Tag Archives: female directors

Moomins And The Comet Chase

Have you met Moomintroll? Inspired by the stories of Tove Jansson, Moomintroll brings his adventures off the pages of popular children’s books and onto the big screen – it’s available on DVD and VOD right now.

With an all-star voice cast and music composed by Moomins’ biggest fan, Bjork, this little movie is hitting plenty of high points.

With the help of his father, Moominpappa (Stellan Skarsgård), Moomintroll (Alexander Skarsgård) and his worried friends embark on a journey to the observatory to find out why everything in their valley is covered in thick grey dust and the sky continues to get redder by the day. They discover a comet is heading straight for them, but can they make it back to Moominhouse to get everyone to safety in time?

The Moomins are the world’s favourite troll family, and they’re brought to life with the help and voice work of Max von Sydow (The Exorcist, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens), Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood, The Diary of a Teenage Girl), Stellan Skarsgård (Good Will Hunting, The Avengers), Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal, Casino 8893944_watch-trailer-for-moomins-and-the-comet_2e9fc054_m

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Royale), Peter Stormare (Fargo, 22 Jump Street), and Helena Mattsson (Iron Man 2, American Horror Story: Hotel). Do you think this gang can work together and overcome obstacles to beat the comet and save everyone from disaster? Skarsgårds to the rescue!

Will the Moomins win over North America? Only time will tell.

If you’ve seen this movie or know the books, let us know what you think!!

Watch the trailer:

Money Monster

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George Clooney and Julia Roberts were enough to sell this movie to me, and in the end, they were enough to save it from itself.

The truth is, Money Monster teeters between a comedy and a socio-political thriller and suffers tonally. George Clooney plays Lee Gates, a slick and smug TV show host who makes stock market recommendations in between hip hop dance moves, obnoxious hats, and lots of gimmicks. One day, live on the air, a young man (Jack O’Connell) shows up with a bomb, ready to hold him and the CEO of a certain company (Dominic West) accountable for the loss of his life savings. Julia Roberts, playing the show’s director, is stuck in the booth directing the hell out of a show that is now being broadcast worldwide to billions, while keeping her colleague (who suffers from foot in mouth disease) alive.

The problems start with Kyle, the young man who’s just lost everything. Kyle is the audience place holder. We’re not millionaire TV hosts, or billionaire CEOs. We’re the people who work hard for our money, and are subject to the whims of Wall Street. But there’s a problem with the character when he’s just not relatable – and not because he’s brought a bomb to a TV studio. In fact, I think I am more likely to start making revenge bombs than I am to ever lose everything in the stock market. You know why? Likely you do: because you never put EVERYTHING in the stock market! The stock market is NOT free money. It’s a gamble. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And if, like me, you know very little about this mysterious money market, you have to take advice from strangers. I tend to avail myself of the type of strangers who sit behind ornate desks with gold nameplates, but I take everything they say with a margarita-rim’s worth of salt and skepticism. Kyle preferred to go with the smarmy guy on TV who has a weekly “pick of the millennium” which is kind of like trusting Judge Judy to try your murder one charge – but who am I to judge? Kyle gambled his whole kit and caboodle and lost the kitty in no time. And did Kyle get mad at himself for being so rash? Of course not! Kyle is a dumb millennial who feels entitled to everything but responsible for nothing and so Kyle goes looking for someone else to blame, and brings a bomb as his sidekick. Nice one, Kyle.

So we don’t really feel badly for Kyle, but nor do we root for Lee Gates. He’s making a fat paycheque doing his thing on TV, and it’s pretty clear he’s forgotten that his words have real-world repercussions for people with far more to lose than he does. He’s a self-involved guy who hasn’t questioned anything until a bomb strapped to his chest forced him to. Between Kyle and Lee, it’s unclear to the audience just who the protagonist is. There aren’t any characters to really invest in – and yes, I’ve been dying to make that financial pun for 500 words now.

So maybe this is why some critics are calling this movie empty\hollow\vacuous. Sean certainly felt that the film’s final moments were jarring, and maybe inappropriate. I had a different read on them though.

The movie is kind of a fun ride, with an almost real-time hostage situation, and we feel like we’re experiencing it along with the rest of the world. Imagine if this was happening in real life: you’d be glued to your TV or your tablet or your laptop or your phone. Where were you when President Kennedy was shot? When OJ fled in the Bronco? When the twin towers fell? Where were you when Lee Gates was held at gunpoint on live TV and made to account for his mistakes? Wouldn’t that be a Big Deal? But in the movie, the minute our characters hit a point of resolution, the whole world switches channels. They go back to their sandwiches and their IKEA catalogs. The immediacy with which it’s forgotten is arresting. Sean thought that was disgusting, and I thought it was brilliant social commentary.

