Agent K (Jones) and Agent J (Smith) are at a bit of an impasse in their professional partnership when K refuses to tell J the truth about escaped alien serial killer Boris the Animal (Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement), who wants K dead so his previously extinct race of universe destroying beings can destroy the world. In order to achieve his goal, Boris has to go back in time and…

Well, to tell you the truth, I honestly don’t know what the hell happens because none of it makes a lick of sense. Apparently Boris successfully goes back and kills K causing him to disappear from the present, but leading to an alternate reality where J is the only agent who remembers K’s existence in the present, but he really died in 1969. So, to stop K from dying in the past, J procures the only other time traveling device in the universe to try and kill Boris before K ever crosses paths with him. J fails in his mission and is introduced to young K (Josh Brolin) and teams up with him to track down Boris before he can come into contact with the motormouthed entity Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), who can simultaneously see all of the universes infinite timelines at once and also holds an amulet of some sort that can protect the universe. I can go into further spoilers, but you would probably just get more and more confused once I start adding more specifics.

Every detail outside of the cinematography and production design – both of which are top notch – is as arbitrary as possible. Even the stunning creature design is arbitrary since none of them exist except for the express purpose of getting blown away by the MiBs and turned into a steaming pile of goo. There’s zero tension with anything that transpires on screen because the staff of four writers never bother to develop any sort of characters or coherent story, simply coasting by content that the wacky idea of time travel will whisk away all of the film’s gaping logical and emotional holes.

Here’s the problem with time travel as a plot device: You can be lazy and use the theoretical paradoxes of time travel to explain away the logical problems, but it can’t cover up a complete lack of character motivation and lazy plot structuring. The problems in the present timeline of MiB III are barely addressed by the end and an entire subplot involving new bureau director O (a woefully slumming Emma Thompson) provides the biggest logical fallacy of the film. Well, that and the laughably inappropriate, illogical, and cloyingly “heartwarming” conclusion that nearly caused me to break my 3-D glasses over my knee and walk out.

Well, maybe it’s not exactly a logical fallacy because every character in the film constantly lies to every other character on screen. Possibly. I don’t even know. Maybe I need to go back to school and get my Ph.D. just to figure this thing out. They keep misinforming each other because this is the kind of movie where if just a single character told the truth, there wouldn’t be a movie. Then again, they could have just left it at everyone lying to one another since they wouldn’t have even needed the time travel device in the first place.

Since its flat out impossible to talk about the film’s structure any further without spoiling it (which you shouldn’t see, clearly, but I don’t want to ruin it for you if you’re dead set on going), let’s move onto the other biggest problems with the film, which are the performances almost across the board. Jones can’t be bothered to really care about what’s going on and Smith is only given recycled catch phrases for dialog leading to a complete lack of chemistry between the two of them that makes it look like they never worked together before in. Smith’s natural charisma can’t save this material. Despite a three year absence from the silver screen, even he seems tired here.

Clement is completely wasted in a villainous role that gives him nothing to do except act as a vessel for Rick Baker’s make-up effects. Finally there’s Stuhlbarg, who’s flat out doing the most hamfisted Robin Williams impression ever. Decked out in a woollen hat and winter jacket the entire time, his character proves to be entirely useless and thoroughly annoying to watch because he could at any time end the movie JUST BY FLAT OUT TELLING EVERYONE WHAT TO DO BECAUSE HE KNOWS EVERYTHING THAT WILL EVER HAPPEN AT ANY TIME IN THE UNIVERSE. But no, we just get a weak riff on Mork from Ork because that seems to be the era that Sonnenfeld’s mind seems to be stuck in.

I guess another plus for the film would be Brolin’s spot on impression of Jones, but again, the film doesn’t give him anything even remotely amusing to do with it. Even the gorgeous redesign of the late 1960s goes nowhere because the plot simply cobbles together the first moon mission, the Miracle Mets, jokes about segregation, and the rise of Andy Warhol into an incoherent mishmash of outdated references that were probably stale early in the 70s.

Men in Black III has absolutely no reason to exist, nor should it. Someone should go back in time and either fix this movie from being more complicated than it needed to be or prevent it from ever being made. Or better yet, go back even further and stop the second film from being made. Unless we’re in the alternate timeline where the second film was a good one and the first film was a bad one. Then maybe the Red Sox would’ve never won the World Series and Tommy Lee Jones would have never owed someone a favour or needed to pay someone a large sum of money. But if that happened, then my first cat wouldn’t have run away and my mother would have tipped that waiter at Benihana more than three dollars back in 1982, and then I wouldn’t have been bo………

The Secret World of Arrietty (2010, Hiromasa Yonebayashi) – Although it’s really just another retelling of Mary Norton’s famous children’s story The Borrowers, The Secret World of Arrietty showcases the trademark stunning visuals one comes to expect from Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli. Working from a screenplay by master animator Miyazaki, the film stays true to the story’s original roots despite stumbling slightly late in the film by adding tension and the appearance of a villain somewhat awkwardly.

Young Shawn (voiced by David Henrie) has recently moved to the country to live with his Aunt Jessica and her housekeeper Hara (Carol Burnett). Shawn is there to kill time away from his work obsessed mother before a serious heart operation that he might not live through. In the walls of Jessica’s house live the Clock’s, a family of little people known as “borrowers” who sneak into people’s kitchens at night and take only what they need to survive and keep house. The daughter of the clan, Arrietty (Bridgit Mendler), has just turned 14, meaning she’s old enough to start borrowing on her own. But when she’s spotted by Shawn on her first mission with her father (Will Arnett), it begins a series of events that put the small family in great danger. Shawn, desperate for a friend, looks to Arrietty for someone to talk to, much to the chagrin of Arrietty’s parents.

No dubbing of a Ghibli film will ever be equal to subtitled version of the same film (Amy Poehler seems pretty out of place as Arrietty’s histrionic mother), but here the script holds some of the film’s wonkier elements. While Miyazaki and co-writer Keiko Niwa (and translator/English dialog writer Karey Kirkpatrick) do a great job setting up both the world of Shawn and the background of the Clocks, the film’s pacing seems a bit off. While most adaptations of Norton’s original work make it known that the housekeeper character will turn out to be somewhat villainous, here the story turns almost on a dime and simply turns Hara into someone acting crazy just for the sake of having conflict. It creates a sense of disconnect in the film’s second half that’s a little hard to get past, but forgivable in the light of the film’s other strengths.

The Blu-ray looks phenomenal, bringing out every colour perfectly, and the film offers the viewer to watch the film subtitled with the original DTS-HD Japanese Master Audio, which sounds even crisper than the English language dub. There’s also another version of the film in the special features made entirely from storyboards as the English dub plays along that’s pretty neat for completists to follow along with. There’s also a couple of music videos and the original Japanese trailers, teasers, and TV spots included here. (Andrew Parker)

CONTEST: Enter to win a copy of The Secret World of Arrietty on Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack from Dork Shelf and Walt Disney Home Entertainment! (Ends Wednesday 5/23)

The Grey (2012, Joe Carnahan) - If you had told me ten years ago that Liam Neeson would reinvent himself as a late-career action hero, I would have slapped you in the face and called you Mr. Sillypants (or perhaps a slightly more insulting name). Yet, somehow the actor has pulled it off, stepping into Harrison Ford’s shoes as Hollywood’s go-to grumpy aging action star in over his head. The Grey reunites him with writer/director Joe Carnahan after the duo collaborated on a feature film version of The A-Team that was far better than it had any right to be. This time they are stripped of any ties to a campy 80s TV show and create a rough n tumble survivalist thriller. Despite some occasionally misplaced art film aspirations, The Grey is a thrilling R-rated mid-budget genre flick, the kind of movie that isn’t supposed to be made anymore.

Neeson stars as a damaged man (obviously) who works for an isolated Alaskan oil team. His job is to sit with a sniper rifle and kill any carnivorous wild life that threaten the other workers (in other words, he’s a professional bad ass). The whole gang piles onto an airplane to visit their families and it crashes, leaving them stranded in the artic in the middle of a wolf den, who slowly hunt them down one by one. It’s a classic guy movie survivalist set up executed by filmmakers who clearly love the genre. Neeson and his team of miscreants are all fantastic as they get worn down by the elements and bicker over alpha male status.

For Carnahan, it’s yet another rock solid B-movie following up the likes of Narc and Smokin’ Aces. He directs his team of dude’s dudes well and ratchets up suspense expertly, crafting a number of genuine shocks and thrills (including a spectacular POV plane crash and some surprisingly effective CGI wolves). Unfortunately, as the film wears on he becomes a little too enamored with the existential themes of the story, trying to awkwardly transform a solid genre flick into a thinkpiece with mixed results. Still, all of Carnahan’s efforts have been flawed in some way and The Grey is easily one of his most consistent outings. The guy has it in him to create a fantastic John Carpenter-esque B-movie with a brain and has shown enough signs of improvement over his career to suggest that will happen sooner rather than later. Carnahan is definitely a genre filmmaker to watch and hopefully this isn’t the last time he puts Liam Neeson through the ringer.

