Monthly Archives: November 2018

Pick of the Litter

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This documentary follows five puppies from birth as they train to become guide dogs to the blind. We literally do get to see Potomac, Patriot, Primrose, Poppet, and…Phil be born, all shiny and new and a little slimy to the world, and by the age of two months they’re already being placed in homes where raisers will abide by strict rules to bring up ideal candidates for the guide dog training program. As Pick of the Litter constantly reminds us, not everyone will make it. In fact, of 800 puppies born to the centre every year, only about 300 turn out to be suitable. The standards are exacting because the job is important. Matched with a visually impaired companion, these dogs will be the seeing eyes for their loved one, keeping them safe, but also giving them a sense of freedom that a cane just can’t mimic. Still, I find it a little heartless to keep throwing the “only the best of the best” tag line in our faces, like it’s a dog’s fault for not being the “ideal candidate.” Not all humans are cut out to be dog trainers, but the rest of us aren’t pieces of shit, we just have other things we’re good at. Can’t we maybe think the same for dogs?

The film is far-reaching, documenting and interviewing everyone involved in the process – the vets, the families, the future recipients. When a dog is deemed unsuitable for the program, there are a lot of broken hearts. “Career changed” is the euphemism employed, though I’m not sure the dogs care or notice as much as we may think. There are many MV5BN2EyMDA1NGMtZmMxNC00YTZjLTkyZDktYTBlMTVmYjkwODlhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTEzNjYxMjQ@._V1_SX1777_CR0,0,1777,999_AL_dedicated volunteers who invest a lot of time into these dogs, and getting cut from the program can seem like a failure; indeed, there are far more applicants for guide dogs than can be handled in any given year. But these are all smart dogs who work hard and do their best. I have four dogs at home: at least 3 of them are geniuses, but none of them would be guide dog material, not even if they’d been bred and trained for the job since birth. They’re hyper and they love to interact. We really do ask a lot of guide dogs, but I know that some dogs really love having a job to do, it makes them feel fulfilled, and I can’t think of a more important job or a more beautiful connection between dog and owner.

It is a testament to the filmmakers (to directors Don Hardy Jr. and Dana Nachman) that I myself felt rather emotionally invested in the process. A lot of love and effort is poured into these dogs before they ever meet their partners. It’s interesting to see the ins and outs of the process, particularly as many of us have noticed little dogs in training vests out and about with their handlers during training. This documentary lets us into the family – right into the dog’s crate, in fact, over a period of two years. It’s uplifting, it’s adorable, it’s sometimes bittersweet. It’s got everything but the wet nose.

Elliot The Littlest Reindeer

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In fact – spoiler alert – Elliot is not  reindeer at all. He’s a miniature horse who lives on a petting zoo. His best friend is a tin can-eating goat named Corkie. But Elliot dreams big. The petting zoo is attached to a reindeer training centre, a ‘farm team’ from which Santa drafts his 8 reindeer each year. Elliot does his best to train along with them, though the other reindeer laugh and call him names (will reindeer never learn?).

Luckily, Blitzen announces his retirement 3 days for Christmas, and Santa decides to hold elliot-the-littlest-reindeeropen try-outs for all the aspiring reindeer stars. Elliot and Corkie have to do some fast-talking and some fairly amateur cosplay to even get him in the gates. But Elliot is fast and surprisingly agile. Is he actually a contender? And even if he wins, is it possible for a miniature horse to be accepted onto Santa’s team?

This is a cute little movie that’s sure to please young children. You can tell it’s a Canadian production because it likens the reindeer team to a hockey team – the two great pursuits of the north. The voice cast includes Morena Baccarin, Josh Hutcherson, John Cleese, Martin Short, Jeff Dunham, and Samantha Bee. Packed with cuteness and with a protagonist the whole family can get behind, why not add Elliot The Littlest Reindeer to your family’s holiday rotation this year? It’s got a one-day only cinema engagement in the following cities December 2nd, and will be available on VOD as of December 4.

