inexplicably reappears from there to engage in battles at the Pyramids and in Rio. Kong, who has more personality than anyone else in this film, longs to meet other people like him and be part of a family. He finds others when a second level beneath the Hollow Earth is revealed. But there’s also an even bigger ape down there controlling the place. The story becomes more absurd as too many elements are written in. Kong has a tooth extracted and then an implant placed. Then a prosthetic arm. The two creatures become allies in a moment. There’s even a return of another monster (an insect) from the world of Japanese cinema from which Godzilla emerged. It was once a metaphor for fears about the atomic bomb. Not anymore. He’s just a big dumb brute. He enjoys the action. (in theaters) 3 out of 5
THE TRUTH vs ALEX JONES: This is a must-see film, an important one. In part, that’s because it exposes details we may not have caught in a scandalous episode in the media: the abuse Alex Jones inflicted on parents who lost their children in the Sandy Hook school shooting. He said that didn’t happen; It was a hoax and the parents who made their pain public were actors. Absurd, yes, and it cost him more than $200 million in damages awarded by the court. He filed for bankruptcy, has yet to pay, and is still streaming on his InfoWars site. Here’s a current offering: “EXCLUSIVE: Feds use total solar eclipse hysteria to practice martial law before election.”
The film has startling examples of the vile messages parents received from people who believed what Jones told them. I’m not going to quote them here, but they are extremely harsh and threatening, but unfortunately typical of social media traffic these days. We heard a very chilling telephone message and several parents recounted, some through tears, the abuse they suffered. Meanwhile, Jones’ site found minor flaws and presented them as evidence of a hoax. A former school safety official helped with that, and others at InfoWars repeated and amplified the claims. The parents sued, in two courts, and the film takes us directly to those trials, giving us close-up views of the witnesses, a complaining Jones (“the biggest show trial in American history”), and a scolding judge. . (Familiar, eh?) The real value of the film is that it asks: how is it possible that so many people believe in false information and conspiracy theories? It doesn’t have the answer, but the question is key. (an HBO movie broadcast on CRAVE) 4 ½ out of 5
ZERO CLUB: Speaking of false information, this little film looks at it through the influence of cult leaders. Austrian writer and director Jessica Hausner used the Pied Piper fairy tale as inspiration for a high school teacher played by Mia Wasikowska. She teaches healthy eating, she calls it “conscious eating,” which is good for the environment, for our health, and is free of pressure to consume from the industrial food industry “and its lobby.” This is relevant to her students and they are happy to agree.
At first it is simply a matter of eating slowly and, therefore, less. We see scenes in the school cafeteria when some obey and one boy, in particular, is seen with a large pile of food on his plate. The teacher raises the goal and promotes a “plant-based monodiet.” They follow her again. She then mentions a special and exclusive group of people who don’t eat anything. She can, she insists and offers the goal of joining. Parents complain; They can’t get teenagers to eat much, or later, anything at all. There is a very disgusting episode in the dinner scene. The film stops being realistic at this time and focuses on its metaphorical study of cult leaders and the damage they cause. It is a stretch and it develops very slowly. (In theaters) 2 ½ out of 5
AUTUMN AND THE BLACK JAGUAR: Need a movie for the kids during spring break? This one could be perfect. Girls will especially delight in the connection that young Autumn makes with a jaguar, originally when she was just a cub, then when she is an adult and she is 15 years old. It’s amazing how they got him to interact so closely with the animal. which is real, not a computer creation. Apparently, she took months of training.
The film has a strong environmental message about the threats to the Amazon, the indigenous people there and the exotic animal trade carried out by poachers, which ranks third in illegal trafficking after drugs and weapons. Autumn who lived there as a child and befriended the baby jaguar. she returns alone to save the animal from poachers. Lumi Pollack played her when she was a teenager and Airam Camacho, at six years old, is endearing at both ages.
His mother was an animal protection activist and was murdered. Dad won’t return despite a letter he received, and Autumn discovered, from an indigenous elder talking about a dam project that could wipe out a community. Autumn’s biology teacher doesn’t want her to go, but she ends up following her anyway. He’s too excitable and that creates weak points in the film, which is otherwise effective as a youthful lesson in safeguarding the natural world. It is a co-production between France, Germany and Canada and the director, Frenchman Gilles de Maistre, specializes in ecological films like this one. a previous one, Mia and the white lion It also showed a girl’s bond with a wild animal. (In theaters starting April 2) 3 ½ out of 5
SOMEONE LIKE YOU: If you’re in the mood for a romance like the one Nicholas Sparks writes, try this. It’s equally touching and sentimental and adds a bit of faith-based content to the mix. It’s from a best-selling novel by Karen Kingsbury and, as a film, something of a family project. She produced and financed it herself through a company she founded, wrote the script and her son, Tyler Russell, directed it. Another child has a little one and another helped produce it. That’s appropriate because family is also at the heart of the story…although not in a simple way.
Architect Dawson Gage (Jake Allyn) is in love with London Quinn (Sarah Fisher). An ominous fragment of dialogue warns: “If you love deeply, you will be hurt badly.” Yes, despite “the goodness of God” and after a happy walk in the woods, she is hit by a truck. Dawson is heartbroken, but there is hope. They told her that she had been conceived through in vitro fertilization. There was a second embryo and it was adopted by another couple. Will he be able to find them and her? It takes some work and some luck, but she does find Andi Allen, who lives not far away in Birmingham (she’s in Nashville). She just got a job taking care of the kangaroos at the zoo and she is as cheerful and smiling as she was in London. Sarah Fisher, a Canadian actress known for a DeGrassi television series, plays both women, but she finds some subtle differences. There is also melodrama because her parents regret never having told her that she was adopted and London had agreed to donate a kidney and will Andi agree to do it too? Stay. (In Canadian theaters starting April 2) 3 of 4