The Grey’s Blu-ray is unfortunately a mixed bag. The technical specs are fantastic and there’s no better way to see the movie. However, the special features are a little lacking. The featurettes are clearly promotional viral videos barely clocking in at 3-minutes a piece, while the cast and crew interviews are comprised of awkwardly edited B-roll from those viral clips with embarrassing sound-drops. Considering that those slapped together featurettes suggest someone had a collection of interviews and on set footage from the punishing artic shoot, it’s a mystery why a proper making-of documentary wasn’t cut together. The commentary with Carnahan and his editors is also a disappointment, too often turning into a self-congratulatory back slapping-session that takes the film way to seriously (at one point they call The Grey “a thinly veiled art film” and compare it to The King’s Speech) without offering much in the way of production details. Still, even if the special features disappoint, the film doesn’t. If you miss 80s/90s era of R-rated genre movies aimed at teens and regressed adolescents in age brackets that classify them as “adults,” The Grey is a must see. (Phil Brown)

The Woman in Black (2012, James Watkins) – While in no way a reinvention of the haunted house film, The Woman in Black offers genre fans a tightly crafted and loving throwback to Hammer horror films and sly nods to the works of genre veterans Sam Raimi and Wes Craven. Director Watkins and star Daniel Radcliffe work together to make this slight, but atmospheric chiller into something gripping and exciting.

At first, it might be a little surprising to see just how much Radcliffe has grown up in the role of Arthur Kipps. Radcliffe not only plays an adult here, but a young, widowed father of a young boy. Arthur is an early 1900s legal aide forced by his boss into getting back to work by sending him from London to the coastal countryside to go over the paperwork of an estate currently up for sale. Upon his arrival in the village where he intends to stay, the locals do everything in his power to send Arthur away before he even makes it to the secluded former estate of Alice Drablow. Driven by the desire to provide for his son and to keep his currently tenuous job, Arthur presses on and learns the hard way the tragedy that befell the residents of Marsh House.

Watkins uses his eye for detail to cleverly misdirect the audience at every turn, and Radcliffe makes the most of what’s essentially a one man show, including a wonderful extended sequence where there’s no dialogue and he’s the only person in the house. Things do get a bit amped up for the conclusion (which borrows a bit too much from Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell) as it turns into a pretty standard film, but there’s surely a lot to like here.

The Blu-ray has great sound, amplifying the creaks and groans of Marsh House splendidly, but the picture quality doesn’t really bring out the darker tones of the film as nicely as they looked on screen. There’s a couple of small featurettes that don’t do much, and a commentary track from Watkins and screenwriter Jane Goldman, which is pretty mechanical when talking about filmmaking details, but oddly entertaining and candid to listen to. (Andrew Parker)

INTERVIEW: Check out our interview with star Daniel Radcliffe!

This Means War (2012, McG) – Great news everyone (and by great I mean terrible)! One of the most insufferable films thus far in 2012 is now available in an even longer version for added “value.” The woefully botched and amateurish Spy Vs. Spy styled romantic action caper This Means War isn’t helped by any sort of added content despite a stacked Blu-ray. It’s just as terribly acted and pointless as it was back in February.

The asininely named Tuck (Tom Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine) are two best friend CIA operatives and wetworkers who fall for the same woman, a perky-but-not-exactly-quirky consumer rights advocate named Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) who has been forced into the world of online dating by her married, alcoholic, quirky best friend (Chelsea Handler). Tuck meets Lauren through the dating site and is immediately smitten with her, while FDR meets her by chance in a video store (which I will get back to in a minute) and they have their own “meet cute” flirting session. Lauren doesn’t know that the two men are so close they’re practically brothers/lovers, so she dates the two men concurrently while the animosity between the besties grows to heights that find the men using company resources illegally to spy on and sabotage each other’s dates. Oh, and this all happens while a crazed criminal genius (Til Schweiger) looks for revenge on Tuck for accidentally killing his brother in the film’s opening sequence.

An absolute nadir in the career of the already much derided McG, this film is ugly, incoherent, illogical, and worst of all, lazy to the point where no one on screen seems to care about what’s going on. Witherspoon looks like she just got up from a nap. Hardy seems to be constantly looking around for direction, but at least makes the only effort from the cast. Pine suffers the worst with a performance so bad it nearly erases any good will he’s earned in recent years. Also, please don’t get me started on Chelsea “I only know one joke that I’m going to run into the ground until the day I die” Handler as Lauren’s married friend.

Every sequence is shot like a Honda commercial, with very little inventiveness outside of the occasional production design achievement. The action sequences are edited into incoherence, are relatively bloodless, and hold absolutely no dramatic tension. They are also marred by some of the worst and least convincing CGI outside of an Asylum release, especially in the first of the film’s three(!) endings, which thanks to the wonder of Blu-ray drags out even longer to an unconscionable 107 minutes. (Also in the special features there are 2 MORE alternate endings, serving as further proof that no one here had any clue what they were doing.)

The Blu-ray looks and sound fine, and McG delivers commentary on both the theatrical and extended cuts of the film (with little difference), some deleted scenes and a previz look at an alternate opening. There’s a halfway amusing gag reel that’s funnier than the actual movie, but it’s in no way worth buying just for that. (Andrew Parker)

Red Tails (2012, Anthony Hemmingway) – Corny as an Iowa field and oddly put together, Red Tails feels pretty slapdash despite being one of producer George Lucas’ passion projects. This tale of the formation of the famed all African American fighter pilot squad, The Tuskegee Airmen,  never takes off thanks to some surprisingly cut rate production values, scenery chewing performances (especially from squadron higher-ups played by Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrance Howard), and a script that’s way too overstuffed with needless subplots.

The film starts in 1944 Italy where American pilots are vastly being outclassed and outmanoeuvred by German pilots with better technology and a better idea of their surroundings. In search of a new tactic that could help win the air war, the US government reluctantly begins using the underutilized squad of all African-American fighter pilots in the 332nd fighter squad. The film follows the exploits of a handful of the soldiers into battle after previously only being used for taking out trains and other forms of transportation.

Aside from the stunning dogfights and the massive attention to period detail (except for an insert wide shot of the Pentagon that was clearly shot in modern day), Red Tails has no structure or discipline whatsoever. This film feels unfinished and almost in unreleasable condition. No scenes actually transition between each other with some bleeding over or fading into the next one without rhyme or reason.

The Blu-ray can’t save all of the film’s problems, but it does come together in a nice package. The picture and sound have improved since the theatrical release, but there’s still quite a bit missing on screen. There is, however a pretty great hour long documentary (narrated by Gooding) that chronicles the history of the squad, as well as some great featurettes that show the effects guys at ILM working their tails off. There’s also talks with Hemmingway, Lucas, composer Terrance Blanchard, and the individual cast members. (Andrew Parker)

Starhawk, from LightBox Interactive and Sony Santa Monica, is an ambitious game that combines several genres in an attempt to create a unique experience for gamers. Unfortunately, Starhawk seems content with stuffing its well-crafted and genre-bending gameplay into a very standard — and safe— game with few surprises and little ingenuity in terms of game modes and game types.

Starhawk is part tower defense, part third-person shooter, part vehicle combat game, and part combat flight-sim. The good news is that all of these disparate genres mesh seamlessly together and nothing feels out of place or lacking in detail and focus — the flight mechanics are particularly fun as we were able to perform aerial acrobatics with ease. The major issue with the game is that the ingenious melding of genres simply treads old ground. We found that Starhawk’s unique gameplay can feel underwhelming due to the game’s lackluster singleplayer campaign and its reuse of all the multiplayer staples gamers can find in any major release.

Starhawk’s gameplay revolves around building structures and armaments to defeat waves of enemies. If the player wants a tank, a dune buggy, or a Hawk — the game’s mech/flying vehicle — he/she must build the structure that allows him/her access to those vehicles. However, reducing Starhawk’s gameplay to a mere construction-worker-sim does not do justice to the game.

Once the player builds a structure he/she must also defend that building with turrets, engineering arms — objects that repair damaged buildings and vehicles — and walls. All structures and objects are built with Rift Energy: green orbs that one collects from fallen enemies and barrels scattered throughout a level/map. Players spend Rift Energy to purchase structures and objects. The more powerful the structure/object is the more Rift Energy is needed to purchase it. The give and take nature of spending Rift Energy to create structures/defenses and the need to attack incoming enemies to collect more Rift creates a surprisingly tense and strategic gameplay experience.

At first the build mechanics make the singleplayer campaign feel fresh and inviting, but once the clichéd sci-fi/western action narrative starts hitting every expected beat with every expected character stereotype — including a gravelly voiced protagonist dealing with a dark past — the campaign quickly devolves into a derivative form. As well, the overly dramatic narrative does not quite fit with Starhawk’s cartoony and over-the-top action. In fact, singleplayer feels more like an extended five-hour tutorial to prepare the player for online play than a fully engaging campaign.

Co-op is where the game’s strategic nature shines. Co-op gameplay is essentially a “horde-mode” game type where players must defend a particular area against waves of enemies. Players must work together to survive each wave otherwise they will be quickly overrun by the multitude of enemies trying to destroy everything in site. Building turrets, walls, and vehicles becomes a frantic race as players try to adapt to each new enemy thrown into the mix.