North Vancouver 🦌  Vancouver 🦌 Langley 🦌  Thunder Bay 🦌 Winnipeg 🦌  Calgary 🦌 Toronto 🦌 Edmonton 🦌  Regina 🦌  Scarborough 🦌  Halifax 🦌  Niagara Falls 🦌  Oakville 🦌 Guelph 🦌 Montreal 🦌 Barrie 🦌  Sudbury 🦌 Cote Saint-Luc 🦌  Windsor 🦌 Peterborough 🦌  Ottawa

The Long Dumb Road

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Nat (Tony Revolori) is driving his van across the American Southwest toward L.A., and art school. He’s a little sheltered and a little naive due to a cushiony upbringing, but with his trusty camera (with real, actual film, a relic from his granddad) by his side, he’s ready to turn this drive into a sight-seeing tour to get into the right head space before his education properly begins.

18544-1-1100Nat does not count on bumping into Richard (Jason Mantzoukas), a mechanic just out of a job when Nat’s van is in desperate need. They trade labour for a ride, and soon the two are unintentionally road tripping together. Richard is an odd duck; he’s volatile but sensitive, impulsive and oddly sweet. Richard gets them into a LOT of trouble, from failed romance to successful highway robbery. But his constant need to put himself out there means they also meet a lot of interesting characters along the road, and a lot of “wisdom” gets dropped. Richard is much more worldly and experienced, but he’s probably not the role model a young man such as Nat needs. But he’s the one he gets.

Tony Revolori could have easily been a Wes Anderson flash in the pan but I’m constantly glad to see him crop up elsewhere. Nat does his growing up, coming of age thing in this film, which means Revolori is in turns adorably nervous all the way to confidently heroic. That’s quite an arc. Richard might be further along the hopeless scale, but he’s confronting his own issues head on, even if he never learns the lesson. Jason Mantzoukas has so far been pretty one-note as an actor – he always turns in these rambunctious, beastly, off-colour characters, but he gives such a committed, over the top performance you can’t help but love him.

Richard is an erratic juggling act for Mantzoukas, and it’s a thrilling to watch.

I’m happy to report that director Hannah Fidell turns in a movie that is neither long nor dumb. It’s just funny and clever enough to be spent amiably. While I wouldn’t want Richard in my car, or heck, even on my bus, and definitely not on my plane, odd couple road trips are a tried and true genre for a reason, and these two put forth a solid, likable entry.

Submergence

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Danielle is a privileged professor, studying the deep, deep depths of the ocean. She spends Christmas at a swank hotel in France, where she meets James on the very cold beach, and they go for a swim. James is a hydraulic engineer who drills wells in third world countries. He dreams of Nigeria, but I’m not sure they’re always sweet dreams. They fall in love, of course. Danielle (Alicia Vikander) and James (James McAvoy) have a whirlwind hotel romance, but eventually they’ve both got to go back to work.

Danielle ends up on a deep-submergence vehicle where the tiniest mistake may mean death. But she’s seeing parts of the ocean that inspire her research and scratch her science itches. It’s too bad that she’s constantly distracted – James, you see, has been out of touch for weeks, then months. She doesn’t know whether he’s dead or just ghosting her. Unbeknownst to her, he’s been taken hostage in Somalia by jihadist terrorists, who suspect he is a British spy. He suffers months of torture all the while dreaming of their idyllic Christmas refuge.

Submergence is, therefore, two very separate movies, and its only strength is the chemistry between the two leads, which is very brief indeed. Once they’re isolated, they’re very isolated – he in a windowless cell, she in submarine miles underwater. It’s lonely and cold.

Here we have a salt water spa experience called Källa . In its 12% salinity, you float, weightless. The tomb is quiet, and pure. With little other sensory input, you are alone with your thoughts, which seem to float along the surface just like you. This movie is a little like that. It’s got no real weight, just snatches of remembrances and memories that paint a lovely flashback but that’s about it.

I suppose there’s a metaphor here – how love is a refuge in a violent world – but it’s just so darn inaccessible, and frankly, it tries one’s patience. And that’s really too bad because McAvoy and Vikander are doing gorgeous work that’s just gone wasted. Sad face.

