Category Archives: Jay

Youth

It took me a week to get through Youth, maybe more. Matt kept asking after me, like the movie was a virus I had to endure, to shake. He worried I was suffering, and with good reason: director Paolo Sorrentino’s previous work, The Great Beauty, was in fact a bit of a trial for me. Not that it wasn’t, well, a great beauty. It was. It was just also arduous and uppity. Sorrentino’s directorial trademarks include “oblique storytelling” and “partially obscure plots.” Is Youth more accessible? Sure. It is. But don’t worry: it isn’t without pretension.

If The Great Beauty was a treatise on the passage of time, what, then, is Youth? A testament to what is past? A longing and desire for vitality? The acknowledgement of our life’s work?

Michael Caine plays a composer\conductor who has hung up his baton, and not even the Queen herself can convince him to pick it up again. Harvey Keitel plays a film maker who is struggling to write his last great script, his magnum opus, his definitive work. The two are on vacation together in the Swiss Alps, comparing ailments, bemoaning their status, ruminating over mistakes, agonizing over decisions. Rachel Weisz plays daughter to Caine (and daughter-in-law to Keitel) – one who is freshly dumped, causing pain and anger to resurface. This makes for an actor’s showcase of emoting, but not much in the way of plot. Nothing happens: elderly naked people walk by, slowly, as slowly as the memories being recounted, like lazy clouds in a clear sky.

It is beautiful to look at. Caine proves that though his character may be ready to embrace retirement, he, the actor, is not. He’s brilliant, and he’s in good company. The best. But a collection of reminiscing characters does not a movie make. The latent aspect of the film began to feel claustrophobic to me. It’s like visiting your Gran at her retirement home: sure she’s a fascinating woman and you love her and want to pay your respects but OHMYFUCKINGGODGETMEOUTOFHERE.

You know what they say: Youth is wasted on the young.

The Grumpy Guide to Christmas Movies

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Why must Christmas movies be so…terrible? What is it about the holidays that turns regular moviegoers into big balls of mush? I feel like a big green cynic but bah, humbug! I hate when it magically starts to snow when two people kiss. I hate when families gather round a piano to sing carols. In movies, extended families always fit around one large table. Nobody ever has to sit at a wobbly card table. Nobody ever has to balance a paper plate on their lap, trying not to let a lake of gravy scald them. Nobody ever gets stuck sitting between two lefties. The turkey comes out golden brown and nobody ever gets salmonella. Nobody ever buys their brother a sweater that doesn’t fit. Nobody ever has to skype Christmas greetings because they drew the short straw at work. And most of all I’m sick of everybody always falling in love at Christmas. Has anyone actually ever fallen in love at Christmas? Isn’t that like having your first date on Valentine’s day?

Here’s a bunch of sappy Netflix movies I’ve watched while wrapping my oddly shaped gifts (in movies they’re always easy to wrap boxes and nobody has to hunt for scotch tape for 2 hours) so you don’t have to.

Holiday Engagement: a woman breaks up with her perfect fiance the week before she was going to trot him out to her family at Thanksgiving. Since 30 is “in her rearview mirror” and her mother’s determined not to have an old maid for a daughter, she does what any reasonable woman would and hires an actor to pose as her intended. So of course they spend an awkward holiday weekend pretend-planning a wedding (while buying actual dresses and china) and – wouldn’t you know it – falling in love. Hated every minute of it and even seeing Shelley Long as the obtrusive mother didn’t mitigate this for me in any way.

Merry Kissmas: Two people meet in a mistletoed magical elevator and so of course they must begin the 89 minute process of falling in love. It’s slightly awkward because she’s actually engaged to someone else, but don’t worry, he’s a dick, and we don’t feel sorry for him in the least. We have to sit through the couple getting into a cutesy flour-fight while baking suspiciously perfect cookies, and then they top it all off by adopting a shelter dog.