The rest of the multiplayer suite focuses on the classic multiplayer game modes every big title has: deathmatch, capture the flag, and a version of king of hill called Zones. The build and fight mechanics work well in each game mode but we cannot help feel that the game’s mash-up of genres should also include some fresh/new game modes — something to really show how combining genres can create unique experiences. Instead players get a standard set of multiplayer games that only feel slightly different thanks to the build/defend/fight gameplay. That being said, Starhawk certainly outshines most other games when it comes to having dynamic multiplayer maps. Since players are always building new structures every map will have a slightly different layout each time a player respawns, which helps give the multiplayer a bit of extra life.

Throughout our time with Starhawk we were impressed at how well the development team managed to merge all the disparate gameplay elements into every game mode. However, in terms of the game modes, Starhawk seems happy to simply repeat what others have done in the hopes that its build mechanics are enough to keep players interested. Ultimately, the build mechanics add a layer of strategy and dynamism to online battles but we found the game can feel all too similar to what we’ve already experienced in other games.

As the dark title screen of The Samaritan dissolves into grainy focus, we get a point of view shot of some bruised and battered guy with a gun barrel to his forehead begging for his life, seconds away from getting his brains blown out. The scene sets the stage for a very intimate and gritty film that director David Weaver has attempted to make with The Samaritan, but it’s a shame that this neo-noir’s gloomy tension only leaves us high and dry.

The Samaritan follows the story of ex-tough guy Foley (Samuel L. Jackson) who we see released from a 25 year prison stint for a crime we’re initially given little information about. This is good, as Weaver uses Foley’s ominous allusions to his mistakes only to give us a taste of the bitter and corrupted past that precedes the now reformed Foley.  Although Jackson’s role in the film is essential to The Samaritan, it unfortunately only contributes to the film’s lesser success as a ‘hard boiled’ styled thriller, and instead only adds to it’s larger failure as a film of this genre.

We meet Foley as he lies awake in his decrepit jail cell, haunted by memories of his past. It’s watching Foley’s lonely glide through the prison gates amidst other rehabilitated felons in loving embrace with their family members, solitarily drifting off into the lonely horizon that sets Foley apart from the rest. Weaver hits a nerve here and Jackson’s quiet and mysterious demeanour are well acted- for this portion of the film at least. As Foley visits desolate bars and walks empty downtown streets with steam pluming from every subterranean orifice, Weaver’s handle of the traditional ‘hard boiled’ atmosphere here is formidable. Filmed and set entirely in Toronto, it’s really quite interesting to see our typically shiny and sleek metropolis become a dingy Gotham City of sorts and when the nefarious playboy Ethan (Luke Kirby) comes into the picture, it’s clear that we have our Joker.

At first, Ethan is just as cryptic as Foley’s:  he asks Foley to accompany him to his night club, offering him Cocaine and sex with a cracked out, yet somehow beautiful, prostitute Iris (Ruth Negga). Weaver sets this early part of the story up wonderfully as he recreates the essential allure that most noir’s strive on: the absolute uncertainly that we as spectators have about any character’s motives, and the undeniable desire to sort out the pieces to this often deadly puzzle.

All of this sounds pretty good, right? Well the real problem with The Samaritan begins once Foley starts dating heroin addict Iris, I guess as some kind of homage/ alternate reality to one of the grittiest films of all Taxi Driver. Unlike the more or less single note (and towards the end psychotically obsessive) societal cynicism that Martin Scorsese’s Travis Bickle exudes, Foley transitions from the ‘man with a haunted past’ persona to ‘old guy in awkward relationship with young girl’ disposition. This isn’t something I would typically find detracting from a film, but seeing as The Samaritan starts off in such an abrasive manner (we literally feel like we’re holding a gun to the beaten up dude’s head), it’s unbelievable and just weird watching Jackson make out with someone 40 years his junior.

When Foley is manipulated by Ethan’s disturbing revelation of the true nature of Foley and Iris’ relationship, we see Weaver paying homage to one of the most notorious revenge plot films ever made (without giving too much away, its Korean if that helps) with The Samaritan. But when the film radically shifts gears to become a heist picture of sorts, it becomes increasingly obvious that The Samaritan is a confused film.

Running from May 17th to the 27th the Toronto LGBT Film Festival will feature screenings, filmmaker Q&As, panels, installations at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox. With more than 200 films being screened at this year’s fest, Inside Out is literally the biggest and most important event of its kind in Canada.

Among this year’s highlights are Cloudburst (which we reviewed in our Canadian Film Fest piece), Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee Bullhead, and Hot Docs prize winner Call Me Kuchu. As for the rest of the fest, Dork Shelf film writers Phil Brown, and Brandon Bastaldo have taken a look at some of this year’s other Inside Out offerings. Read their reviews below.

Margarita

Directors: Dominique Cardona, Laurie Colbert

Directed by Dominique Cardona and Laurie Colbert, and written by Colbert and Margaret Webb- it’s fair to say that that Margarita certainly has a ladies touch. We’re introduced to Margarita (Nicola Correia Damude), who is a live in house keeper (and so much more) for an upper middle class family.

Margarita is pretty much the super nanny you would die for: she cooks, she cleans, she even repairs the roof and Damude is well cast as this strong and honourable hard working woman. Although Margarita is light fun, the film often finds itself pushing boundaries. An unofficial Canadian citizen, Margartia is threatened by deportation which as a result raises issues about Margarita’s ability to practice her sexual orientation and because of this Margarita is deals with the tough realities this house keeper/ immigrant/ lesbian extraordinaire unique situation affords.

When the financially affluent, but emotionally devoid, couple who used to employ Margarita are forced to take up house hold duties themselves, they come to find that the biggest chore they have neglected is their teen aged daughter Mali (Maya Ritter), who has relied upon Margarita as role model. Shot in Toronto, Margarita is an easy going, yet conscious expose of a queer immigrant’s perspective. (Brandon Bastaldo)

Screens

Saturday, May 19, 7:15pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2

Kiss Me (Kyss Mig)

Director: Alexandra-Therese Keining

More than anything else, Kiss Me proves that even the simplest idea can work when executed with conviction by a group of talented collaborators. The story is deliberately threadbare, Mia (Ruth Vega Fernandez) visits her father—who she hasn’t seen in years—for his engagement party and announces her own engagement to her 7-year boyfriend/business partner. Then, when Mia is unexpectedly left alone on the island estate with her stepmother to-be and future stepsister Frida (Liv Mjones), a sudden and instant attraction develops between the semi-siblings despite the fact that Mia has never openly expressed that side of her sexuality. Rather quickly, the pair fall in love and Mia realizes that she might have to abandon everything she has built and knows in her life for a new relationship.

Pretty basic torn-lovers stuff with a lesbian twist; however, writer/director Alexandra-Therese Keining takes her time to develop the love story between her two leads naturally and sensually. It’s unabashedly romantic and works thanks to two painfully honest performances as well as Keining’s knack for shooting steamy love scenes without ever slipping into softcore. Sure, Mia’s boyfriend has little to do other than devolve into jealous rage, but in a movie landscape where most token female love interests are irritatingly one-note, it’s at least a change of pace. Keining’s script playfully toys with romance clichés and when the chemistry between the leads of this sort of movie is this strong, it’s hard to go wrong. Given the modest ambitions of the project, Kiss Me also can’t be described as anything less than a success. (Phil Brown)

Screens

Friday, May 25, 9:30pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 1

Jobriath A.D.

Director: Kieran Turner

There’s something unexplainable about Kieran Turner’s Jobraith A.D., a docu-bio dedicated to the unsung and tragic praise for Jobriath Salisbury’s glittering genius. Sitting in aged dressing rooms and fore grounded by vanity mirrors, Jobraith A.D. collects the opinions of Los Angeles and New York’s oldest stage performers, family, and friends to tell this peculiar story of a man whose reputation as the gay messiah of the music industry follows 30 years after his death.

Turner delivers a curious surplus of testimony and praise for Jobriath, the first openly gay musician signed to a major record label. But as Jobriath’s sleazy and often incompressible manager Jerry Brandt makes grand claims (saying that Jobriath got more attention than any other artist in the history of the business) the astounding praise for the first true performance artist is at time wacky and Zoolander-esque.

Still, confronted with images and sounds of Salisbury’s raw talent, we cannot deny the flare of this trendsetter whose career stayed in the shadow of glam rock king David Bowie, and suffered because of the sad fact that audiences were not ready to submit to an openly gay man’s charms. Part of Inside Out’s Icon documentary series, Jobriath A.D. is a bedazzled account and celebration of a man whose grand talent and musical genius will leave you haunted. (Brandon Bastaldo)

Screens

Saturday, May 26^th, 4:30pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 1

Avengers vs. X-Men #4

In round four of Avengers vs X-Men, the pursuit of Hope Summers continues with more hero appearances you can shake a stick at. The story picks up in Antarctica as Wolverine catches up with the world’s most sought after mutant, only to find she needs his help to confront her destiny.

The rest of the issue gives readers quite the snapshot of the various X-Men and Avengers fighting across and off the planet. You get a good picture from both sides of the conflict, including a nice hint on what measures the Avengers will take to solve this issue. This is definitely the story that will deliver for those who were complaining about not enough fighting in previous issues. It’s not often you get to see Thor with a look of sheer defeat on his face.