Valentine Road

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Larry King (not that Larry King) had a pretty rough life. His adoptive parents had 22 complaints about abuse against them. Larry wore jackets at school to hide the bruises. But no one came to save him. When he was finally removed from the home, it was because he had “stolen” food from his adoptive parents’ refrigerator. How hungry was Larry? How sore? He went to a shelter for abused and neglected children where he struggled to identify his orientation. Small for his age, biracial, he experimented with makeup, crocheted scarves, and wore heeled boots to school. Everyone knew him as the gay kid, though he was possibly more accurately transgender, and it didn’t sit well with everyone.

On February 12, 2008, Larry King was shot and killed by a fellow 8th grade classmate – the classmate he’d chosen as his Valentine. A classmate who was so provoked by Larry’s sexuality that he brought a gun to school and shot him in the head, a hate crime that “shocked the nation” (except not really, as Americans have decided that adopting school shootings into their culture is just easier).

The documentary interviews not just students who discriminated against Larry, but teachers as well – one who is religious piece of shit and believes that Larry’s “actions” had “consequences” and a special ed teacher obsessed with weapons. The one teacher who supported him was summarily fired, and now works as a barista. The school has done nothing for grieving students and is tried its best to bury the execution that took place on school grounds.

Yeah, this shit is really difficult to watch. There are too many failures, too many shitty grownups doing nothing. Not just excusing homophobia, but espousing it. It made me sick. But this documentary does something unexpected. It has two victims, not one.

The boy who shot Larry was a white supremacist. But he was also occasionally homeless, with an abusive father and a drug-addicted mother. At the time of the shooting, he was living with his grandfather, who had a lot of weapons lying around. Is he just as much a victim as Larry?

The documentary looks behind the headlines but how much compassion can we really afford to expend here? This shit is unbelievable, and I think we all need to confront what goes on in it, because this film from 2013 was a better predictor of the 2016 election than any of the polls.

This movie made me mad, as it should. It upset me, as it should. It shocked me, as it should. But stories like these continue to fail to galvanize the dirty half of America who breed hatred and value guns over human life.

Creed II

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Since Ryan Coogler was busy making Black Panther, Sylvester Stallone took back the writing responsibilities (with Juel Taylor) for the eighth instalment of the Rocky franchise. As a result, Creed II is as much a continuation of 1985’s Rocky IV as a sequel to 2015’s stellar Creed and as much Rocky’s story as Adonis Creed’s.

In Creed II, Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) has won six bouts in a row and is about to fight Danny “Stuntman” Wheeler for the world title.  Creed wins the fight and then, shortly after, proposes to his girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson), and she says yes!  At that point, Creed should be on top of the world but he’s about to learn that creed_iithe championship belt is heavier than it looks, because he’s now the target of a bunch of wanna-be champs, including a Russian whose father killed Creed’s dad in Rocky IV. Creed will need Rocky’s help to beat the younger Drago, who so far has brutally beaten every boxer he’s gone up against.

Rocky’s part in this story is an important one.  In fact, several pivotal events that happen to Creed are shown from Rocky’s point of view, suggesting this is Rocky’s franchise again. Which makes sense when Rocky himself is writing the story.

Is that a bad thing? Kind of, which is hard for me to say  as a fan of the Rocky franchise. There’s something magical about the super cheesy and entirely predictable Rocky lovefests from Rocky II through to Rocky Balboa (Rocky is excluded because being the original, it is only predictable in retrospect). And Creed II captures that same magic at all the right moments. It’s a solid addition to this four-decade-old franchise.

But it’s a step back from Creed and that regression is further proof of Ryan Coogler’s genius (as if we needed any). With the first Creed, Coogler took the Rocky franchise in a new direction and included a ton of callbacks that riffed on the original formula without feeling derivative.

Unfortunately, Creed II doesn’t ever get to that same level because it is content to recycle the tried and true Rocky formula: a win at the outset, followed by a setback at an opponent’s hands, and then after a super-sweet training montage, a well-earned victory over that same opponent. Creed II executes that formula as well as any of the Rocky-titled films, but it never separates itself from that pack.  Rocky fans will leave Creed II satisfied, but fans of Creed may be in for a bit of a letdown.