12 Dates of Christmas: I’ll see you your rescue dog and raise you some orphans! Remember when Amy Smart was almost a thing? I think she probably peaked around Butterfly Effect, which was at least a decade ago. So now she’s relegated to the land of bad Christmas movies, where washed up TV stars frolic. Mark Paul Gosslar co-stars as the man she’s bound to fall in love with. The catch? 12 Dates of Christmas is holiday Groundhog Day. Poor Amy Smart keeps waking up on Christmas Eve trying to find the right combination of Christmas cliché to break the spell and let her live happily ever after with Zack Morris (hint: it will involve both an orphan AND a rescue dog).

The Heart of Christmas: Just in case you thought I was going a little soft on 12 Dates, now I’m going to shit all over a kid dying of cancer. Because really, how better to up the Christmas ante than with childhood leukemia? I don’t necessarily want to make light of a very serious disease but then again, the movie does star Candace Cameron Bure (from that other early 90s TV show, Full House) as a workaholic mom who has no time for her kids until she discovers a blog written by a woman watching her 3 year old son go through chemo, and spends all her time reading that instead, still netting no time with her kids, but man do your little heartstrings get yanked. A sick kid’s not going to see another Christmas? You know what that means! Time to get the whole town to band together and sing Christmas carols in the street! Candace is very lucky that the only thing she loves more than god is shitty movies – she’s been able to nudge her career along by combining the two into a putrid Christmas holiday special nearly every season since her husband retired from the NHL. I assume they cover her SUV payments. Early next year her old sitcom’s getting a (Netflix!) reboot, so I guess her Christmas wish came true.

Kumiko The Treasure Hunter

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I love the movie Fargo. Like, LOVE the movie Fargo. I recently likened The Legend of Barney Thomson to a Scottish Fargo, and believe me, that’s the highest compliment I know how to pay.

Kumiko lives in Tokyo. She is an “office lady,” working a demeaning job for a patronizing boss. She’s an extreme introvert and doesn’t seem to have any hobbies or outside interests other than hunting for treasure to escape her dreary life. Her most recent acquisition, found buried in a cave, is a VHS copy of the movie Fargo where she “discovers” buried treasure. You know – the bag of money that Steve Buscemi buries in the snow? Yeah.

So poor confused Kumiko embroiders herself a treasure map and flies to Minnesota with “I want to go Fargo” as her only English and a stolen company credit card her only money. Do things go well? No they do not.

Rinko Kikuchi is nothing short of fantastic as Kumiko and director David Zellner elevates the somewhat silly premise with beautiful things to look at. But I can’t say I loved this movie. It’s offbeat in a way I want to like, but I was so turned off by Kumiko that I couldn’t really surrender to the movie. Kumiko is stubborn and subservient and child-like and capable of tantrums. You just want to shake her, but no one ever does. I found myself wondering if perhaps she is mentally challenged, and I can only surmise based on her thoughts and actions that she is, but that doesn’t seem to concern the script very much. Instead it just launches her into absurd and dangerous conditions, and best of luck to her – and to us, for sitting through it. Because I most certainly did. There was so much potential that I kept willing it to be just a bit better, to see just a little bit of character development from her, any growth at all. I was willing to take anything.

Instead, any satisfaction I got was not from Kumiko but from a friendly cop (played by the director) who seemed to sense if not feel our frustration, and provided some much-needed laugh-out-loud moments that broke up the beautiful imagery dotted with the annoying Japanese woman.

While I can’t quite embrace it, I am a little fascinated by it, and would love to hear from anyone who saw it. Did you find a way to connect with it? Or did you survive it by delivering constant mental slaps?

Everybody’s got a Christmas Movie

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Instead of skeletons in their closets, celebrities have Christmas movies.

I recently came across a real piece of ~~work~~ art called The 2nd Day of Christmas that I can only imagine keeps Mark Ruffalo up at night. It stars Mary Stuart Masterson as the aunt of an orphaned 7-year-old girl who she trains up as a pick-pocket. Their Oliver Twist act is pretty fruitful too, until they get caught by a department store security guard (Ruffalo) at Christmas. Holiday Movie Law applying, the owner fails to call the cops, or child services, and opts instead for his ‘prisoners’ to be guarded by Ruffalo in his own home over the holidays. And guys – you totally won’t believe this, but they fall in love. I know! How can that happen? In 24 hours? While being forcibly imprisoned against your will? Hard to believe, and yet this is what Christmas schmaltz is all about.