The ending has a typical cliffhanger which will naturally leave readers wanting more and looking forward to the battle to come in the next issue.

Dancer #1.

Retired assassin Alan Fisher finds his past catching up with him in Image’s Dancer #1. The story by Natahan Edmondson sets the tone right away in the first few panels, stating without any dialogue that Fisher’s enemy is playing for keeps. As the story progresses, the former killer flees with a date as the bullets start to fly. His female companion is quickly learning that the man she loves has a deadly hidden past as bodies start falling around them.

Set in Italy, the artist Nic Klein, does a great job with spacious panels giving readers a great sense of location and danger. Much of the issue does not have dialogue and it really adds a sense of tension as the couple flee for their lives. Fisher feels like a rugged older James Bond that still knows how to handle himself and is not afraid to kill again to save his own life. The reactions from his date are just what you would think someone would have if thrown into this kind of situation.

For a debut issue it kicked off quite well. Readers get a taste of how dangerous this ex-assassin can be and an interesting glimpse into what is to come. There are hints about his past, but not too many – you’ll still be hungry for more by the issue’s end.

Peter Berg’s Battleship has been constructed to do nothing more than act as a loud, noisy ass kicker of a movie. Almost nothing like the board game it gets its name from, it’s a tricked out, comically overblown American muscle car of a movie. Sleek, stylish, well-maintained, driven by pretty boys, fun to look at, but possibly annoying and tiresome if you have to stand next to one that spins its wheels for too long. It dispenses with things like “narrative credibility,” “reality,” and “science” within seconds of starting and it never looks back. It’s brazen, brash, and surprisingly far more entertaining than those Michael Bay Transformers films it will get compared to. It won’t stick in the viewer’s mind for very long, but if you’re willing to give in to its “go big or go home” style, you’ll be in for a real empty headed treat.

Lazy layabout Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) has been mooching off his military commander brother Stone (Alexander Skarsgard) for too long when he gets tazed by the police for breaking into a Hawaiian convenience store to steal a frozen chicken burrito for a random hottie in a bar. Fed up with his shenanigans, Stone forces Alex into joining him in the Navy where he’s a chronic screw up on the verge of getting kicked out. He’s also about to marry the girl from the bar (Brooklyn Decker), who just so happens to be the daughter of his commanding officer (Liam Neeson).

While out at sea (embarking from Pearl Harbor, no less) on the “military ballet” that is the RIMPAC naval championships involving navies from around the world (but really just Japan and the U.S.), a real threat arises when an alien threat from a “Goldilocks planet” (meaning not too hot, not too cold, and just the right distance from the sun) named Planet G lands in the ocean thanks to some nearby satellites that can help them take over the Earth or some shit like that. They set up a force-field around themselves, fly around in heavily fortified ships, and lay waste to most of the destroyers in the area, taking numerous lives. It’s up to the previously responsibility averse Alex to rise up and save the day.

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way early before we proceed, because thanks to the participation of Hasbro the Transformers comparisons won’t go away until we talk about them. Unlike the humourless and often icky work of Michael Bay, Berg (The Rundown, Hancock) understands how ridiculous his film is. Sure, there are some obvious surface level comparisons in terms of the film’s plot, creature design, and fawning over the military, but what it’s missing is Bay’s annoyingly right wing political viewpoint, his somewhat racist tendencies, and his sexualizing of female characters. Not once does the film stop to show some “loathsome” peacenik saying that there should be a diplomatic solution getting thrown under the ship, and the female characters are just as wooden and ill-defined as anyone else on the ship. Also the hilariously implausible and conceptually inane final act shows more love for the armed forces than any five seconds of any Bay film.

None of this means that Battleship isn’t overkill, though. The film does showcase its explosions and visual effects better than it does in the trailer, but after a while it becomes almost exhausting to watch no matter how good it looks. The sound design, oddly enough, might be the thing that divides audiences the most. It’s meant to be played as loudly as possible to the point of being deafening. It’s probably as close to a sea battle as most filmgoers are going to get, but there was a whole lot of cringing at the screening I attended from people who simply couldn’t take it. (For the record, I really dug the sound design and its Oscar for that category is probably already in the mail.)

The cast isn’t much of an entity here since there isn’t much room for performance around such constant spectacle, but Berg does know exactly how to use Kitsch as a leading man thanks to their time bonding on TV’s Friday Night Lights. He’s an affable, mercurial dumbass simply there to learn a few lessons and move the plot along. Neeson’s role barely registers above a cameo, but fans of the actor will get a kick out of just how cool he can act when the world is under attack by aliens. Decker and pop star Rihanna are really just there, with the former serving more as a last minute plot saviour and the latter doing what she does best by glowering and looking serious.

It’s quite telling that the scene that most closely resembles the board game would be the dullest in the film, but it’s almost a welcome respite from the film’s almost hyperactive desire to jostle the audience by any means necessary. Thankfully, the film comes devoid of the unrelenting mean streak and self-righteousness that Michael Bay would have brought to such a similarly themed production, but to compensate for that, everything else is as unrelenting as possible, including its almost joyful stupidity. At nearly two and a quarter hours, it’s a bit much, but if you can get behind a film where enormous bombs whiz improbably close to people’s skulls and the film’s greatest scientific mind (played here by, of all people, indie film darling Hamish Linklater) acts like a cross between Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park and Professor Frink from The Simpsons, there’s some enjoyment to be had. Battleship couldn’t be more upfront about what it’s trying to do, and it’s something you’ll either go along with or you should stay away from entirely. While I appreciated how much the film cops to its own stupidity, the final choice is ultimately yours on this one.

So, here’s a strange story and please keep in mind it’s true. Bernie Tiede moved to the East Texas town of Carthage in the 1990s. He took a position as an assistant funeral director and instantly become a beloved talking point of the bored small town with no secrets. He loved his job, painstakingly preparing the corpses, delivering hymns and sermons, consoling widows even weeks after their partner’s death, providing gifts to almost everyone, and generally endearing himself as the nicest man in town. Sure he was a little light in the loafers in a way some Texans don’t appreciate, but he was so kind and giving that it was never really commented on. The big surprise was when he struck up a friendship with 81-year-old Marjorie Nugent, the most loathed bitter old woman in town and also the richest.

At first she didn’t take too kindly to Bernie’s attempts to console her after her husband’s death, but gosh darn it his kind soul wore her down. Soon they were inseparable, attending musicals, taking long vacations overseas, and Bernie even took over her finances. Eventually even his sweet charms weren’t enough to subdue Marjorie’s acidic ways and she started to abuse the poor man and monopolize his time.  Bernie might be the nicest SOB around, but even he’s got his limits and one afternoon he fired four shots into Marjorie’s back with a rifle and killed her. It was nine months before the body was found in a freezer and during that time Bernie and spent of $600,000 of her money helping the community, but murder is muder…well, maybe not in Carthage where there was such local love to Bernie that he actually had to be put on trial elsewhere so that his murder charges weren’t overlooked. Again, I can’t stress this enough: true story.

Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Waking Life, School of Rock) discovered the tale of Bernie the genteel murderer in an issue of Texas Monthly back in 1998 and has spent a decade trying to turn it into a movie, writing the script with the article’s author Skip Hollandsworth. The years of perseverance were worth it because Bernie is easily one of the finest movies ever spun out of Linklater’s relaxed Southern drawl style of filmmaking. Perhaps what’s most surprising is his approach to the movie, both in the darkly/sweetly comedic tone and the use of interviews with actual Carthage residents. It’s almost like an Errol Morris documentary version of the tale (Gates of Heaven comes immediately to mind) spliced with a comedic fictionalization. The affection the actual Carthage residents feel for Bernie is genuine and hearing that spill out of their own eccentric mouths curbs the surreal nature of the bizarre comedic Southern Gothic. The humor that comes out of those people and their world is rather special. This isn’t some sort of sneering or condescending redneck comedy, but a film filled with affection for the Texas community that finds humor in their behavior without judgment. In many ways it calls to mind Jonathan Demme’s brilliant Melvin And Howard, both in the amusing n’ judgment-free view of the community and in the way it defies narrative convention to follow the messy and ever unpredictable structure of life.

Classifying the movie in genre terms is damn near impossible. There’s that odd blur between documentary and reality that complicates things and that’s only the start. It’s consistently funny, but never really constructs conventional jokes or gags like a comedy. It’s a true crime story, yet the crime itself never feels like the climatic focus, instead acting as more of an entry point to these characters and their world. The film is also a star vehicle in a way, but one that doesn’t highlight the central cast’s infamous charms, only their talent. Jack Black stars as Bernie in easily his best performance since, well the last time he worked with Linklater on School of Rock. His arched eyebrows and wailing screams make no appearance, with Black sublimating his natural personality and movie star charisma to disappear into Bernie’s unique, vaguely effeminate Southern charms. Though he still gets laughs out of Bernie’s unique personality, walk, and pants worn at wedgie-inducing heights.

