Sibling Relationships (Biologically Related)

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Time again for Thursday Movie Picks. Sibling week hits just two weeks away from when we leave for sunny California where we will see my own brother who I haven’t seen since Christmas. Let’s hope our reunion goes smoother than they did in these three amazing films.

Rain Man (1988)- Tom Cruise has some serious daddy issues to work out finally gets his chance when he discovers that he has an autistic brother (Dustin Hoffman). Their road trip may start out as Charlie’s selfish scheme to get his inheritance back but spending time with his brother soon becomes its own reward in one of Hollywood’s all-time great feel-good movies.

The Savages (2007)- Neither Wendy (Laura Linney) or Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) are in great shape when their estranged father’s dementia progresses to the point that he needs to be placed in a nursing home. The always-amazing Linney and Hoffman are completely believable as brother and sister both at first when spending time together dealing with this family crisis is completely uncomfortable and finally when they start actually enjoying each other’s company.

Rachel Getting Married (2008)– Before this movie came out, I never would have thought that I’d like Anne Hathaway in anything. She reinvents herself completely for this though as a tactless drug addict on temporary leave from rehab to attend her sister’s bizarre wedding. I could have easily picked this for father-daughter or mother-daughter relationships but it fits this category better. The sisters have the only relationship in this family that actually may see some healing.

Super Happy Foreign Films!

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Tangerines – In a messy war between Georgians and Chechans, an old man who makes boxes and his friend who grows tangerines are having a hard time getting their boxed tangerine business off the ground. But then the factions start fighting right on their doorstep and they pull a lone survivor, a Chechen, from the wreckage. Their plan is to nurse him back to health while burying the dead, and that’s when they discover that one of the dead isn’t quite dead. And that’s how they end up nursing sworn enemies back to health under the same roof – each vowing to kill the other as soon as he is able to get out of bed unassisted.

J’ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother) – This is a Canadian film, french language of course, so not actually foreign to me, but will be to most of you. Xavier Dolan wrote this when he was 16, and began starring and directing in it when he was 19 or 20. It’s about the tenuous bond between a single mother and her teenaged son, a relationship Dolan has described as “semi-autobiographical.” His performance is petulant but perceptive and it made me wonder if he knew that he’d made the mother out to be less than a villain, and the son a spoiled brat. I have a feeling he has more of a sense of humour for these two than they could ever muster for themselves. And he styles them with his odd composition notes, a dash of black and white here, a dollop of characters barely in the screen there. He’s got a penchant for artistry that’s only being hinted at here, but watch out for Laurence Anyways, and Mommy, you haven’t seen the last of this talented young director.

Christiane F – Fucking German movies, eh? Goddamned barrels of sunshine. Made me yearn for some citrus wars, or matricide at the very least. I started watching this one about a month and a half ago, back when it was German language film week, and I just couldn’t hack it. And you know what? I still can’t. Who can watch a little 13-year-old girl running around in clown makeup and heels WITH FUCKING SOCKS , thinking she’s all grown up even though she doesn’t even have pubes (which we can verify because everyone has TERRIBLE UNDERWEAR), fucking around and shooting up with goddamned dirty needles, and then whoring to pay for it, boasting she can do 7 in an hour, condoms optional. No. Just no. And? It’s apparently based on the real Christiane’s memoirs. So, live with that. Also? The worst part was totally the socks.

A Tribute to James Horner

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James Horner died yesterday when the plane he was piloting went down.

He’s probably best known for his work composing the score to Titanic, but he’s actually done the music for 75 movies, making his feature-film debut in The Lady in Red, and breaking through with 1982’s “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” He of course won two Oscars for his work on Titanic (best original score, and best original song for that Celine Dion travesty, My Heart Will Go On) and has a total of ten nominations under his belt. He worked with James Cameron originally with Aliens, and again on Avatar, and scored lots of other blockbuster movies, like Braveheart and Apollo 13.

He was a well-educated musician, studying piano at London’s Royal College of Music and earning a music degree from the University of Southern California, and then his master’s and doctorate from UCLA. He was an accomplished concert hall composer before he followed his roots and made the move to movies – his father, Harry Horner, was a set designer and occasional art-director.

Horner composed the soundtrack of my childhood – An American Tale, and The Land Before Time were both beloved in my household, and while I remember the mouse with the big floppy ears, and the earnest little dinosaurs, I also remember the music.