The Cleaners

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Content moderators are the world’s defacto censors.

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Instagram have bigger populations than any country or state. Their editorial rules and standards moderate how the world communicates.

But who scrubs the Internet of all the dirt that shouldn’t be there?

The answer lies mostly in the Philippines, where tens of thousands of content moderators flip through 25k images per shift,deciding which to allow, and which to delete. Algorithms can’t scan a picture for what’s appropriate; that’s still a human judgement call. They stop child exploitation, cyber bullying, and terrorism. And, depending on the platform, they may stop a breastfeeding mother from sharing a picture of her son eating or an artist from sharing her painting of Donald Trump and his teeny tiny penis. Though this big business employs many, the content operators must do their work anonymously, for fear of corruption and reprisals. This work goes unseen, unrecognized, and for many of us, unconsidered. When you post an image, do you picture the person tasked with sorting through them? Someone on the other side of the world, unfamiliar with our politics and context – unfamiliar, until their training, with butt plugs and ISIS.

This documentary was fascinating to me because though it directly affects me, and how I navigate and experience the internet, I’ve never spared more than a thought toward these hard working people. It inspired me to imagine what kinds of images and videos they’re forced to watch: none of the flagged images are good, but which are acceptable and which are not, which are morally wrong, which are illegal, which will scar you for life? Because these people have SEEN SOME SHIT. 25 thousand images per day. Think about that. Think about how many beheading videos they’ve witnessed, how many torture videos. Or how much child pornography. For lots of us, even one image is too many. What does it do to your brain – your soul – to see image after image, and to be in charge of keeping the rest of them safe from them?

This documentary asks so little of us – only that we acknowledge that these people exist, and they’ve made our lives easier. But perhaps a thought or two should be spared for these new giants of social media who are deciding our values and attitudes for us; not merely hosting what we share, but shaping it and curating it. It’s dangerous work.

The Christmas Chronicles

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Kate Pierce is reviewing videos from Christmases past. Her father’s in all of them but he won’t be there this year, and the family’s taking it hard. Her older brother Teddy’s been acting out in dangerous ways and her mom is overworked and stressed out. When Kate’s mom (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) gets called in to work on Christmas Eve, she leaves the kids in a house that feels emptier than it should, but with a video that contains more than it has any right to. Just before a video cuts out, someone’s arm is seen placing a gift beneath their tree. Kate is ecstatic: proof of Santa, caught on tape! But the video is vague and an arm is not really enough, so she begs her brother to pull an all-nighter to collect more evidence.

MV5BMTYyNDE4MjI4Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNTc4NDY2NjM@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1499,1000_AL_Long story short, Kate (Darby Camp) and Teddy (Judah Lewis) end up as stowaways on Santa’s sleigh, which causes a derailment (I don’t know the technical term for throwing a sleigh off its course while flying through the air), and a crash, and the loss of Santa’s magic sack of toys, and the temporary misplacement of the reindeer. Catastrophe! Santa (Kurt Russell, in absolute bearded glory) isn’t too happy on a whole lot of fronts, but he recognizes in Kate a true believer, so together they concoct a plan to save Christmas.

The Christmas Chronicles involves police chases, gang activity, Elvish, jingle bells, literal jail house rock, and an archive system to die for. And like any good Netflix original, it has a scene of someone watching some other Netflix original. But mostly it has Kurt Russell, who brings everything to the role. Like me, you may be a little bit squeamish about our dear Kurt Russell playing Santa. Is it really the time in his career for this? Worry not. This is not the rosy-cheeked, elderly Santa that Coca Cola is pimping (in fact, this Russell’s Santa is particularly peeved by that depiction). Russell’s Santa is a little cooler, a little leaner, but he’s still 100% magic, and that’s what counts.