Shirley MacLaine takes on the fiendish role of Marjorie with her lemon-sucking scowl and worn face reveling more than her sparse dialogue. She creates a believable old witch without ever forcing empathy. Some folks are just nasty and MacLaine clearly enjoys reveling in that type. Then there’s Matthew McConaughey as district attorney Danny Buck, who struts around town like a sheriff and is the only person in the community who actually wanted to punish Bernie for murder. It’s a wonderful thing that McConaughey has moved past the shirtless rom-com portion of his career. Now a little more weary and soft around the edges, he’s returned to actually acting. He’s damn good at it too, crafting a man who takes his job a little too seriously and righteously, never more than a few seconds away from some grand pronouncement or theory. He just needs someone willing to listen to him long enough to pick up on his nuggets of wisdom.

Bernie is a unique and strange little movie that will never be a hit, but has a damn good chance on slipping onto its share of top ten lists at the end of the year. Linklater’s deliberately meandering “hang-out” writing/directing style strives to simply observe characters and their world without forcing them into a narrative, which is perfectly suited to this material. If he filmed the story with a more conventional structure, it would be hard to swallow as fact. Played in this more ramshackle structure with deep compassion and understanding for all the characters involved, the film is as fascinating, sweet, unpredictable, and quietly arch as Bernie himself. It’s movie to get lost in and will reward repeating viewings that will undoubtedly reveal more nuances in the characters with every time. One of those rare films that makes viewers feel sad when it’s over, not because the ending is particularly tragic, but because the characters are no longer part of their lives. Days later, I still think about Bernie and even though I’m not normally one to cry out for sequels, I would love to see Black continue the role of the world’s sweetest murderer behind bars (apparently Bernie now leads church groups, sing-alongs, and cooking classes in prison). Don’t be surprised if you feel the same way.

Struggling to find a seat in the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema’s packed auditorium, it wasn’t a total shock that so many people showed up to see Kevin Macdonald’s Bob Marley docu-bio Marley. Like most others in attendance, I’ve grown up in what I like to call the Marley A.D. age: a time when the red, green, and yellow Rastafarian colours have become synonymous with Marley’s status as a cultural icon. I’m speaking about the rebellious, yet deeply soulful essence, which Marley’s music carries; the unique mood which becomes a rite of passage for many young and posthumous fans like me. I’m speaking about the reggae phase (a close cousin of the emotional-teen Beetles obsession) in which blasting Marley’s “We Don’t Need No More Trouble” every morning becomes the norm. Haven’t we all felt the spliff smoking Marley poster was necessity for the christening of a dorm room at some time in our lives?

As I sat in this theatre filled with families, senior citizens, and every ethnicity known to the streets of Toronto, Marley’s legacy had never become more realized to me than at that moment- a feeling I was delighted to see beautifully mirrored in Marley. Weaving through the grassy hills of Jamaica, Macdonald gently sets us down in Bob’s quaint and rural birthplace, the village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish. Giving first hand and utterly authentic information from Bob’s family, friends, teachers, and lovers Macdonald gets unabashedly close and personal to this fallen reggae folk icon and before long Marley bridges the same irreplaceable intimacy that Bob’s music maintains with listeners all over the globe.

Eventually leading us to the poverty stricken slums of Kingston Jamaica, Macdonald bases us in the utter reality of Bob’s earliest beginnings and in doing so the legend of Bob Nesta Marley is comfortably deconstructed showing who Bob really was: an outsider. We learn that Bob, son to an absentee white Royal Marines officer and his native Jamaican mother Cedella Marley- Booker, was an outcast in his own community because of his mixed heritage. Seeing Marley in the vulnerable state which spurned Bob’s great desire to share the message of liberty and love with the world, Macdonald offers a rare position of this fallen legend. Following Bob so closely, we too feel as if we sleep only 4 hours each night, travel on dinghy tour buses, and get paid next to nothing for our work. Marley’s greatest asset is that it allows us to watch Marley’s creative gears turn; to witness the exhausting and unrelenting attitude that is the price of really creating revolution.

Marley includes a lot of rare footage of Bob performing with other Reggae legends like Peter Tosh, and it’s because of candid instances like this that Macdonald is capable of bringing us closer than ever to this spiritual artiste. Above all else that this film explains about Bob’s legacy, Marley is magnificent because it doesn’t simply show what Reggae music did for Bob Marley, but much rather what Bob Marley did for Reggae music. Unfolding the state of Reggae before Bob became involved, Marley  shows the striking and surprising contrasts of Bob’s political, soul and folk fused undertones- his passionate drive towards delivering  the message of an oppressed people. An instructional in Rastafarianism, a tribute to Bob’s life, a portrait of an artist and icon whose image will endure for ever- all these perspectives of Bob’s intricate being are delicately weaved together by Macdonald and are precisely the reason why Marely is hands down the documentary experience of the year.

If surprise is crucial to humour, then I fear that Cohen’s brand of shock-comedy may have an even shorter shelf life than most. Following the mixed-to-hostile reception that greeted Bruno, The Dictator feels like a retreat to the comfort zone. President Aladeen (Cohen) is allegedly the dictator of the fictional North African nation of Wadiya, but his braying voice, his vaguely Middle Eastern ethnicity, and his racism, anti-Semitism, and misogyny (to a pregnant female character: “Will you be having a boy, or an abortion?”) may give you flashbacks of a certain reporter from Kazakhstan. This time, the action is entirely scripted; Cohen can’t really be expected to maintain the Candid Camera schtick as his fame grows, but given that we’ve seen this kind of humor in the high-wire context of Cohen and Charles’ docu-comedies, The Dictator can’t help feeling a little watered-down.

But that wouldn’t matter if the laughs were there. The deeper problem is that Aladeen is the most repellant character Cohen and Charles have yet given us. Ali G, Borat, and Bruno were not good people, but they were more ignorant than cruel. Aladeen is the first Cohen protagonist who is proudly evil, executing staff members for minor infractions and talking about rape as if it were brunch. When Aladeen arrives in New York to speak at the United Nations, revolutionaries kidnap him, switching him with a double to bring civil rights to Wadiya (they disguise Aladeen by shaving his ludicrous beard, and the audience is startled by a rare appearance of Sacha Baron Cohen’s unadorned face). Aladeen is rescued by Zoey (Anna Faris), a vegan/feminist/environmentalist grocery store owner who mistakes him for a freedom fighter, and when Aladeen tours her store, he punctures the PC atmosphere with a torrent of verbal abuse: a black employee is “a sub-Saharan,” a woman with amputated hands is “Captain Hook,” and so on.

The Dictator has a lot of scenes like that, where the laughs curdle and die from the sheer unpleasantness of the material. We’ve come to expect taboo-busting comedy from Cohen and Charles, but this time there is little meaning except to simply pick at taboos. Consider a contrived scene where Aladeen has to deliver a baby on the grocery store floor: the gags are predictably gross (up to and including a POV shot from a body part not known for its POV shots) but also arbitrary, as if Cohen and Charles felt the need to push the envelope and so landed on a scenario that involved a vagina and a newborn. Cohen and Charles sometimes succeed in shocking us, like when Aladeen goes on an extended riff about the time he raped a group of 14-year-old boys, but there is no satirical point to redeem the ugliness of the comedy. All Cohen and Charles tell us is that we’re easily shocked by child rape.

What The Dictator lacks is a reason for its offenses. Borat said that America was little more advanced than the xenophobic Kazakhstani, and the admittedly scattershot Bruno was at least a full-frontal assault on America’s sexual hang-ups. The Dictator only starts to cook in its last ten minutes, when Aladeen delivers a speech about the joys of oppressive dictatorship – a system in which 1% of the country controls the wealth, elections are rigged, one man and his family controls the media, and uses fear to turn the populace against its own best interests. The notion that Wadiya’s dictatorship is as free as America’s democracy is the kind of ballsy idea worthy of Cohen and Charles; had it been the thesis instead of a throwaway gag, The Dictator might not have been a big-budget summer comedy, but it would have been something.

What we’re left with is the niggling question of why Cohen and Charles wanted to make this movie in the first place. In Borat and Bruno, the grossness of their cultural stereotypes was often redeemed by the potency of their satire and the audaciousness of their approach. For most of The Dictator, they’re content to stick with the culture-clash shenanigans. Perhaps a tortured argument could be made that Cohen and Charles are using comic excess to demystify evil, a la Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, but I think this gives them too much credit. I don’t think I’m out of line to be offended by a gag in which a black man’s decapitated head is used for fellatio, and I think Cohen’s Jewishness is becoming an increasingly thin defense for his many jokes about the Holocaust and Holocaust denial. I’m also beginning to grow weary of his caricatured depiction of the Middle East. Cohen and Charles are smart filmmakers, but The Dictator makes a good case for all that recent talk of “hipster racism.”

Chronicle (2012, Josh Trank) – Quite possibly the most fully realized and surprising first person shot “found footage” film of all time, the superhero(ish) drama Chronicle tells a dark and bold story that feels painfully real and heartbreaking despite its genre trappings. While it’s undeniably excellent, the home viewing experience actually increases the intimacy of the film’s dramatic elements.