A brilliant man gone to soon leaves behind quite a legacy. His most recent work was for the Jake Gyllenhaal movie Southpaw, but a list of his contributions makes it clear that if you’ve ever been to the movies, chances are, you’ve been a Horner fan all along: 48 hours, Cocoon, Willow, Field of Dreams, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Glory, The Rocketeer, Patriot Games, Legends of the Fall, Deep Impact, The Perfect Storm, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Beautiful Mind, House of Sand and Fog, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, The Amazing Spiderman. He’s made a huge impact on movies, and on all of us. We’re sad to see him go.

Brilliant Composer James Horner, friend & collaborator on 7 movies has tragically died in a plane crash. My heart aches for his loved ones. -Ron Howard

There is nothing that shaped my movie-going experience more than the musical genius of James Horner. He will live on through the ages. – Rob Lowe

RIP James Horner. Thank U for the beautiful music. We will miss what beautiful music was yet to come. – Diane Warren

Rene and I are shaken by the tragic death of James Horner, whom we considered a friend. We will always remember his kindness and great talent that changed my career. We send our prayers and deepest condolences to his family and friends. -Celine Dion

Who Lives in a Pineapple Under the Sea?

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I can’t imagine a single sentient organism that would be in any way remotely satisfied by The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.

We had screening tickets for this that were for a 10am showing on a Saturday morning, so needless to say, we didn’t make it. And now I’m damn glad I didn’t haul my ass out of bed for this nautical nonsense.

Inside Out

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Inside Out is a return to form for Pixar, a brand that hasn’t been quite as synonymous with quality and originality over the last five years as it used to be.

The general story, of five walking talking emotions (Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust) controlling a young girl’s emotional life and decision-making from inside her head seemed just plain silly to me when the trailers for Inside Out were first released. What I couldn’t have possibly anticipated was how much insight we’ get through what seems to be such a simplistic concept into the way these five emotions interact as we grow up.

Inside Out works for two reasons. First, the voice-casting couldn’t have been better, especially for Riley’s emotions. Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, and Bill Hader- all very funny people- are the perfect companions for this wild ride through Core Memories, The Train of Thought, The Subconscious, and Abstract Thought (look out for that last one). There’s a lot of fun to be had with this idea and the good people at Pixar don’t miss a chance.

Second, with all the insanity and cartoony visuals in Riley’s inner life, the creative team never forget the importance of keeping her real life believable. It doesn’t hurt that the animation of Riley, her parents, and her surroundings are so real they’re scary. It’s more than that though. Her memories and the mini-crisis she faces when she moves to San Francisco are handled just right, making this Pixars’ most moving film since Toy Story 3.

Miraculum and Other Crap I Watched Instead of Being a Productive Member of Society

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Miraculum is one of those movies that knits together different stories and hopes to make a beautiful afghan but sometimes ends up making a bit of a mess. Let’s face it, it’s hard to find, say, four different stories that are equally compelling, and in this case, Gabriel Sabourin does a better job with some stories (as screenwriter) than with the one he tells himself as an actor.The city of Montreal has just been home to a terrible plane crash where the lone survivor remains unidentified. Julie (Marilyn Castonguay) a nurse and also a Jehovah’s Witness, becomes quite taken with this unidentified stranger, maybe as a placeholder for her complicated feelings toward her boyfriend (Xavier Dolan), also a Witness, who is dying from leukemia and unwilling to get the treatment that would save his life, as per their religious doctrine.

The Burbs is not one of Tom Hanks’ best, but when he teams up with Bruce Dern as two suburbanites with maybe a little too much time on their hands, it’s still pretty awesome. A new family has moved into the neighbourhood and get this – they don’t mow their lawn! And their garbage cans are suspicious! And…do they look a little…foreign to you? Paranoia starts to creep in and suddenly the neighbourhood dads are crossing some pretty serious boundaries to accuse their little-known neighbourhoods of all kinds of mayhem, including murder. Coincidentally, this “neighbourhood” was shot on the Universal backlot, which we’ll be visiting in the next few weeks – it’s the same neighbourhood that was used for Desperate Housewives and Leave It To Beaver.

Words and Pictures has got both Juliette Binoche and Clive Owen, so already I’m sold. They’re both playing hig wordsandpictures h school teachers – she, art (being a talented artist herself, but recently plagued by arthritis) and he, English (being himself a writer, currently stifled by his alcoholism). They’re both a little isolated and angry at home, but shine in their respective classrooms and soon have their students engaged in a “war” – words vs pictures, or is a picture really worth a thousand words? It’s witty and interesting and while not their best work it was a surprising and gratifying Netflix find on a quiet night and I enjoyed it.