So yes, I can understand why people are leaving this movie frustrated. But I also thought that was kind of the point.

“Nuts!”

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Nuts: a pejorative term indicating insanity; a slang word for testicles. In the case of “Nuts!”, it’s both.

nuts-documentary-1 J.R. Brinkley was a doctor in small town Kansas who, through the grace of his revolutionary goat-testicle transplant surgery, cured many men of impotence and infertility while bringing vitality and prosperity to the town. Brinkley had to build hospitals just to deal with the growing demand, and almost accidentally became a radio pioneer simultaneously, broadcasting ads for his services and answering write-in medical questions between blasts of good ole country music. Despite exponential interest and a horde of faithful followers, the American Medical Association accused Brinkley of “quackery.” Just as they set out to discredit him, he came out with an elixir just as 3suknzs_7ZdkkSzSTUmjXyzJGnOxJrFPD4GX9-ypnY4 (1) effective as the goat-testicle procedure but with much less risk. And then he ran for governor, with a slogan borrowed from a laxative commercial. True story.

How have you never before heard of this broadcasting maven and trailblazing doctor? Whatever the answer, Nuts! director Penny Lane will make sure you never forget him. Her mixed-media documentary uses his official biography as a jumping-off point, and whatever archival footage and modern day interviews can’t cover is brilliantly animated. And I do mean brilliantly: not only is the animation a perfect match for this strange and whimsical tale, it’s also impeccably timed and used judiciously. Different animators are nuts.0.0 used for each segment, but there’s a uniform style that injects a lot of kinetic energy into a story hilariously but dryly narrated. You won’t believe how quaint goat fucking can look.

Eventually the film moves from eyebrow-raising to downright subversive, with enough old-timey euphemisms for erections (or the lack thereof) to keep you in patter for your next hundred dinner parties. Lane has already shown herself to be a thoughtful and engaging filmmaker (Our Nixon) but with Nuts! she proves herself worthy of a Brinkley-esque empire. You can’t help but admire the way she weaves the story together; she examines what amounts to an American folk tale but she does it with modern tools that turn the story on its head. Penny Lane is her own brand of documentarian, and quite possibly on to becoming this generation’s best. Nuts! is not to be missed.

This post was first published over at Cinema Axis, where you can find lots more great Hot Docs coverage.

Angry Inuk

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An Inuit community in Canada’s northern territories faces an interesting challenge. How can a culture, that prides itself on a patient and understated expression of anger, make themselves heard when their opponents are famous for a more aggressive approach?

Canadian seal hunting has gotten a lot of media attention since the late 1970s thanks to well-funded animal rights groups and their celebrity spokespeople. The brutal clubbing of baby seals in Newfoundland and Labrador may be the most common image associated with seal hunting but, for many Inuit people living in Nunavut, the practice looks very different. Traditional seal hunting, in a culture well-known for a humane and non-wasteful approach to killing animals, can be a matter of survival in some parts of northern Canada. Not only do they eat the meat and wear the fur, the latter of which is a necessity with the region’s frigid temperatures, but they also need money to survive just like the rest of us. One way they can earn money is by selling products made from seal fur.

Although the laws related to seal hunting make exceptions for the Inuit, decreased demand due to such laws, and the propaganda put out by Greenpeace and other organizations, have driven prices down, making it harder for them to survive economically. In Angry Inuk, filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril follows fellow Inuit activists to Ottawa, Toronto, and Europe as they try and tell their side of the story.

Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, using fantastic footage of northern Canada, gives us a behind the scenes look at traditional seal hunting and the preparation of furs. More importantly, she takes the time to lay out the historical and political context that can limit the options of First Nations communities. And finally, by focusing on a social media campaign designed to educate people about traditional seal hunting, she gives hope for a more constructive dialogue in the future.

It’s a side of the story that is so often drowned out by extremely vocal activist groups that have the money and resources to make themselves heard. At my day job, I work as a social worker with First Nations and Inuit people and even I have never heard the story of seal hunting told quite like this. Regardless of your position on animal rights, Angry Inuk is a fascinating film, one that offers a perspective that we don’t usually see.

Originally posted at Cinema Axis.