The film opens as unflinchingly as possible. Shy and emotionally damaged Seattle teenager Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) has recently bought a video camera to document attacks by his abusive, drunken father and the final days of his mother, who’s in the final stages of terminal cancer. Andrew brings the camera everywhere he goes almost as if it’s a security blanket for him to inoculate himself from the outside world. His only real “friend” is his pseudo-intellectual cousin Matt (Alex Russell), who seemingly thinks everything “cool” is beneath him. One night outside a rave where Andrew nearly gets the crap beaten out of him for accidentally filming some drunken bro’s girlfriend, Matt and the coolest kid in school/future shoe-in for class president Steve (Friday Night Lights’ Michael B. Jordan), force a worried Andrew into using his camera to document a mysterious cavern deep in the woods that houses a giant glowing crystal. After coming in contact with the crystal, the boys begin to develop telekinetic powers allowing them to move and manipulate matter. At first, they strengthen their powers with an escalating series of silly dares and childish pranks (as teenagers are naturally wont to do even without superpowers), but when the more mature Andrew begins to question his friends commitment to doing something with these powers, fissures in their close friendship quickly begin to develop leaving Steve and Matt to question Andrew’s very sanity.

First time director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis (son of Blues Brothers director John) create a wonderful “slow burn” with their storytelling abilities, crafting a story that unfolds naturally, growing more unsettling as it goes on. It’s hard not to talk about the joys of the plotting and pacing without spoiling it, but it’s not hard to say that this film looks phenomenal, utilizing the fact that everyone has a camera nowadays making for an “as it happens” sense of immediacy to a story that could’ve very easily failed in lesser hands.

The Blu-ray/DVD/Digital combo pack includes the Director’s Cut of the film, that’s not necessarily darker in tone, but adds a couple of nice character notes missing from the theatrical release. There’s also a deleted scene that doesn’t change very much and some interesting pre-production camera tests and storyboards. (Andrew Parker)

Albert Nobbs (2011, Rodrigo Garcia) – Featuring some great performances and a mostly inspired story, Albert Nobbs still manages to be a bit of a letdown thanks to some wonky plotting and awkward pacing. Still, this awards season notable from last year featuring Glenn Close playing a closeted woman moonlighting as a 19^th century male butler works better on the small screen than it did in theatres thanks to its Masterpiece Theatre styled compression.

Squirreling away all of her earnings under the floorboards of her room in the Irish hotel she’s been working at under an assumed identity for years, Nobbs finds her life thrown into flux by the arrival of a painter (Janet McTeer) harbouring the same secrets she does. After learning that she might be able to be happy by being herself, Nobbs finds herself emotionally pushed and pulled after being undercover for so long that she’s possibly forgotten how to be a woman.

Close gives a commanding performance in a role that she played on stage back in the early 80s, but she’s a bit too old for the part as its written. McTeer is the real live wire here, and positively revelatory as a woman completely comfortable with her lot in life, but wary of those around her. Unfortunately, as Nobbs starts opening up, the story collapses inward on itself, glossing over some pretty major plot points in passing including the introduction of a villainous subplot that comes across as being too half baked to make a real impact. But at home, it’s also easier to appreciate some nice supporting performances from Mia Wasikowska (as the maid Albert secretly pines for) and Brendan Gleeson as the kindly in house doctor.

The DVD contains no special features, but it looks and sounds nice. (Andrew Parker)

Rampart (2011, Oren Moverman) – Despite being the mind behind the brilliant L.A. Confidential, writer James Ellroy’s work rarely transitions well to the big screen. Much like graphic novelist Frank Miller, Ellroy needs a director who can temper his sometimes unnecessarily over the top and formulaic material into a watchable package. With Ellroy’s latest outing Rampart, director Oren Moverman show’s that he’s simply not up to the challenge leading to film that feels wholly indistinguishable from the author’s past big screen outings about dirty Los Angeles cops.

The year is 1999 and Woody Harrelson stars as police detective David Brown, a man feared by outsiders and police administrators and respected greatly by a lot of his fellow officers. Naturally, like most main characters in an Ellroy film, Brown is a bigoted, boozy, womanizing mess of a man with an innate sense of personal justice who deplores violence against women despite constantly using them as objects. Working out of the already disgraced Rampart division of the LAPD, Brown becomes a scapegoat for greater corruption following his disturbing beating of a man trying to flee the scene of a car accident. At the end of his rope and down on his luck, an increasingly desperate Brown finds himself tangentially involved in the robbery of an underground poker game that he intended to hit himself to pay for his legal defences.

Despite a big name cast of heavy hitters in leading and supporting roles where all of them except for Ned Beatty (as a Great Gazoo-like cop turned informant that just pops up when needed by the story) give good performances, there’s nothing very new going on here. A maddeningly muddled final third and a bizarrely abrupt left field ending also doesn’t do the material any favours. If you’ve seen previous Ellroy adaptations like Dark Blue, Street Kings, or Cop, you know the entire story already.

The Blu-ray has a somewhat muddied picture quality during the film’s numerous bleached-out sequences, but the sound mix is clear. Special features include a commentary from Moverman that does explain some of the film’s shortcomings quite well, and a behind the scenes featurette. (Andrew Parker)

Hell on Wheels, Season One (2011-12, Joe & Tony Gayton, creators) – Using the backdrop of the U.S. Westward Expansion just after the ending of the Civil War, Joe and Tony Gayton’s tale of personal revenge and rampant greed has become one of television’s most addictive new series. Airing on AMC and shot in Calgary, the scope and vision of this series is stunning, and the scripts for individual episodes of the first season pull very few punches with gutsy performances to match.

Former rebel soldier Cullen Bohannan (Anson Mount) joins up with the building of the real transcontinental railroad with the express purpose of using it to track down the Union soldiers that murdered his wife and child. His journey will bring him into contact with the real life, ruthless railroad tycoon Thomas Durant (Colm Meaney), local Indian tribes who see the railroad ending life as they know it, various hustlers, freed slaves working on the cheap) (including rapper Common playing a mixed race worker who slowly starts to understand Cullen), and an assortment of hustlers and thieves aboard the titular project where people die or get murdered on a daily basis.

The Gayton’s attention to period detail raise the series to something on par with the beloved Deadwood in terms of demystifying American History. As Cullen, Mount crafts one of the most endearing anti-heroes in recent memory, and Meaney stands as one of the greatest villains. Sharp writing and impressive production design (which really can’t be cheap) elevates the show to a level of artistic integrity that few shows today outside of Mad Men can match.

The 3-disc DVD includes all ten episodes of the first season and almost two hours of special features, including character bios, a look at the show’s history, a three minute look at an intense train crash from episode nine and how they pulled it off on a meagre budget, and about 30 minutes of raw behind the scenes footage. (Andrew Parker)

Hard Core Logo 2 (2011, Bruce McDonald) – Hard Core Logo 2 may feature a title that promises franchise continuity, but that’s pretty well where the similarities between this sequel and the original end. Both are rock-mock-docs with McDonald playing a fictionalized version of himself, but while the original movie was a seriocomic slice of the punk lifestyle, the sequel is more of a meta comedy about documentary ethics. Though fans of the original needn’t worry about this sequel topping what came before, taken on its own terms Hard Core Logo 2 is still an interesting little movie. It’s never destined to become another Canuck cult classic, but it is one of the better projects that McDonald has cranked out over the last few years.

The sequel opens with McDonald recalling the death of Joe Dick, the hardcore punk front man who shot himself in the head in the closing moments of the first film (sorry for the spoiler, but it’s kind of crucial to discuss this movie). This fictionalized version of McDonald always felt somewhat guilty that the movie ended with a friend’s death, but he’s been more than compensated by the film industry success that came along with it. He’s now living in Los Angeles making a fortune directing a biblical Western series Pilgrim that’s often referred to as “the Christian Kung Fu.” Unfortunately, his success suddenly disappears when the star of the show is caught with an underage prostitute in Thailand and the religious financers pull the plug. Around the same time, Die Mannequin’s Care Failure (playing herself) contacts Bruce claming to be possessed by Joe Dick and the director with nothing else on his plate heads out to film her recording a new album with a Wiccan cinematographer. Once he gets there, he doesn’t buy the whole possession thing, but he is surprised to see Logo 1 side character Bucky Haight (Julian Richlings) producing the album. Bruce decides to force a documentary out of the situation regardless, abusing his subjects while going a we bit crazy.

The story’s about as far away from Hard Core Logo as possible. None of the main characters from the first film actually make an appearance outside of archival footage from the first movie. Only McDonald and Richlings directly connect the film and it’s a bit odd that they chose to go with the numerical title given how thin the connective tissue really is. Yes, there are musical montages and scenes of characters getting shitfaced on whatever substance they can find, but gone is the awkward comradely and broken family relationships between bandmates that defined the first movie. Instead we’ve got a collection of bitter characters who all seem to hate each other (particularly Bruce) bumping heads and screaming at the director for fostering negativity for the sake his movie, much like he did to kill Joe Dick.

