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Movies & TV

Film Friday: A Most Wanted Man, Alive Inside, The Privileged and more

A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn) plays out John le Carré’s tangled tale of surveillance and counter-intelligence with elegance and grace. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman in a final, masterful lead performance as Günther Bachmann, a Hamburg intelligence officer whose job is to monitor persons of interest moving in and out of the country. When Chechen Muslim Issa Karpov (Grigory Dobrygin) enters Hamburg illegally and enlists a civil rights lawyer (Rachel McAdams) to recover a mysterious legacy in a safe-deposit box, Bachmann and his team find themselves in the middle of an international espionage operation. Director Corbijn uses clear visual strategies to show us the hows, wheres and whys of the story even before we understand what’s really at stake. The centre of his movie is Bachmann, watchful and worried and vulnerable and alive. For two hours, Hoffman is with us again, as good as he ever was. Some subtitles. 121 min.

Rating: NNNN (NW)

Opens Jul 25 at Varsity, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.


Alive Inside (Michael Rossato-Bennett) is more of an infomercial than a movie, having been produced for virtually no money and without much in the way of skill. That doesn’t matter, because Rossato-Bennett has found a subject that requires nothing more than pointing and shooting. Social worker Dan Scott gives elderly sufferers of dementia some comfort by playing their favourite songs. His Music And Memory project provides iPods loaded with a given patient’s best-loved tunes, and Rossato-Bennett simply records the results. It’s breathtaking. Catatonic men and women come back to life, connecting with the music (though still, tragically, disconnected from the world around them). Oliver Sacks appears to talk about the theory behind the treatment, but his footage is almost irrelevant the sight of these people reviving says everything much more simply. 73 min.

Rating: NNN (NW)

Opens Jul 25 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. See here for times.


Citizen Koch (Carl Deal, Tia Lessin) is a bit of a bait-and-switch, setting itself up as an exposé of right-wing billionaires Charles and David Koch, brothers who’ve bankrolled aggressive attacks on progressive American politics through astroturf organizations like Americans For Prosperity and the Tea Party. It quickly shifts its focus to the results of their influence, like the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which allows corporations unlimited spending in political campaigns, and the 2012 recall battle in Wisconsin over union-busting Republican governor Scott Walker. Directors Deal and Lessin (Trouble The Water) construct an involving narrative by talking to the citizens whose lives the Kochs are determined to manipulate – working-class people just starting to understand that they’re being swayed to vote against their own interests by campaigns built on bullshit and repression. That’s where the real drama is. 90 min.

Rating: NNN (NW)

Opens Jul 25 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. See here for times.


I Origins (Mike Cahill) finds writer/director Cahill working in a slightly different vein than in his lo-fi debut, Another Earth, but still playing with the idea of peripheral genre storytelling. Michael Pitt plays a research scientist led to the woman of his dreams (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) by a series of apparently random occurrences – and, seven years later, to discover something that threatens everything he holds true. Further details might make I Origins sound very silly, and some viewers won’t be willing to follow Cahill down the road he chooses to take. I was into it, though, held by Pitt’s layered work as a rational man pushing back against the growing evidence that there’s a larger world around him than he understands. (Another Earth’s Brit Marling is invaluable as his hyper-focused lab assistant, particularly in the film’s midsection.) It’s a weird, layered and strangely playful movie. See for yourself. Some subtitles. 113 min.

Rating: NNN (NW)

Opens Jul 25 at Varsity. See here for times.


The Privileged (Leah Walker) is an uninspired psychological thriller which casts Joshua Close (late of the Fargo TV series) as a young lawyer drawn into a power game with his boss (Sam Trammell, from True Blood) at a cottage. Lina Roessler and Laura Harris are their respective partners, though their roles are sadly secondary to the alpha-male posturing. While it’s competently made and gets the most out of its Sudbury locations, there are no surprises whatsoever – which is annoying, given that three writers, including director Walker, are credited with the screenplay. You’d think one of them would have come up with something original. 79 min.

Rating: NN (NW)

Opens Jul 25 at Carlton Cinema. See here for times.


GMO OMG (Jeremy Seifert) is a ludicrous personal documentary in which director Seifert takes some reasonable qualms about genetically modified organisms and uses them as the basis for an endless insufferable selfie. Concerned that omnipresent GMOs might be bad for his children, Seifert takes his family on a whimsical journey of discovery, fitting his moppets with fanciful “GMO glasses” made of pipe cleaners and sponges – because you can’t see GMOs in the food you eat! – and asking experts whether humans might develop superpowers from scientifically altered grains. Oh, and there’s an extended sequence where a woman dances in a field, in slow motion, to Mumford & Sons. This movie made me cringe more than anything else I’ve seen in weeks – and remember, I’ve spent the last month watching Rob Ford. Some subtitles. 84 min.

Rating: N (NW)

Opens Jul 25 at Royal. See here for times.


And So It Goes (Rob Reiner) stars Oscar winners Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton as neighbours who band together when he’s put in charge of a granddaughter he never knew existed. Screened after press time – see review July 25 at nowtoronto.com/movies. 94 min.

Opens Jul 25 at Cineplex Cinemas Empress Walk, Colossus, Eglinton Town Centre, Queensway, Varsity, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.


Henry IV Part 1 – Royal Shakespeare Company Live is a high def broadcast of the Bard’s history play, from Stratford-upon-Avon. 195 min.

Opens Jul 26 at Cineplex Cinemas Empress Walk, Coliseum Scarborough, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.


Hercules (Brett Ratner) stars Dwayne Johnson as the Greek demigod in this mythological actioner, with Ian McShane and John Hurt handling the actorly stuff. Screened after press time – see review July 25 at nowtoronto.com/movies. 98 min.

Opens Jul 25 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, Carlton Cinema, Cineplex Cinemas Empress Walk, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Docks Lakeview Drive-In, Eglinton Town Centre, Grande – Steeles, Queensway, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Yonge, SilverCity Yorkdale, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.


Lucy (Luc Besson) returns director Besson to the classic female-centric stories of La Femme Nikita and The Fifth Element. Scarlett Johansson plays a young woman who finds herself developing spectacular abilities after being dosed with a brain-accelerating chemical. Screened after press time – see review July 25 at nowtoronto.com/movies. 89 min.

Opens Jul 25 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, Carlton Cinema, Cineplex Cinemas Empress Walk, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Eglinton Town Centre, Grande – Steeles, Humber Cinemas, Queensway, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Yonge, SilverCity Yorkdale, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.

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