Tribeca: My Blind Brother

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Director Sophie Goodhart has a sister with MS and a willingness to tell the ugly truth: that as uncouth as it may be, sometimes we’re jealous of people with disabilities. They’re lauded for their bravery and showered with attention, and every one of their accomplishments is framed all the more positively in light of their disability.

my-blind-brother-2 In 2001, Goodhart channeled these feelings into a script for a short film called My Blind Brother, starring Tony Hale, and it’s taken all this time to hustle that short into her first feature length, but here it is, in all its unflinching, unpolitically correct glory.

Directing from her own script, Goodhart introduces us to two siblings, Bill and Robbie. Robbie (Adam Scott) is the blind brother, an athlete who raises money for visually-impaired children with various athletic feats. His brother Bill (Nick Kroll) is his virtual guide dog, running every race right beside him, keeping him out of harm’s way, while receiving absolutely none of the glory. Our expectations are reversed when the disabled saint actually turns out to be a bit of a prick, and his do-gooder brother is secretly seething with resentment and guilt. These are ingredients to a pretty awkward stew, but when you throw in a fucked up girl (Jenny Slate, drunkenly hooking up with Bill on the eve of her boyfriend’s funeral) trying to redeem herself by unwittingly volunteering with her one-night-stand’s blind brother, you get a pretty juicy jambalaya.

The casting also thwarts expectations, with Adam Scott dangerously good as a smug, vain, puffed-up pompous ass who just happens to be blind and Nick Kroll playing the relatively straight though unambitious brother. Slate, meanwhile, walks a thin line between charming and neurotic, and gets it mostly right. So they’re a fun trio to eavesdrop on, even though they’re encouraging you to do the one thing your mother would rap your knuckles for: laughing at the disabled.

But Goodhart makes sure that we’re never laughing at blindness per se (except for a few sight gags, ironically) but at all the constructs that make us tiptoe around a disability. Which maybe makes the movie sound a little more “issue movie” than it is. It’s a comedy, and a pretty easy breezy one at that. But you will laugh. I certainly did – and not just the guy at our screening who obliviously asked “Has the blind community seen this yet?”

Tribeca: Elvis & Nixon

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True Story: in December 1970, Elvis’s dad and his wife, Priscilla, were mad that he’d spent $100K on guns and Mercedes-Benzes for Christmas gifts, so he threw a fit worthy of a teenage girl, stormed out, and caught the next plane going anywhere. Anywhere turned out to be Washington. Elvis had a large collection of police badges, but his Moby Dick, the Indelible-Nixon-Elvis-631.jpg__800x600_q85_crop one he coveted the most but could never land was a badge from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (he believed having one would mean he could travel to any country with drugs and guns). Unable to convince the bureau, Elvis being Elvis went over their heads and straight to the top – to President Nixon. He showed up at the White House in a purple velvet suit with a huge gold belt buckle and his trademark gold sunglasses, and a white-house-warming gift—a Colt .45 pistol mounted in a display case, which was of course confiscated at the gate. Elvis got his badge though, and asked that the meeting be kept secret. But once he died, the Archives made a fortune selling the official photo, the most-requested Archive photo in the history of the world.

It’s a pretty fucking crazy story, so of course someone had the bright idea to turn it into a movie. Joey Sagal, Hanala Sagal, and Cary Elwes share writing credits – yes, that Cary Elwes, who thought he might direct the thing, with Eric Bana as Elvis. That version fell elvis-nixon-michael-shannon-kevin-spacey apart but Michael Shannon was soon onboard, maybe not the most obvious choice to play The King, but he waved his magic wand of executive productionship, and convinced Liza Johnson who’d previously directed him in Return to helm the whole damn thing. With Shannon filling the King’s rhinestoned shoes, it just made sense that Kevin Spacey would slide into the President’s shiny loafers.

Although there’s no official transcript of what happened inside the Oval Office, Johnson somehow captures the moment perfectly, both in tone and within the context of the times. It’s a trifle of a film, its only point to get these two towering and seemingly opposite figures in the room together. But with powerhouses like Spacey and Shannon, that’s more than enough. I took a lot of pleasure from the lack of prosthetics or makeup tricks on hand – neither of these men particularly look like the figures they are playing, and neither lower themselves to impressions. The script even pokes fun at how much taller Shannon is than Elvis. The script is generally pretty breezy, a little satirical, and heaps of fun. The director is quick to point out there aren’t any real jokes in the film, but the absurdist tone earns consistent laughs from the audience.