I bet nobody like the movie Blackhat, ever. Am I right? The “action” was silly. The “romance” was even sillier. The “thriller” aspect was completely inert. I can’t write anything about this movie without using ironic quotations, for goat cheese’s sake! They bust hacker-Thor from prison to help stop an even evil-er hacker and it’s all cyber-crimey and pretty dull, with really loose writing and lazy directing, and you just want it to be over, but why spend TWO HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES anticipating credits when you could just not watch it at all?

How to Survive the Apocalypse in Heels

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While watching San Andreas, I thought to myself, dear god, these shoes will be the death of me. And this thought didn’t disturb me as much as it should have because:

a) I’m not a survivor. I don’t believe in survival. It’s gross. It hurts too much. Better to have a slab of concrete crush you right at the outset than to spend the next hour and a half running for your life and probably getting lots of blisters.

b) If I’m gonna die, please jebus let it not be in flats. I’d rather die like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz – crus oz-witch-wizard-ruby-red-slippers-westernized-0394944ujrjhfhur hed, sure, but with a gorgeous pair of heels sticking out.

But watching Carla Gugino do acrobatics atop a blazing, rapidly collapsing building only to stick a pretty landing on a failing helicopter, well, she didn’t do that in Jimmy Choos. You might have thought, like I did, that survival in heels would have been unlikely, even impossible, but this weekend Bryce Dallas Howard showed us: not so.

This girl ran through the jungle in heels. From dinosaurs! They’re modest, mid-height, Kate Middleton-esque nude heels rather than kinky boots, mind you, but still. I’ve heard a lot of people criticizing Jurassic World for this choice, calling it supremely stupid, but hello – when did she have the chance to swap them out? We don’t wake up in the morning thinking, well, maybe the practical shoes today because who knows when a hungry dinosaur may chase me. And just because that particular scenario might be 0.1% more likely for a woman working at a dino park doesn’t mean she anticipiated it. I think she probably wore those shoes because they looked cute with her skirt, and made all of her wardrobe choices that day believing subconsciously that today was just a day like any other. Of course, we know this franchise, and we know that security at these parks is never up to snuff. So, poor thing has to run in heels. Crappy, sure, but still preferable than running barefoot. But the truth is, I don’t keep ‘just in case of dinosaurs’ shoes in my car either. When disaster hits, I’ll have to swallow the impractical decisions I’ve made and just deal. I do know, however, that she was likely to sink in the moist jungle dirt. I learned that lesson wearing brand new red satin pumps of course. The heels pierce the dirt. And she likely had to run on the balls of her feet – better to just forget about the heels and keep your centre of gravity in just once place. I learned that one as a bridesmaid when my friend’s grandmother went missing just moments before the ceremony.

But if I was smart, I might instead learn the lesson that Melissa McCarthy learned in Spy: in one scene she’s vamped up and looking glamorous but suddenly has to give chase. She’s clearly wearing black high heels, but those are cleverly swapped out by a sympathetic costume lady for a pair of wedge running shoes that are painted to look like high heels. I noticed that little swap when she was on her scooter about to land in the cement. Nice trick if you can hack it. But let’s face it, I’m not wedge girl. I like a pair of sky-high stilettos, and if they’re glittery enough to sparkle long after I’ve bled out, all the better.

Animated movies!

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Well, it’s Thursday again. It’s not even 8 am yet and I’m at work when I’d much rather still be sleeping and I’ve already had to resolve one office IT issue and I don’t even work in IT. So I’m feeling a little uninspired this morning. Normally I strive for a little more variety in my picks and try to avoid the obvious choices whenever possible but I love these three films so much that I just can’t help but choose them.

Finding Nemo (2003)- When I was 18, my dad chased me down on a road trip for over an hour just because I’d forgot my Lactaid pills. Once we’d made the exchange and my dad drove away, my driver watched him leave and remarked “Now THAT’S a father”. I think of that comment every time I watch Finding Nemo and, since Father’s Day is just three days away, I might as well dedicate this entry to mine. I cry pretty much through this whole movie and am always filled with gratitude for my own family every time I watch this desperate father conquer his own fears of pretty much everything to take on the entire ocean in search of his son, prompting Nigel to remark “What a father!”

