Boyhood (Richard Linklater) is the best American movie I’ve seen in years – and one of the very best movies about America ever made. Shooting over 12 years to capture the maturation of Texas kid Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from first grade through leaving for college, writer-director Linklater has accomplished something unprecedented: he’s captured what it was to live in that span of time, packing in personal and political details as Mason’s adolescence plays out against the transition from Bush II to Obama. As stunning as it is to watch Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke move from their youthful 30s to their mid-40s as Mason’s parents, it’s even more incredible to watch Coltrane grow from an unformed child into an actor of surprising complexity in the lead. If I see another movie more ambitious, more honest or more illuminating this year, I’ll be shocked. 164 min.
Rating: NNNNN (NW)
Opens Jul 18 at Varsity. See here for times.
Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho) takes a supremely ridiculous premise – 17 years after an attempt to curb global warming freezes the planet, the only life left on Earth is jammed aboard a constantly speeding train where a few dozen people living in steerage plot to overthrow their upper-class masters a dozen cars ahead – and turns it into a gripping, thrilling and utterly credible adventure. Credit director/co-writer Bong, who insists on building real characters and assembling a fantastic cast to play them. This is a movie that doesn’t condescend to its concept. It mixes spectacular action sequences with emotionally brutal scenes in which the heroes are forced to consider the question of whether humanity really deserves to survive a global calamity. And we’re forced to consider that right along with them. As usual with a Bong joint, there’s room for some remarkable acting: in addition to regular co-star Song Kang-ho as an exasperated security expert, Chris Evans is terrific as the reluctant hero, and Tilda Swinton is a constant delight as his nemesis, a pissy martinet who’s modelled herself after Margaret Thatcher but can’t quite get the accent right. Some subtitles. 126 min.
Rating: NNNNN (NW)
Opens Jul 18 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. See here for times.
Planes: Fire & Rescue 3D (Roberts Gannaway) is an economy flight as animated movies go but one that will elicit few complaints. There’s little in the way of bells and whistles in the workmanlike story, characters and visual design, yet the result is a satisfactory kids’ toon that does a fine job of tipping its hat to firefighters. Dusty, the crop duster turned aerial racing champion, can no longer compete due to a faulty gearbox, so he becomes a firefighter at a Yosemite-like national park. There’s something noble in the movie’s treatment of wildfires, the methodical task of controlling them (obviously the most exhilarating scenes) and even in the precautionary safety protocol. The closest thing to a villain here is a park superintendent who disregards the fire code. No, it’s not as exciting as a dragon burning shit up, but it’s a lot more entertaining than your average PSA. 84 min.
Rating: NNN (RS)
Opens Jul 18 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, 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.
Sex Tape (Jake Kasdan) is an okay timewaster with a few big laughs, more small ones and a lot of unfunny time spent on people yelling in panic. After 10 years and two kids, sex is rare and stale for Annie and Jay (Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel). They spice things up by making a sex tape, which somehow gets forwarded to tablets held by a small group of friends, including Annie’s prospective employer (Rob Lowe). Lowe has the best role as a new-agey billionaire with a boundless ego. He sits downstairs, doing coke with the always-funny Diaz while Segel battles a guard dog upstairs. These are the best scenes in the movie but, sadly, they arrive an hour in. The climax doesn’t come soon enough. 96 min.
Rating: NNN (AD)
Opens Jul 18 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, 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, Varsity, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.
Cinemanovels (Terry Miles) stars The Listener’s Lauren Lee Smith as Grace, the daughter of a fictional renowned “existential” filmmaker who is tasked with curating a retrospective after his death. She’s never seen her father’s films but seems to have inherited the malaise that her father’s generation of filmmakers dealt with in their work. Grace has it all – a caring husband, a tidy apartment and supportive friends – but remains detached. She pretends to her husband that she wants a baby when it’s obvious that she’d rather just disappear like Anna in L’Avventura. Smith gives a stellar performance , building a character whose motivation is a mystery but whose emotions are deeply felt. Too bad the film doesn’t really have anywhere to go with such talent. Writer/director Terry Miles deals with complicated feelings and messy relationships in a manner that feels too neat and sedated. 89 min.