Here in Ottawa, we’ve already had frostbite warning and record snowfall, and it isn’t even winter. What we need on cold nights such is these are great holiday movies to warm and soothe our souls. And while this one isn’t an instant classic, it’s a pretty decent entry into the catalogue.

The Holiday Calendar

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In the month leading up Christmas, Abby dons an elf suit to take pictures of kids sitting on Santa’s lap. It’s not exactly the kind of photography work she’d imagined for herself, but every time her parents ask if she’s ready to come work for the family law firm, she defers. Besides the humiliating elf costume, 3 key things happen to Abby just as the holiday season kicks off:

  1. Her best friend Josh returns from his globe-trotting adventures.
  2. Her grandfather gives her an antique advent calendar, an inheritance from her recently deceased grandmother.
  3. She meets Ty, a cute new guy and potential love interest.

To be honest, Abby (Kat Graham) and Josh (Quincy Brown) are adorable together and have great chemistry, so you almost root for them to hook up, though the writers have MV5BZTE0MzQ4MmEtMjJiYi00YmE3LWIyMjEtMTg5YThkYWY0ZDg3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyOTA5NzQ0MDQ@._V1_SX1777_CR0,0,1777,937_AL_other ideas. Let’s respect their friendship! Plus, the antique advent calendar from Gramps (Ron Cephas Jones, the dead dad from This Is Us – no, not that one, the other one!) may or may not be predicting the future with the little trinkets it presents to her each day. They’re adding up to a romance with Ty (Ethan Peck), the handsome single dad doctor who plans great dates and works with the homeless. That plus the magic of the holiday season makes for a pretty compelling case.

If you’re surprised at the lack of sarcasm in my tone, well, so am I. I’ve never met a Netflix or Hallmark holiday movie I didn’t hate on sight, so I wasn’t prepared to find this one kind of charming. Graham is a glowing, sweet as pie reason for this – she and Brown lead a surprisingly solid cast. They elevate the material beyond the normal Christmas cheese. And I liked that the romance didn’t start improbably from a negative place – finally a boyfriend who isn’t a jerk! Which is fortunate because we get to know Abby enough to know she has a good head on her shoulders and a lot of support from family friends – not the kind of woman silly enough to confuse condescension for caring.

Abby’s family and friends are exactly the kind of people you won’t mind sharing part of your holiday season with. Glass of wine and cozy socks optional but recommended.

I Do…Until I Don’t

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Vivian, a pretentious documentarian, has a thesis to prove with her new film: that marriage is basically prison, that married people are largely unhappy, and that the institution of marriage should be capped at 7 year contracts. So she finds 3 American couples to expose their marital problems on camera, and boy do they.

Alice (Lake Bell) and Noah (Ed Helms) are in dire financial straights; their business is failing and they’re in danger of losing their house. Meanwhile, they’ve been trying to have a baby for years, but their lacklustre sex life is not cooperating.

MV5BMTU0NDI2ODIzM15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDM5Mzc3MjI@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,674,1000_AL_Fanny (Amber Heard) and Zander (Wyatt Cenac) are a non-traditional couple with an open relationship.

Cybil (Mary Steenburgen) and Harvey (Paul Reiser) married when each had a specific need, but now neither one are fulfilling it. They seem to be drifting into separate lives, and Cybil barely tolerates Harvey’s quirks.

Vivian exploits and also orchestrates events to fit her documentary’s narrative but these couples have too many real problems to play her game satisfactorily. Cybil’s semi-estranged daughter shows up, pregnant. Alice has lied about money and tries to cover it up by doing sex work on the side. Noah may be hiding a drug problem. On Vivian’s “emancipation day,” who will divorce, who will walk away, and who will choose to tough it out?

Written and directed by Lake Bell, I Do…Until I Don’t starts out subversive and satirical but simmers down to a sweet little comedy that feels more like a defense of marriage than a challenge to it. There are plenty of great lines to go around but almost nothing new to say about love and relationships. The performances are pleasing and there’s nothing wrong with the film, it’s just a lot less rebellious than I’ve come to expect from Bell. Movies are crowded with stories about relationships, and this one never finds the footing to rise above.