Wall-E (2008)- “Computer, define “dancing” made my list of 10 Movie Moments That Took My Breath Away. What I neglected to mention at the time was that this whole movie takes my breath away. Pixar has pushed the envelope so many times and in so many ways but Wall-E, I think, reamins their most ambitious work to date, trusting its audience to stay engaged through the first forty minutes or so where there is virtually no dialogue. Wall-E is entertaining from start to finish while managing to say a lot about how many of us treat our bodies and our planet, even more effectively than those annoying e-mails from Green Peace that I’m always getting.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)- Now let’s take a moment to be thankful for Wes Anderson. Anderson is clearly having fun with the stop-motion animation and the family movie format (“Clustercuss”!!!!). Like everything he does, Fantastic Mr. Fox is quirky, outrageous, hilarious, sweet, unmistakeably Anderson. It remains one of my favourites in the Wes canon. Besidies, this is the only film to date to feature the inspired collaboration of Wes Anderson and George Clooney.

Montreal in Film and Why Mommy is Better Than The Score

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Well, I did it, Andrew from Fistful of Films. I watched Mommy. Andrew’s made no secret of his appreciation of this Cannes sensation- now I get the picture on his masthead- and after the film resurfaced during Thursday Movie Picks a couple of weeks ago, I vowed to finally give this a watch.

First, I’ll say that I liked Mommy better than The Score, the Robert De Niro-Edward Norton heist movie from 2001 that I watched the night before. Like Mommy, The Score is filmed and set in Montreal, where I spent the first twenty-four years of my life. I know the city well, well enough to know that Quebecers don’t sound like that. The accents and dialects (more French than Quebecois) aren’t a big deal and most non-Canadians may not even notice but they’re distracting for me. Mommy’s already off to a good start just by being a Canadian film with actual Canadians.

The actors in Mommy get more than just the Franglais right. As mother and son, Anne Dorval and Antoine-Olivier Pilon always manage to make their increasingly complicated feelings and relationship believable, if not always likeable. Both Die (Dorval) and Steve (Pilon) are immediately off-putting. We are warned from the beginning that Steve can be a lot to take but I was unprepared for foul-mouthed and deliberately provocative style. Even Die, Steve’s long-suffering mother, is tough to take at first, presenting herself immediately as arrogant and confrontational through some pretty cocky gum-chewing.

I warmed to these characters quickly though. Die first. We quickly see how out of control- even dangerous- Steve is and I couldn’t help seeing her as a mother doing the best she can with an impossible situation. Steve has his charming- even sweet- side too. His feelings of guilt over ths burden he thinks he must be to his mother rise to a scene in a karaoke bar where he deliberately causes a scene in order to derail Die’s flirtation with a lawyer who she thinks can help with her son’s situation. The relationship between mother and son is unpredictable and at times a little strange but makes sense as we realize that they can’t help feeling that all they have is each other.

This relationship is written and acted to perfection even if Mommy isn’t. Dolan devotes way too much time to a stuttering former teacher who lives across the street without any real justification for doing so. I also could have done without the unusual 1.1 Aspect Ratio that is distracting at best and counter-productive during the more cinematic sequences that Dolan seems to love.

Have you seen Mommy? If you have, I would love to hear what you thought of the final scene.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

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It was easy to like this movie, because this movie loves movies just as much as I do.

I asked Sean if he liked the movie, and he said “yeah.”

I asked him if it made him feel any feelings (I tease him about being a robot but it’s not really teasing because he really is a robot) and he said “yeah.”

I asked him which feelings and he said “sad.”

So there you have it. A movie with a dying girl right in the title made Sean feel sad, which he hid well by not crying and eating lots of nachos with the weird runny cheese.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is not really a sad movie, though. It’s a quirky movie that runs in the opposite d me-and-earl-and-the-dying-girl irection of The Fault in Our Stars, which I despised for its manipulation. This one isn’t perfect either, but it allows its teenaged characters to be moody and awkward in sickness and in health.

Greg is surviving high school by keeping superficial ties with everyone while befriending no one – at least that he’ll admit to. Luckily his “co-worker” Earl (actually his best friend) understands his motivations and lets the matter ride. But when the two take on a cancer-ridden third wheel, Greg’s little social experiment starts to get murky as she exposes his insecurities and forces him to deal with people head-on.

You know what? I just realized why I liked this one so much more than The Fault in Our Stars. This one has angst instead of melodrama. There it is: there’s no weird runny cheese. It’s witty, sometimes a little much, but I felt so much more forgiving of this one because it felt more real. This movie is not about The Dying Girl. It’s about ‘Me’. It’s a movie full of teenaged self-conscious self-centeredness, and I think that’s kind of a sneaky, brilliant angle to bring to this subject matter.

And all three actors – Me (Thomas Mann), and Earl (R.J. Cyler) and The Dying Girl (Olivia Cooke) deserve to be the Next Big Thing. They’re very good at the calculated, laid-back charm that this movie has going for it. I kind of can’t wait to see it again.