Theaters may return to full capacity starting Monday. For some time now, due to COVID, they have only been allowed to fill 50 percent of the seats. It will be interesting to see how the fans respond. In Toronto, where theaters were able to go back to 100 percent last week, young people flocked; older people didn’t.
The big titles are the draw, of course: Bond last week, Dune and The French office now, Last night in Soho next week.
If you are craving more independent films, you can see what the New Westminster Film Festival has to offer. It is this weekend at the Landmark Theater and there is information about it. site.
And in other places, we have these …
Dune: 3½ stars
The French office: 3½
Four hours on Capitol Hill: 5
The harder they fall: 3
DUNE: It looks great, it feels substantial and gritty, but I still felt less involved than I wanted. Denis Villeneuve was delighted as a teenager with the famous Frank Herbert novel and dreamed of making a movie with it. Perhaps too much, because it does not show us all that enthusiasm. The main story about the conflict over resources and colonialism is laid out early, but then takes a back seat, and before it can be resolved, the movie ends. One character says, “This is not the end. It’s just the beginning ”, and we’ll have to wait for another movie. This only covers half of the novel.
What we get are great views of the desert, eruptions stirred by sandworms, spaceships that sometimes create a Star Wars feel, but little of the lightness and action that it suggests. Instead, we become deeply involved in the spiritual journey of a young man (Timothée Chalamet, as the son of a nobleman who has to adjust to life on another planet). That is a valid story, but it takes up too much time and delays the others. And it slows down the narrative momentum.
Oscar Isaac plays his father, who is told to take control of spice mining projects on the planet Arrakis. That puts him in battle with the Harkonnens (Stellan Skarsgård, plays their leader), who once had control and brutalized the indigenous people there. Very relevant topics for us on Earth. Too bad they are not finished, even though the film is over two and a half hours long. (That’s two minutes longer than David Lynch’s 1984 version, which covered it all, but has a lot of naysayers.) The new cast is excellent though, including these names: Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Jason Momoa (one of the highlights), Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, and Charlotte Rampling. You better watch it on the big screen, IMAX if you can. (5th Avenue, Scotiabank, Marine Gateway, and suburban theaters everywhere). 3½ of 5
THE FRENCH OFFICE: It’s called a love letter to journalism and received a standing ovation at Cannes. I see it as a typical Wes Anderson movie: funny, ironic and quirky. It has the same feel (and quite a few of the same actors) as The Grand Budapest Hotel and it’s so nice to watch. But afterward, you find yourself asking: What is he saying? Above all it illustrates his love for the kind of lengthy reporting on The New Yorker. He is a long time reader and once tried to buy his files. Its most famous editors and writers inspired the fictional characters of the film, as reported from France for the Sunday supplement of a Kansas newspaper. That feels a bit over the top in itself. Bill Murray is the editor, with advice like this: “Write it like you mean it that way.” We see three stories told in black and white.
Among the writers, Frances McDormand reports on student protests in Paris and reflects on “journalistic neutrality” while engaging with one of the leaders (Timothée Chalamet). Jeffrey Wright’s writer recalls in a television interview how he covered the kidnapping of a police chief’s son and discovered that the story turned to the theme of “police kitchen.” (A typical Wes Anderson in passing.) And even more tangled is a story by Tilda Swinton’s character about “an artistic genius” (Benicio Del Toro) who is in prison for a double murder and paints the nude portraits of a guard (Léa Seydoux ). An art dealer (Adrien Brody) considers them abstract masterpieces. The movie is elegant and even compelling, up to a point. The actors sell the idiosyncrasy and the film sells the value of a good report. (Park theater.) 3 ½ of 5
FOUR HOURS IN THE CAPITOLI’ve seen other movie recaps from the day the mob stormed the United States Capitol, but this is the best. It takes you right there with them. You are on the fences when the “insurgents” (or as they say, the “patriots”) dominate the few policemen; in the doors where they break the windows and enter by force; and then at the roundabout (where marijuana is smoked), flowing through the corridors towards the Senate chamber. You are there because some of these images were taken by the protesters themselves.
The Proud Boys led the way, as Donald Trump spoke in a nearby park and members of Congress gathered, totally unaware of what was coming. Chuck Schumer is one of several we see in new interviews, along with some journalists, some of the actual invaders (“Guess what? The Americans showed up”) (“Trump was anointed by God”) and several police officers, the first I know to speak publicly. One remembers “pure chaos” and “they were trying to kill us.” One was hurt until he begged “I have kids” and they left.
Several times we hear a remembered story and then we watch a movie of the actual incident. A young assistant to Nancy Pelosi nearly collapsed describing how terrified she was when someone began banging on the door to a secure room that she was taken to. Then from the hallway we see the man banging on that door. When the first window is broken, we see that it happens both from the outside and from the inside. The editing is excellent and powerfully conveys the tension and chaos that was being created. “The mafia is the weapon,” someone says. There is no narrative or judgment. Just powerful stories and images gathered by HBO and the BBC. (Broadcasting on CRAVE.) 5 of 5
The harder they fall: The westerns we used to watch missed something. You hardly ever saw a black person, although there were known to be many in the Old West, most according to some reports. So here is the last of the few movies to correct that story. Almost all the characters are black, and to underline that fact, they walk into a completely white city in one scene and get nothing but stares. It’s an elaborate tale of revenge, but this time it’s black against black. It is moving, fascinating and, with a high death toll, very violent. There’s also a fun mix of music styles, with R&B, rap, and reggae on the soundtrack. Jay-Z is one of the producers and the director is an English musician, Jeymes Samuel, who is also the brother of singer Seal. It’s no wonder there is so much variety.
It has a cast with some of the best black actors working today. Idris Elba is the best known. Regina King, Zazie Beetz, Delroy Lindo, LaKeith Stanfield and others are strong, and Jonathan Majors is central. When he was a child, he saw an intruder kill his mother and father. Now an adult, he’s an outlaw named Nat Love (we find out why at the end of the movie). When his enemy (Elba) gets out of jail, he chases after him. They both have gangs that will clash in elaborate shootouts, there’s a train hijacking, and posturing about who is the fastest and the best shooter. Women can shoot as much as men. The film is stylized with moving cameras, weird angles, split screens, and the longest zoom shot I’ve ever seen … down a long street to a close-up of a face. It’s funky and funky, sometimes vague about who’s with whom and why, but it’s tough and vital. (International Village and Suburban Cinemas now, Netflix coming soon.) 3 of 5
Reference-www.nationalobserver.com