The second movie I watched, called Happy Christmas, is apparently titled ironically. Also, it’s an indie movie, in every sense of the term: it looks bad, it sounds bad, and it costars Lena Dunham. It’s about the fuck up family member that everybody has – this time, Kevin’s little sister Jenny (Anna Kendrick) is moving into his basement and no one really knows why. Job? Breakup? Drinking problem? Kevin’s wife Kelly (Melanie Lynskey) is a stay-at-home mom who is both exasperated and enchanted by her irresponsible sister-in-law. Christmas only exists on the absolute periphery of this movie, and as long as you like your holiday classics with a fair bit of pot smoking and erotica, and almost a total absence of cheer or hope or merriment, this one’s for you.

A Christmas Story 2

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Last year for Christmas my baby sister Jana presented me with a gift, declaring (gleefully, I thought) “You’ll hate it!” My immediate gut reaction was to make cooing noises resembling ‘I’m sure it’s lovely’ but something stopped me. This was Jana. She gets me. She’s not struck by second thoughts or buyer’s remorse. She knows I’m going to hate this. She wants me to hate it.
It was a copy of A Christmas Story 2. That’s right: the sequel. Didn’t know it had one? Yeah, me neither. And A Christmas Story is my favourite holiday movie of all time. It’s just so charming and nostalgiarrific (it even caused me to call Jana a bitch in last year’s review!). But a sequel? Isn’t anything sacred?

Answer: no. Nothing is. But some things should be. This movie is not exactly terrible, it’s just terribly derivative. It’s supposedly the same family – Ralphie, his weird kid brother Randy, his cantankerous old man, and his poor, harried mother – just 5 years later. Of course, it’s all new actors and this time Daniel Stern is playing the old man, and while he’s not bad, he’s not Darren McGavin. It tries really hard to have the same narrative style, but I missed the sarcasm, the nearly dark undertones of the first. This one is clearly a pale imitation, and one that recycles the same jokes: the awful outfit from Aunt Clara, the tongue getting stuck, even the leg lamp makes a comeback. And of course Ralphie’s lusting over that one perfect gift again, only gone are the days when a red ryder BB gun; Ralphie’s grown up and this year, he wants a car (and if you remember his stingy old man, then you know how likely he is to get it). The film even attempts to recreate the fantasy bits which I so loved in the first and quite hated in the second. They’re not just a bad imitation, they’re dragging down an already sub par movie.
The sequel fails to recapture the magic of the first. But if you’re tired of watching the same thing every year, or if your sister’s trying to get your goat – well, tis the season.

Meanwhile, I’m still thinking about that one perfect gift. I never asked for a car or a gun but last year I wrote about the Barbie horse trailer that I always wanted and never got. I got plenty, let me tell you, but there is still one thing that sticks out as The Best Present Ever. It was a pair of Doc Martens – a perfect, special pair chosen just for me that I knew meant my mother had gone to Montreal to get. Those boots wore the scuff marks of nearly every concert I ever attended. I’d often wear them with a short skirt and a looooong jacket. I loved them dearly, both because they were cool boots, and because I knew the trouble my mother had gone to for them. I loved them so dearly they are still in my closet today (they’re a little awkward to scrapbook).

What was your Best Present Ever?

The Mule

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I can’t, and won’t, recommend this movie.

You see, there are two kinds of people in this life: those who will watch a movie where poop is eaten, and those who won’t. Can you guess which category I fall into? It doesn’t matter. Because thanks to The Mule, I am now a person who has watched a movie where poop is eaten, like it or not (emphatic NOT).