Rating: NN (RS)
Opens Jul 18 at Carlton Cinema. See here for times.
The Purge: Anarchy (James DeMonaco) gives us a bland new cast playing everyday folks scrambling to survive the annual event where murder is legal for 12 hours. The characters are forgettable for a reason. We don’t want to get too attached because next year’s Purge needs a new slate of prey. This sequel over-explains the annual murderfest’s supposed intent: to let the rich eradicate the poor while enjoying the delicate art of the machete. The budding franchise is out to prove that it has lofty ambitions by holding a mirror at exactly the right angle to show a stained reflection of America today. However, The Purge: Anarchy exploits its half-baked, insincere critique on class warfare and the second amendment to create a high-minded justification for its real function: to get audiences giddy watching people mutilate each other so blood can wash down the popcorn. 104 min.
Rating: NN (RS)
Opens Jul 18 at 401 & Morningside, Carlton Cinema, Cineplex Cinemas Empress Walk, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, 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.
Video Games: The Movie (Jeremy Snead) is a very enthusiastic, incredibly superficial look at the development of video games and gaming culture from Pong to the present. Documentarian Snead has loaded his film with zippy CG illustrations, fast-paced montages of era-specific gameplay, interviews with programming legends like Atari wizard Nolan Bushnell and celebrity testimonials (Wil Wheaton! Chris Hardwick! Chloe Dykstra! Alison Haislip! executive producer Zach Braff and Braff’s Scrubs co-star Donald Faison!), all showcasing the range and ambition of gaming and gamers… but as the movie goes on, it becomes more and more obvious that no one’s actually saying anything. Snead takes a considerable chunk of his running time to argue that games are different from other forms of narrative-based entertainment because they let you wander around in established worlds and “write your own story,” confusing planned interactivity with genuine creation. In fact, you can’t do anything in a game that someone else hasn’t already programmed. There’s an undeniable thrill in seeing an old, long-abandoned game turn up on the screen (aww, Dig Dug), but in the end, that’s really all Video Games: The Movie offers. Is that enough to get you into the theatre? 105 min.
Rating: NN (NW)
Opens Jul 18 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. See here for times.
Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago (Lydia Smith) is a spectacualr snore, tracking a dozen pilgrims making their way along Spain’s historic trail to Santiago de Campostela. Smith’s subjects from countries all over the world get sore feet, make new friends and deliver more bromides than a 19th-century apothecary. The doc follows way too many pilgrims, so you can’t get invested in any of them. Curiously, there’s nothing about the fascinating shift in public perception of the pilgrimage and thus the reasons people take it on. The trek does have a centuries-old Christian basis but has morphed into a project for people trying to find themselves. Sick of those last two words? You’ll hate this pic. But anyone with a deep spiritual practice will find nothing here either. It is good to look at, thanks to cinematographer Pedro Valenzuela, but go watch a travelogue if that’s what you’re after. Some subtitles. 84 min.
Rating: NN (SGC)
Opens Jul 18 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. See here for times.
Wish I Was Here (Zach Braff) feels like the pandering calling card of a rookie writer/director who shows off all his evident style and talent by throwing everything he’s got at the screen. This is actually a Zach Braff movie. He already showcased his cloying humour and appetite for pretty (and pretty meaningless) images in 2004’s Garden State. In the 10 years since, Braff’s filmmaking hasn’t matured. He stars as Aidan, a mid-30s L.A. dad who relies on his steadily employed wife (Kate Hudson) to support the family while he pursues childlike dreams of being an actor. Because Braff just writes everything he can into this movie, Aidan’s life has way more complications than can be covered in this paragraph. Lets just say cancer, Judaism, home-schooling and Comic Con play big roles in his journey to adulthood. The result is a constant barrage of fake wit/strained humour, syrupy sentimentality and fortune-cookie philosophy. 110 min.
Rating: NN (RS)
Opens Jul 18 at Cineplex Cinemas Empress Walk, Varsity. See here for times.