If you can get past how different Hard Core Logo 2 is from its predecessor, there’s actually quite a bit to enjoy. McDonald is pretty strong and entertaining as an asshole version of himself in the lead role, playing a selfish filmmaker with glee. Failure does more vamping for the camera more than acting, but that works well enough for her limited role and Richings is always a compelling screen presence, especially as this vindictive, creepy punk god. Though filled with way too much voiceover from the director that becomes very irritating very quickly, McDonald has an interesting little comedy yarn to spin about a documentary filmmaker spiraling out of control. What seems to be the plot in the movie (the Joe Dick possession thing) quickly vanishes into the background and the subject becomes McDonald alienating his collaborators while creating an intrusive, abusive documentary. Like a Charlie Kaufman flick, the movie is about its own making and it can be quite funny to watch this cracked version of McDonald burning his few remaining bridges. There was an abusive filmmaker/subject relationship in the original film that this sequel brings to the forefront and ties them together, it’s just too bad that this sequel came first rather than something about the actual bandmates (apparently that was supposed to be Trigger before scheduinge conflicts lead to cross-gender recasting).

Now, there is a pretty big problem in Hard Core Logo 2 that almost derails it. McDonald perhaps has a little too much fun delving into self-conscious filmmaking and disappears up his own ass just a little bit just before the credits role. The self-conscious filmmaking games become more and more excessive as the movie goes on and the comedy also starts to drain away. By the time the movie reaches a ludicrous afterlife finale, McDonald has completely gone off the rails. This sequel was never destined to be a classic, but with that ending it’s am interestingly flawed work at best. That’s real a shame because the director had plenty of clever ideas, scenes, and characters in play before the movie got away from him. Still, it’s at least an intriguing and entertaining effort from one of Canada’s most productive filmmakers. Compared to the tossed off The Movie Is Broken, it’s quite a strong Bruce McDonald joint, if not nearly as satisfying as Trigger. If you enjoy the director and the original film, it’s something definitely worth seeing with lowered expectations. Despite what the title suggests, this ain’t no Hard Core Logo, but it’s at least an interesting little flick with its own flawed oddball approach to the mock-rock-doc subgenre.  (Phil Brown)

Wrestlemania XXVIII (2012) – Look guys, I just spent the past month pretty much looking at documentaries non-stop, and I needed something to blow off steam. Having missed it when it actually aired and being a not so closeted wrestling fan, I finally caught up to the latest edition of WWE’s Wrestlemania on Blu-ray. I watched this while eating a shitload of tacos I made at home to unlearn pretty much everything I had beaten into my brain for a month straight. I regret nothing, both in terms of watching most of those documentaries or watching this Pay-Per-View in HD over a full month after it happened. Also, as one of the best Wrestlemanias of the past decade or so, it’s pretty much rekindled my love of “sports entertainment.”

Headlined by the return of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to the squared circle to face the equally beloved and hated John Cena in a surprisingly great match considering Cena’s limited in-ring presence and Rock’s time away, the card is stolen away, however, by a heavily hyped “Hell in a Cell” match between Triple H and The Undertaker (with Shawn Michaels as guest referee) and a WWE title match between CM Punk and Chris Jericho, seemingly for the right to call themselves the best in the world at what they do.

The rest of the card has some mixed results with a five on five tag match to determine the control of the company and the opening World Heavyweight Title match (between the usually reliable Daniel Bryan and Sheamus) getting the shortest ends of the stick, but those three are so classic that it elevates the entire package.

The Blu-ray includes looks back at the development of the Triple H/Undertaker, Cena/Rock, and Punk/Jericho rivalries for people like myself who had absolutely no free time the past several months. There’s also a second disc featuring the annual WWE Hall of Fame ceremony where Ron Simmons, Mil Mascaras, The Four Horsemen (including Ric Flair for a second time), Mike Tyson, and Edge get inducted. It’s cool to see here, because this is the unedited 3 hour version of the ceremony instead of what aired on television, and the stories and speeches are more satisfying for fans than what makes it to air. Except in the case of Mike Tyson, but his batshit crazy speech almost justifies the purchase of the Blu-ray entirely. (Andrew Parker)

Great Expectations (2011, TV, Brian Kirk) – If high culture is more your style and you can’t get enough Dickens adaptations, this 3 hour miniseries from the BBC and PBS’ Masterpiece Theatre will hold literary fans over until later this year when Mike Newell drops his retelling of the same story.

Compressed mainly to focus on the love story aspect of the orphaned Pip’s relationship to the more well to do orphan Estella and how her caretaker Miss Havisham isn’t having any of it, this production more closely resembles the modernized Ethan Hawke starring effort from 1997, but it’s helped along by some great lead performances from Douglas Booth (as Pip), Gillian Anderson (as Miss Havisham), and Ray Winstone (as the escaped convict Abel). It’s not the best telling of the story and it never really justifies existing since everything is so truncated, but it’s still a game effort on the production side of things.

The Blu-ray contains no special features. (Andrew Parker)

The Devil Inside (2012, William Brent Bell) - KILL IT WITH FUCKING FIRE. (Andrew Parker)

Also out this week: One for the Money

La Haine (1995, Mathieu Kassovitz) – Last year, when space invaders-come-to-the-ghetto comedy Attack the Block was released it was a delightful surprise to finally see a sci-fi take on the hood film.  Attack the Block achieved such a good balance of so many genres because director/ writer Joe Cornish showed that it’s somehow kind of funny  when adrenaline courses through your body because you have a knife held up to your gut. Whether watching the constantly hoodied Moses (John Boyega) and his crew of adolescent goof ball cronies roam through the high browed streets of Kennington, looking for a helpless girl to mug, stomping out aliens like they were rival gang members, or being chased down by drug lords- Attack the Block is the entertaining genre concoction that it is because its chief concern is the portrayal of youth culture. Still, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen young punks wander streets where they don’t belong. Showing at TIFF’s Next Wave Festival, Mathieu Kassovitz’ La Haine is the best example of the where this well crafted medley of hood politics, social issues, and beauty got its start, and is a must see.

In Attack the Block, Moses and his boys navigate maze-like apartment complexes, smoke weed with dopey drug dealers (Nick Frost was perfect here), and talk about FIFA and girls. Partially carried on the back of its young actors’ excellent performances, Attack the Block’s innovative representation of the hood is only replicating a mould that was etched in stone 15 years earlier with the release La Haine. Opening with eerie, grainy black and white footage we hear a young man scream at a line of stiff riot officers: “Murderers, easy for you to gun us down, all we got is rocks!”. Directed by, and briefly starring, Mathieu Kassovitz, La Haine tells the story of 3 young men:  Vinz (Vincent Cassel) the Jewish b-boy wannabe fuelled by an intense hatred for the police, Hubert (Hubert Kounde) the Afro-French aspiring boxer and occasional drug dealer, and the Meghrebin tuff guy- clown Said Tagmaoui. After a riot breaks out in their housing project, Kassovitz does his best to show the tense conditions between the police and the youths living in impoverished housing. But when Vinz gets his hands on a riot officer’s lost pistol, Vinz, Hubert, and Said each find themselves struggling to figure out where to draw the line between right and wrong in the angry and chaotic world that surrounds them.

Kassovitz gives us a raw portrayal of the essence of the street: kids gathered on roof tops cooking hot dogs and smoking joints, break dancing in project hall ways, we even see Hubert playfully bounce a syringe between his shoes. However, the ethereal and candid nature of hood life that Kassovitz’ gives us access to is ephemeral, as Said and his friends are harassed by the police more times than I can count- and all before 5:00 (a sharp detail that is a result of Kassovitz’ brilliant ‘real time’ aspect to the film). When DJ Cut Killer turns his enormous speakers to face the project court yard and warms up his turn tables, Kassovizt’s also gets ready to broadcast his message loud and clear. Here we see the Chimera like essence of the hood: the beat and rhythm of the street literally being sweetly broadcasted over the entire neighbourhood, while all of the project’s inhabitants carry out their actions- for better or for worse. As Cut Killer’s “Nique La Police” (Fuck the Police) blares over the entire hood, La Haine  situates itself a formidable symphony of the street, effortlessly blending issues of police brutality, the futile nature of hate, and the beauty that strives in even the dirtiest and uncared for corners of our societies.

As a scrawny custy stands in wait for the elevator on his way the weed grow op in Attack the Block, hearing KRS-One’s “Sound of Da Police” (sample material for Cut Killer’s mix in La Haine) blare over his headphones, we’re reminded that the problems youths faced nearly 15 years ago still team the streets of rich upper class neighbourhoods today, whether we’d like to acknowledge the existence of these packs of bandanna clad teens or not. It has been films and stories like La Haine (based on real events from Kassovitz’ life) that are so integral to the expression of youth culture.

The film makes its way to Criterion Collection Blu-ray this week with a vastly improved sound mix and sharp picture quality, but the special features here are carried over from the original two disc set from several years ago, but that doesn’t make it any less of an invaluable addition to any collection. To see it on the big screen as part of the TIFF Next Wave Film Festival this weekend, head on down to the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto on Saturday, May 12^th at 12:30pm. (Brandon Bastaldo)

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Joe Dante, 1990) – Gremlins 2 is what happens when you give Joe Dante complete creative control over a movie. It’s like a Zucker Brothers parody of the original film (which makes sense given that Dante worked with them on Police Squad) crossed with the gentle anarchistic insanity of a Chuck Jones Warner Brothers cartoon (who resurrected Bugs n’ Daffy to introduce the movie and goof on the closing credits).  That tongue-in-cheek, self-mocking tone can be found in all of the director’s genre outings from the 70s through the 90s like Piranha, The Howling, Gremlins, and the deeply underrated The ‘burbs, but those were all gigs that Dante took for hire and flavored around the edges. Gremlins 2 was the only time Dante was in charge of a film from start to finish, filling the screen with enough pop culture references and self-conscious gags to make the Simpsons writing room jealous. The wacky results may have killed off the franchise, but over time the film has earned a cult following amongst Dante fanatics who prefer the hellzapoppin sequel to the iconic original (itself a sly mockery of Spielberg suburban fantasy).