The whole “plot” is just waiting for someone to take a dump. A little more context? Fine. Television repairman and all-round dim bulb Ray (Angus Sampson) gets convinced\coerced by his “best friend” Gavin (Leigh Whannell) to smuggle a whole key of heroin down his gullet. Ray lacks the smuggler’s panache, and the customs agent sees through his beads of sweat and flimsy story. The rectum comes up empty (after a thorough search that’s uncomfortable for all of us), so he’s being quarantined in a hotel room where cops (Hugo Weaving) are waiting round the clock for him to expel his bowels.

This movie starts out slow but as Ray writhes around on the bed, trying not to defecate or die, but mostly not to defecate, the situation around him starts to escalate. If you think the cops aren’t happy, you should see the drug dealers! But it starts to be an awkward contest as to who is the most shady and pretty soon there are no winners but lots and lots of losers, including me.

The truth is, you might actually enjoy this movie. It’s smart enough to elicit sympathy growls from your own tummy, I bet. Tony Mahony and Sampson co-direct, so there are at least two men to blame when you inevitably have to pause this movie to a) vomit, or b) brush your teeth vigorously, for days. I don’t have the stomach for a movie like this, no matter how good it otherwise is. I’d rather watch James Franco saw off his arm and Tom Hanks pull out his rotted teeth on a loop for the rest of my life than watch those 30 seconds of film ever again. Consider yourselves warned.

A Very Murray Christmas

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Let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t Scrooged, the redux. It’s a plotless variety show without a lot of variety, but it’s got Bill Goddamned Fucking Murray, so what else do you want?

It’s Christmas Eve and Murray is contractually obligated to put on a Christmas special live from the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan. He’s in no position to be doing such a thing and the show is doomed to hell, but so what? His piano accompanist is Paul Shaffer, for crying out loud. How bad could it be?

Well, as Amy Poehler and Julie White come bustling into his room to assuage his pre-show jitters\brow-beat him into meeting his obligations, it would seem that they are worried too. There’s a blizzard blanketing NYC, and none of the celebrity guests have shown up. No guests at all, actually, except for Michael Cera, playing a slimy talent agent desperate to sign Murray (who is famous in real life from being unrepresented).

Murray starts off singing dejectedly but can’t even finish his first song. The special’s a disaster! But wait! Who’s that sight for sore eyes revolving through the door? Why it’s none other than Chris Rock, here mistakenly, but here nonetheless, and despite his vehement refusals, he gets emotionally manipulating into joining the live broadcast. Singing ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’ as a duet, Murray and Rock are one of the highlights of the show. In a special that’s not even an hour long, Chris Rock proves he may not be a singer but he is indeed an actor; the reluctance to join in spackled across his slowly turns into Christmas cheer as the joy of the song spreads to his heart…until the power goes out, and he takes the opportunity to make his escape.

“Force Majeure!” cry his cheeky producers. The contract taken care of by an act of god, White and Poehler hoof it out of there too, leaving Murray to mope around a nearly-deserted hotel where he comes across a sobbing bride (Rashida Jones) and her wobbly wedding cake. Dream wedding ruined, no guests in sight, no preacher to marry them, and a bunch of lobsters going bad, she and her groom (Jason Schwartzman) have fought.

Never fear: when not hosting Christmas specials, Bill Murray also proffers marital counselling, and so in he goes to save the day, and spark up some more “impromptu” holiday tunes. Jenny Lewis playing a waitress is on hand to do the lady part of ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’, everyone’s favourite date-rape carol, and the band Phoenix is conveniently on hand pretending to be kitchen staff to back up several more ditties, so that Jason Schwartzman can prove there is a worse singer in this thing than Chris Rock.

And then Maya Rudolph shows up playing a washed up lounge singer, and holy hell, she just puts them all to shame. She belts out a ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ so good that even Darlene Love would approve (she sang that song on Letterman every Christmas since 1986 except for the writer’s strike in 2007 – this will be her first year without, since Dave is retired). It’s not surprising that Rudolph is amazing: she is, after all, daughter to soul singer Minnie Riperton and composer-songwriter Richard Rudolph. Oh, and granddaughter of Teena Marie. She’s got chops, plus extra credentials for often impersonating Beyonce on SNL, and for playing in a Prince cover band called Princess. And I’ve got a huge crush on her.