Let’s be real: Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey are legitimately among the most talented working actors today. The film is worth if for their two names above the marquee. The fact that this offers up a bizarre little footnote in American history is just a bonus, and Elvis and Nixon – who is more fascinating or notorious than these two? Spacey and Shannon clearly delight in tackling these roles, and it’s beyond satisfying to watch them engage in a real battle of egos. Within the confines of the Oval Office, Shannon as Elvis has never been a more physical presence on screen, his every movement keeping the president on his toes but always one step behind. Shannon dominates the screen and keeps Nixon chasing after Elvis, and it’s a marvel to watch.

During the Q&A after the screening, director Liza Johnson said she was drawn to the Elvis-Nixon-Movie-Trailer-Billboard-650 “tonally eccentric” script and wanted the film to match and “embrace the absurdism of the situation. Michael Shannon, describing Elvis as “mysterious”, relied on interviews with Elvis from right around that time to inform his performance, but the film also benefited from Elvis’s good friend (played by Alex Pettyfer in the movie) Jerry Schilling and a White House staffer (portrayed in the movie by Colin Hanks) Egil Krogh to give invaluable insight. Johnson said that “Any day working with Michael Shannon is better than a day not working with Michael Shannon” and that Spacey was a natural fit being an equal in acting, and having previously worked on a Nixon portrayal when he screen-tested for Frost\Nixon.

Bottom line: I enjoyed this very much. There was real spirit, it was a cracking good time, and I found myself making those little smirky-snorty noises, those half laughs that you make unintentionally when you just can’t believe when you’re seeing. It’s unbelievable, but you’d better believe it.

Elvis & Nixon will be out in theatres this Friday, April 22nd – 22 years to the day of Nixon’s death.

Tribeca Film Festival coverage

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katie-holmes-tribeca-film-festival Katie Holmes attends the Women’s Filmmaker luncheon at Tribeca Film Festival – she’s in town promoting her first feature as a director, All We Had, in which she also stars as a mother struggling to make a better life for her daughter. The film co-stars Judy Greer, Luke Wilson, and Richard Kind.

Also attending the luncheon: Rachael Leigh Cook, Jennifer Morrison, Rose McGowan. The luncheon has been a part of the festival for 14 years. A third of the feature films at Tribeca are directed by women.

Jessica Biel and hubby Justin Timberlake were on hand to attend the premiere of The Devil justin-timberlake-jessica-biel-tribeca-film-festival-ftr and the Deep Blue Sea, a movie starring Jason Sudeikis as a grieving architect who befriends a homeless teen and builds a raft to sail across the Atlantic. Co-stars Biel of course, and Maisie Williams, Mary Steenburgen, Paul Reiser. Timberlike is credited with the score, and the supervision of the soundtrack, which really makes me wonder why they look so startled tribeca-film-festival-scott-eastwood to have this photo taken. You got all gussied up, you must have known there would be a few cameras on hand, guys! Smile?

Scott Eastwood attended the For The Love of Cinema dinner while he was in town, a title that I’d be willing to eat free food at, had I been cordially invited. Also chowing down in the name of cinema: Kate Mara, Michael Strahan, Katie Holmes, Dev Patel. Joel McHale emceed the night, and a $50 000 prize was given out to newcomer director Matt Ruskin for his film about the wrongful conviction of a prisoner named Colin Warner.

Paul Rudd looks super duper dapper at the premiere of Nerdland. An anim Nerdland+Premiere+2016+Tribeca+Film+Festival+MhGMd_5M-dKl ated movie (but a dirty one -not kid friendly!) about two best friends, aspiring screenwriter Elliot and wannabe actor John, whose dreams are evaporating as they approach their 30th birthdays. Desperation is lurking, but there’s more than one way to be famous, right? Features the voices of Paul Rudd, Mike Judge, Patton Oswalt, Hannibal Buress. “It’s not a preachy movie at all, but it is kind of

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highlighting the depths that some people go to in order to get famous” says Rudd.

Jason Schwartzman looks much less dapper, and somewhat more homeless attending the premiere of Dreamland, a movie directed by his brother Robert and featuring both himself and his mother Talia Shire. It’s about a loser pianist who get himself into a tumultuous

521220436 May-December romance.

Also adopting the disheveled look: Jon Stewart dropping by the premiere of After Spring, a documentary about the Syrian refugee crisis.