The film moves the little bastard monsters from small town Americana to New York City where Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates now work in a massive skyscraper that serves as a TV studio/mall/science laboratory for an eccentric billionaire. Rather quickly, Gizmo shows up and sheds some Mogwai brethren who then transform into (wait for it) gremlins. It’s all very silly and willfully nonsensical. Dante’s longtime B-movie muse Dick Miller returns after clearly dying the first go round simply because he’s too funny to cut, while Christopher Lee pops up as a mad scientist (obviously) whose special potions allow Gremlins to fly, speak, turn into electricity, grow spider legs, adopt ladyparts, etc. Basically, if Dante came up with an amusing scene, he was able cast it with a cult actor, assign Rick Baker make to an incredible puppet, and throw it at the screen without any studio interference. The result is a truly bizarre comedy mocking everything from Leonard Maltin to late night monster movie shows, yuppie capitalism, the idea of sequels, 80s action movies, and the original Gremlins. It’s got to be one of the most subversive blockbusters ever financed by a major studio and it’s a miracle Dante was able to pull it off even if his unfiltered creative juices catered to a smaller crowd than Warner Brothers hoped for. I mean, how could not love a movie that deliberately stops so that it can appear that the gremlins have taken over the projection booth? That’s not cookie cutter franchise stuff, that’s the result of an eccentric filmmaker getting Hollywood to flip the bill for whatever the hell he wanted.

Warner Brother’s Gremlins 2 Blu-ray features a nice transfer that’s a little inconsistent in outdoor scenes, but shines where it counts. Every studio-bound gremlin sequence pops off the screen with Dante’s bright color schemes and Baker’s incredible puppet designs never looking better. It’s a slick movie well worth the HD upgrade, which is a good thing because there’s a big fat donut of new special features on the disc. An amusing audio commentary, a stack of deleted scenes (including the VHS-specific Gremlins take over), and a vintage making-of doc are carried over from the DVD and all are great features, it’s just a bummer that nothing new was produced. Ah well, at least we finally got Gremlins 2 on Blu-ray and didn’t have to suffer through a crappy CGI Gremlins reboot to justify the release. (Phil Brown)

Men in Black (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1997) – Back when Men in Black first came in out in 1997, the world was a very different place. Will Smith was still the Fresh Prince, Tommy Lee Jones was considered as humorless onscreen as he is offscreen, and Barry Sonnenfeld was still known as the Coen Brothers’ former cinematographer who had shown some comedy directing promise in Get Shorty and The Adams Family movies. Oh how times have changed. Now that Sonnenfeld has soiled his name as a Wild Wild West trash merchant and Smith considers himself a serious actor determined to make his kids celebrities, it’s all too easy to forget what a pleasant surprise Men In Black was (Tommy Lee’s still the same, constantly battling it out with Harrison Ford for the title of Hollywood’s favorite grumpy old man). Very few movies have managed to pull off the balance between special effects, action, and comedy so well. It’s goofy blockbuster bliss that still holds despite the terrible sequel(s?).

The main reason for Men In Black’s success is the ingenious combination of vintage Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Smith is far better at cracking one-liners and recording tie-in music videos than attempting stoic Oscar bait. Pair him up with a never crankier Tommy Lee Jones and you’ve got a classic buddy cop comedy duo (kind of like 48 Hrs. only with racism replaced by a shit ton of aliens). Sonnefeld directs with a gently surreal comedy touch that he used to be able to execute with ease, gleefully mixing eccentric performances from the likes of Rip Torn, David Cross, and Vincent D’Onofrio (in one of the most physically uncomfortable performances of all time as a giant cockroach crammed into a rotting mansuit) with some of the finest special effects $100 million could by in the 90s, via ILM and Rick Baker. It also doesn’t hurt that Ed Solomon’s script used special effects to serve the narrative and not the other way around. This brand of goofy entertainment seems easy when executed so well, but is actually incredibly difficult to get right. You need only look at MIB II to see how easily things can go wrong.

This shiny new Blu-ray offers fresh packaging to put on shelves in time for the threequel and nothing more. The disc is identical to the one Sony put out in 2008 and the special features date all the way back to 2000, including the camp-tacular music video that only gets more hilarious with age. Fortunately, the transfer is about as good as it gets (Sony did invent the Blu-ray after all) and the special features are all strong, if dated. HD might show off the limits of 90s CGI, but Sonnefeld’s cartoon exaggeration of everything onscreen helps and Baker’s rubber aliens haven’t aged a day. The film remains solid goofball entertainment and a quick spin of the disc will make you a fan again. It’s almost enough to make me excited for the written-in-production MIB III that’s on the way. “Almost” is the key word though, that thing needs to be approached with caution. Still, as far as effects-driven comedy/adventures go, Men in Black belongs on a shortlist with Ghostbusters as genre classic.  I don’t say that lightly, well aware of the message board hate that may come my way. (Phil Brown)

About a Boy (2002 Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz) – About a Boy really shouldn’t work. Quite apart from the gag-inducing potential of the premise, it’s an adaptation of a subtle comedy by the distinctly British Nick Hornby executed by the American writing/directing duo Chris and Paul Weisz, the guys who made Jason Biggs fuck a pie. The movie has disaster written all over it and yet, miraculously, it’s an incredibly charming comedy with just enough emotional weight to avoid being frivolous. Even a decade after its release, the movie holds up as a far more mature version of the manchild comedy subgenre that’s gotten increasingly popular in recent years. The Weisz brothers have never been this good again (only High Fidelity does Hornby better) and the movie actually makes a case for Hugh Grant being a decent actor rather than merely a befuddlement specialist.

Grant stars as Will, a perpetually unemployed bachelor living off the royalties for a Christmas song his father wrote decades ago and faking having a 2-year-old to date single mothers who are easily emotionally manipulated. A date with his latest prospect introduces him to the introverted eccentric 12-year-old Marcus (Nicholas Hoult aka Beast from X-men: First Class) and while dropping him off, Will inadvertently stumbles on the boy’s hippy depressive mother (the always excellent Toni Collette) trying to commit suicide. The bored Marcus starts following Will, discovers he doesn’t have a kid, and blackmails him into a friendship. You can probably guess where things go from there: the child and manchild come of age together.

It all sounds sickly sweet, but works because the presentation isn’t that way at all. Grant is an unapologetic asshole throughout. His heart may grow, but not enough overcome his narcissism and he’s bearable only through Grant’s natural charm. Marcus is an equally unsentimental troubled kid, world-weary, bright, and thankfully never Culkin cute. The Weisz brothers structure the story with duo narrations from the two boys that retain Hornby’s uncensored inner voice and shot their movie in crisply framed, roving scope compositions. The slick, lightly mischievous, and clever film was enough to get the siblings out of the mainstream Hollywood comedy ghetto, but sadly none of the dramatic projects they’ve directed separately since like A Better Life or Being Flynn have been nearly as resonant. Hopefully they’ll stop taking themselves so seriously and embrace this brand of character comedy again, because they’ve clearly got a knack for it even if they are determined to avoid it.

Universal’s Blu-ray is certainly a technical upgrade over the aging DVD, however character based comedies aren’t exactly the best way to test out the limits of your home theater. The special features are ported over entirely from the DVD, offering a quite amusing self-depreciated commentary from the Weisz brothers, a useless EPK doc, a music video, and an English slang dictionary just in case you can’t figure out what “tosser” means on your own (hint: it’s not a compliment). (Phil Brown)

Les Boys II (1998, Louis Saia) – Before Canada reignited their passion for big screen hockey with this year’s smash hit Goon, Quebecois audiences were flocking to a series of films from the late 90s to the early ‘naughts about a rag tag group of everymen from small towns banding together as a hockey club. Low key and more of a character study than the more plot driven first entry (which earned a then unheard of $6 million in North America) and more satisfying than the two films that follow it (and the multi-year television series), this ensemble comedy follows the titular team as they head to France for a tournament following the death of one of their own and the lessons they learn to bring back home with them.

While the filmmaking suggests an early 1980s television movie and the two hour running time doesn’t do the film any huge favours in the padding department, the interplay between these characters feel real and unforced, helped by great performances from a much younger looking Patrick Huard and series stalwart Remy Girard. It’s a decent enough way to kill a Saturday or Sunday afternoon if you’re feeling nostalgic or you want to throw back a couple of brew while watching some hosers play hockey.

The Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack preserves the old time colours and updates the sound mix to 5.1. The special features are pretty scant save for a look at a 1999 promotional tour, a look at the team, and the theatrical trailer, but none of them are subtitled in English, so unless you speak French, you’re pretty much out of luck. (Andrew Parker)