Then the action mysteriously leaves the Carlyle Hotel for a decked-out soundstage in New Jersey, where two new guest stars join the festivities: Miley Cyrus, cheating on her own cameo in The Night Before, and George Clooney to mix the martinis. An unlikely pair? If you say so!

I wish I could find something to be grumpy about with Miley’s performance, but the truth is, she sounds good. Perched atop Shaffer’s piano, Silent Night is rendered faithfully, although there’s probably a little too much leg for the holy parts. The real surprise, and delight, is when Clooney pipes up during ‘Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin.’ Is the world ready for this side of George Clooney? Unfortunately he flashes a lot less leg, but he does look awfully dapper in his suit.

Anyway, director Sofia Coppola did quite a job of rounding up a slew of stars and dipping them in Christmas coating. You can play a real game of celebrity bingo, as you’ll see in the comments. There’s no plot, no story, no moral: just a lot of the ever-charming Bill Murray. It’s available on Netflix and it’s the kind of thing you can easily just put on in the background while you do some holiday baking or cleaning or wrapping, or better yet – some imbibing.

Cheers.

Awards Season Kickoff – 2015 Golden Globes and SAG Awards Nominations

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2015 Golden Globes Nominations

Best Motion Picture, Drama
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight

Best Motion Picture, Comedy
The Big Short
Joy
The Martian
Spy
Trainwreck

Best Director – Motion Picture
Todd Haynes, Carol
Alejandro Iñárritu, The Revenant
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
George Miller, Mad Max
Ridley Scott, The Martian

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Rooney Mara, Carol
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Melissa McCarthy, Spy
Amy Schumer, Trainwreck
Maggie Smith, Lady in the Van
Lily Tomlin, Grandma

Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Jane Fonda, Youth
Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Helen Mirren, Trumbo
Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
Will Smith, Concussion

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Steve Carell, The Big Short
Matt Damon, The Martian
Al Pacino, Danny Collins
Mark Ruffalo, Infinitely Polar Bear

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Paul Dano, Love & Mercy
Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Michael Shannon, 99 Homes
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture
Emma Donoghue, Room
Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer, Spotlight
Charles Randolph, Adam McKay, The Big Short
Aaron Sorkin, Steve Jobs
Quentin Tarantino, The Hateful Eight

Best Animated Feature Film
Anomalisa
The Good Dinosaur
Inside Out
The Peanuts Movie
Shaun the Sheep Movie

Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language
The Brand New Testament
The Club
The Fencer
Mustang
Son of Saul

2015 SAG Award Nominations

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

BRYAN CRANSTON / Trumbo
JOHNNY DEPP / Black Mass
LEONARDO DiCAPRIO / The Revenant
MICHAEL FASSBENDER / Steve Jobs
EDDIE REDMAYNE / The Danish Girl

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
CATE BLANCHETT / Carol
BRIE LARSON / Room
HELEN MIRREN / Woman In Gold

SAOIRSE RONAN / Brooklyn
SARAH SILVERMAN / I Smile Back

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
CHRISTIAN BALE / The Big Short
IDRIS ELBA / Beasts of No Nation
MARK RYLANCE / Bridge Of Spies
MICHAEL SHANNON / 99 Homes
JACOB TREMBLAY / Room

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
ROONEY MARA / Carol
RACHEL McADAMS / Spotlight
HELEN MIRREN / Trumbo
ALICIA VIKANDER / The Danish Girl
KATE WINSLET / Steve Jobs

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Beasts of No Nation

Straight Outta Compton

The Big Short

Spotlight

Trumbo

Surprised? Bored? Disappointed? Let’s discuss in the comments!

Whistler, Day 5

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Whistler is gorgeous. What a great place to hold a film festival. Even for a non-skier, the village is full of activities and temptations for any palette. And the people are SO friendly. Within minutes of our arrival, a complete stranger was fishing through her coin purse to give us a quarter to loose a shopping cart at the market, and if you take so much as a single hesitant step anywhere in the village, someone will stop to assist you, sometimes a designated helper, other times just a dedicated resident, whether you’ve asked for it, or want it, or not.