Also, you may remember that Chris Rock was hosting JJ Abrams for probably the talk of the century! Chris Rock kidded him for stealing the JJ nickname from a black man (Jimmy Walker), and for nepotism (Abrams’ father directed some TV movies). “So you had a big advantage,” Rock said directly. “So your dad is in film—what job did you get that you didn’t deserve? There’s got to be one!”

“I wanna say Star Wars,” Abrams deadpanned. Cue laughs – these boys sure know how to play to a crowd! And here’s a little nugget that might surprise you: Abrams’ favourite actor 3000 to work with? Tom Cruise. Actually, Cruise both as a producer for his “hands-on approach” and for his willingness to be directed as an actor. That’s sounds a hell of a lot more humble than I’ve been giving Cruise credit for. Chris Rock also some great questions passed along by his brother Brian, but the one that caught the audience’s attention was this one: “Can you direct the Fantastic Four? They keep fucking it up!” But Abrams just laughed it off. He doesn’t know how serious we are.

Where Talent Blooms: Pt 2

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When people call our nation’s capital a “government town”, they don’t mean it as a compliment. As much as I have loved living in Ottawa for the last ten years, the city has earned a bit of a reputation for being a little too conservative, even boring and uninspiring. Even though Pearl Jam will be playing here next month, I chose instead to travel four hours to see them in Toronto so as not to have my buzz killed by a bunch of Ottawans and their polite applause.

How inspiring it can be when talent blooms in your own city, especially one that is too often written off as unexciting. Not that the entertainment industry is any stranger to Ottawan talent. We have the dubious distinction of being the first to hate Tom Green, who used to try out his bits on unsuspecting citizens before moving to Hollywood. Alanis Morissette and Sandra Oh were born here. Even Tom Cruise went to elementary school in Ottawa for three years. Back in August, we had the pleasure of interviewing a young local filmmaker who has renewed our interest for local talent and strengthened (if that’s even possible) my passion for the medium. Even more than Tom Green.

When we last spoke with Morgana McKenzie, she had just turned 16. She had already written, edited, and directed three award-winning shorts and was in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign for Ellie, her most ambitious project yet, which she was about to start shooting. After our interview, we’d been as impressed by her contagious enthusiasm as we had been by the knack for storytelling and attention to detail that she’d shown in her films.

Ms McKenzie premiered Ellie at a private screening yesterday for friends, family, and donors. As visibly excited as she was to share her latest project with us, she first took the stage to introduce us to eight short films by other local filmmakers to further highlight the exciting things that are happening right here in our own hometown. If you’re interested in reading up on any of the films or filmmakers that she selected to showcase on her big day, I’ve listed them below. For our purposes here, I’ll just sum them up by saying that they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. The weak points of each film, I’m assuming, are a result of the limited experience (in some cases) and resources that are par for the course as independent filmmakers start out. The strengths of each film (and there are many) can only come from a palpable passion and unquestionable creativity that no budgetary constraint could ever suppress.

As for Ellie, Ms. McKenzie is clearly a fast learner and is working for the first time with ACTRA actors and her biggest budget so far. It comes as no surprise then that Ellie is her most impressive film yet. Telling the story of two young people held captive in a mysterious cabin, it’s darker, more mature, and more confident than anything else I’ve seen from her. A stand-out performance from local actor Sebastian Labissiere is also worth noting. If Ms. McKenzie keeps doing what she’s doing with the same eagerness to learn and grow as a filmmaker, I am quite confident that I will be reviewing her movies for years to come.

I am proud to be living in a city where talent is blooming.

For anyone interested, here is a complete list of the short films we saw yesterday.

The Garage– (dir. Patrick White) A young woman discovers that the case of her stolen car in a parking garage may be more complex- and spooky- than she ever could have imagined.

Eyetooth– (dir. Cory Thibert) A creepy stalker is faced with a moral dilemma.

The Canvas– (dir. Adrie Sustar) When faced with some hurtful criticism of her work, a young painter becomes more emotionally invested in her work than ever before.

Ignite– (dir. Lora Bidner) A music video set to original music. Sparks will fly.

The Clean-Up– (dir. Kristian Larieviere) Two former best friends must work together to dispose of a body after a hit gone bad. But can they resolve their differences in time?

Connections– (dir. Nicole Thompson) An incident involving an old lady being pushed to the ground and having her purse stolen is examined from multiple perspectives.

Pieces of You– (dir. Derek Price) A young girl copes with loss through poetic voiceover and beautiful cinematography.

Primary Colours– (dir. Derek Price) A woman’s experience with domestic violence is told directly into the camera with disarming poetry.