I wish I was equally impressed with the film festival itself, but I’m not. It made an immediate nasty impression on me when I arrived at the gala

only to be put on the naughty list for holding contraband (ie, my camera). Here’s the thing. Don’t tell people from around the world to come to your film festival in a picturesque little village, and then tell them not to take pictures. Second, don’t call this a film festival or else I might have the idea that actors and directors are debuting their films and will be walking red carpets expecting to be photographed. There were precious few celebrities in Whistler, not even the ones who were billed, but I didn’t know that yet. I was still thinking you were a real festival, Whistler, and so I expected you to treat me like a real attendee. Instead you treated me like a criminal – only of thought crime, I suppose, since I hadn’t yet seen a single movie and could not have pirated your precious material – BUT I OWNED A CAMERA so of course I deserved to be lectured like a felon wearing finery. No matter that you’d already let in a hundred people with phones equipped with the exact same video-taking ability. No, no, by all means single me out and shame me. I’m sure I deserve it.

But on the topic of that first night, the “opening gala” as it called itself,

which apparently was just an excuse to charge $35 dollars to watch a movie when all the others cost only $13. What does a gala make? Was it the cash bar, or the obligatory speech from the mayor? Next year can I pay extra not to hear that speech? As you know, Jason Priestly and Kim Cattrall were announced as the in-house celebrities, and yet we saw not a single hair from either of their heads the entire week we were there. And if you’re not trotting them out for the opening gala, then for what?

Difficulties and disappointments permeated this festival no matter which way we turned. The St. Lawrence festival that we attended last month wasn’t perfect either, but this being its inaugural year, we were more understanding. Whistler is boasting that this year is its 15th, and by now, they really should know better.

If a screening was scheduled to start at 8:30pm, they didn’t start letting

people in until 8:30pm, which means not a single movie ever started on time. The theatres were sitting there with empty seats, but for some reason, the paying public was not allowed to sit in them. Even once you were in the theatre you’d be lucky to score a seat, as half of them were always reserved. Nobody ever showed up to sit in those reserved seats, so they’d yank the reserved signs last minute, which means the very last stragglers to arrive got the very best seats in the house, while people who had lined up politely got stiffed, EVERY DAMN TIME.

Sean and I were supposed to see 11 movies at this festival but only saw 10. We were in line waiting to be let in to see The Wave when we were told that no one could figure out how to download the movie from the usb, and so it was indefinitely delayed – “90 minutes at least.” We were told we could either come back 90 minutes later, or we could trade in our passes for passes to anoth

er movie. But here’s the rub: we’re at a festival. Our schedule is set. Waiting 90 minutes leaks into our next film. And we don’t have any other holes in our schedule to allow for a substitute film. Other people had just driven up from Vancouver and couldn’t stick around for these options, but reimbursement was flatly refused. The 90 minute wait was of course commuted to an outright cancellation, and no makeup screening was ever scheduled, which means we were shit out of luck. We travelled 4500km to see these movies, and it’s kind of heartbreaking to leave unsatisfied.

Honestly, we were unsatisfied before we got there. The programming was not solid. We knew going in that although there were quite a few “big”

movies on the bill, we’d only get to see one of them because they were all scheduled to play at 9pm on the Saturday night. Apologies to Sarah Silverman and James Franco, but I went with Emma Thompson. And at least that screening went off without a hitch. Others were not so lucky.

Two of our screenings – two out of ten, mind you – were interrupted because microphones in other screenings were being broadcast in our theatre. I felt bad for the director of Chasing Banksy, because some woman was mindlessly singing nonsense into a mic and that was broadcast right in the middle of his movie, drowning out its actual sound. It was particularly ironic since they were unable to provide him a

microphone when he was introducing the movie – a world premiere, no less – and he had to resort to using his “outdoor voice.” And the same thing happened again at the Ethan Hawke movie where several audience members apparently recognized the voice and were shouting “Hey Paul, your mic’s on!” so that instead of one distraction there were dozens. Awesome.