We All Go the Same– (dir. Morgana McKenzie) A music video for Radical Face’s We All Go the Same set to images of brutal fairy tale murder.

Ellie– (dir. Morgana McKenzie) Two teens are held captive in a mysterious cabin. One makes a daring attempt to change his situation.

Strange Days

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What do you get when you cross Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett with Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron? A Blade Runner wanna-be that doesn’t get over the hump but is not even close to the worst thing you can find on Netflix, as long as you can get past how dated the movie feels.

Given that Strange Days was co-written by James Cameron, it’s very odd that the
technology central to the movie feels so old-fashioned. Even if the effects don’t hold up, Cameron’s near-future technology usually does, from Terminator to Aliens to the Abyss. Not here. I shuddered every time a character waved around a mini-CD containing a clip of someone’s memories (literally a first-person-view replay of whatever the person experienced). Because I’m so over CDs; I’m a vinyl guy. That means I shuddered a lot while watching Strange Days, because the plot of the movie revolves around those little plastic relics – they’re everywhere!

While it may be silly to criticize a movie set in the year 2000 for using CDs, that sort of logic is not going to stop me even for a second. Any world that has the technology to record and replay memories in the year 2000 must also have invented storage technology that is far better than CDs, right? Who’s with me?

The acting is dated as well – it’s from the silent era. Watching these characters experience other people’s memories is entertaining for all the wrong reasons. The facial expressions, the moaning, the anguish, it’s all way, way, WAY too much. I didn’t need to see those reactions even once but just like the omnipresent CDs, we get at least one shot of each main character overacting when they plug into a SQUID (which, unfortunately, is what the memory recorder and player is called).

In particular, Ralph Fiennes’ off-the-charts overacting and general greasiness in the film makes it surprising that he ever found work again. I think in order to enjoy Fiennes’ catalog from now on, I will have to pretend that the star of Strange Days was actually Bradley Cooper. Which probably won’t be that hard since they may be the same person.

So if you’re a fan of the English Patient, you should probably skip this one. On the other hand, if you are a more a fan of cheeseball 90s sci-fi than cheeseball 90s romances, then Strange Days will be right up your alley.

Strange Days gets a score of five unrealistic Y2K parties out of ten.

The 33

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This seems like a movie that had to be made. The world was captivated in 2010 by the story of Chilean miners trapped deep underground after a mine collapse.

Why then did they hand the job off to an 8th grade script writing class with only a big dictionary of awful movie archetypes at their disposal? I’m sure they earned full marks for using all of them: the new guy and his first day on the job (oh, the irony!), the old guy and his last day on the job (oh, the irony!), the guy who should have been off but begged to work (all together now: oh, the irony!), and most importantly, the evil, greedy boss on whom we can pin all our hatred and frustration.

Inside the mine, it’s as bad as you’d think. 33 miners survive the initial collapse but seem unlikely to survive the wretched, unsafe conditions, or each other’s mounting tensions.

Outside, families are in panic because it’s been days and not a single word has come from the owners or the government. The very same owners who sent men down despite knowing the mountain was moving, the very same who failed to outfit the refuge with any supplies, who didn’t even finish the escape ladder required by law. And a government who knows very well that their 333 country depends on mining as their primary industry. So who really cares for the miners? It took 100 years to drill down as deeply as they have, and they have about a half a can of tuna per man. How quickly can they be reached, and will they be corpses when (and if) they are? The miners are afraid their families will have graves up before they’ve even breathed their last down there.

To cast this motherfucker, Hollywood looked around at anyone with dark hair and eyes. Antonio Banderas is Spanish, Rodrigo Santoro Brazilian, Juliette Binoche French (she replaced Jennifer Lopez, if you can believe it). Lou Diamond Phillipps was born in the Phillippines and is part Cherokee. Oscar Nunez, from TV’s The Office, is Cuban. Kate del Costillo is Mexican. Other 3333 actors are Indian, Columbian, English, American. Actual Chileans are tough to spot but they’re banking on us not knowing, or caring, about the difference.

Is this a good movie? It was too sanitized and trite for me. I understand that the miners, largely Roman Catholic, relied a lot on faith to get them through their ordeal. They also made a pact that what happened in the mine stayed in the mine – none would reveal the understandably dark days, bad thoughts, or low points of anyone else. So the movie is based on what – Jesus and fiction? It didn’t do a lot for me.

It is, however, the last movie scored by James Horner. The score isn’t bad, but it’s as forgettable as the movie, not a great note for a remarkable composer to go out on.