Anyway. I think the Whistler film festival is fine if you live in Whistler and

don’t mind being bandied about, and enjoy watching movies in the freezing cold. And no, I don’t mean it was cold in Whistler, because actually it was quite mild. I mean the theatres were unheated. Thank goodness for blanket scarves, which served more as blanket than as scarf – although I did see other people toting actual blankets around, and others just huddled under puffy coats. Luckily Whistler the resort town rocks. It’s fun and full of energy and we had a great trip even if a certain festival let us down.

Whistler, Day 4

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Born To Be Blue: Ethan Hawke plays Chet Baker during a period of time in the 1960s when he was approached to make a movie about his troubled life as part of a comeback effort. It’s inspired by Baker, but not a true biopic, so Hawke has plenty of room to spread his wings and make the character his own, in what is probably one the best performances of his career. His charming junkie act lends a little humour to the proceedings, surprisingly, so it’s not as bleak as you might think. His co-star, Carmen Ejogo, plays a composite character representing Baker’s “women” and is stunning, not just because she’s beautiful but because she gives a delicate and refreshing performance, a real break out, and fearless alongside such a seasoned professional. Canadian actor Callum Keith Rennie rounds out the cast as Baker’s long-suffering agent, and he attended the screening to tell us all about painting fake palm trees to make Sudbury pass for California, and squeezing in the shots before the first snowfall of the year. This movie was a real passion project for Hawke and it took a long time, and funding from both Canada and the UK, to get the thing off the ground. It’s a real treat for jazz fans because the music permeates this film, as it should. It’s filmed in a kind of jazzy way too, a little offbeat maybe, but with plenty of sparkle. So if you can get over Hawke’s terrible Chet Baker teeth (or lackthereof), you should find lots to enjoy in this fantastic, tragic film.

River: An American volunteer doctor in Laos becomes a fugitive when he intervenes in the rape of a young woman and her assailant’s body is later pulled from the Mekong River. It’s one of those spiralling, out of control situations, and we’re right in the heart of it thanks to writer-director (and Canadian!) Jamie M. Dagg. Fuelled by fear, the doctor makes an attempt for the US embassy. The editing has energy that propels the story forward, but it’s more than just a thrilling escape attempt. This movie leaves you wondering about the ethics of visiting or living abroad – obeying laws that may clash with your own ethics, and who pays the price when the two disagree. Sean’s got a great review of the movie here.

The Legend of Barney Thomson: Robert Carlyle directs himself in the eponymous role, an awkward and shy Glaswegian barber who just so happens to take up a new hobby: killing. An inept local detective (Ray Winstone) is on to him, and it becomes a battle of the bumbling fools to see whose luck will run out first. One thing Barney’s got going for him: his mother, played uproariously by the ever-wonderful Emma Thompson, who goes balls to the wall with her delivery. Kitted out with a prosthetic neck, her accent is through the roof and it’s the most fun I’ve seen her have with a role, maybe ever. The movie is FUNNY. The accents are a little thick to my Canadian ears, but the jokes land so quickly that I never struggled for long. It’s like the Scottish Fargo – an absurd farce that’s just a whole lot of fun. Carlyle was very humble at this, the North American premiere of his movie (sidebar: this one too was funded with Canadian dollars!). He called his character’s suited look a tribute to his father – “My dad was a tie man his whole life.” He acknowledged several other personal touches, including shooting on locations where he’d grown up. He credited Danny Boyle with being a particular influence – “he just creates the right atmosphere” and taught him “not to interfere.” He also called a certain scene a “definite nod to David Lynch” (his Blue Velvet, in fact), but I won’t spoil it for you because it’s sure to make you smile. This movie was entertaining and well-executed, so I was surprised how emphatically Carlyle responded to an audience member who asked “Do you want to direct more films?”, the answer being “No!”