Collaborator (Martin Donovan) is a gimmick movie, but the gimmick is sound. Actor Donovan’s economical directorial debut is a two-hander about a damaged playwright (Donovan) who finds himself trapped in his childhood home by a working-class neighbour (David Morse) with a gun and a grudge. By taking the time to establish Robert in the outside world before springing his thriller mechanism, Donovan (who also scripted) makes the theatricality of the situation less of an issue. (He also does a great job of disguising his Sault Ste. Marie locations as a suburb of Los Angeles.) And he gets a terrific performance out of Morse as a lifelong fuck-up who’s finally beginning to understand the role he’s played in his own misery … not that it helps the current situation any. 87 min.
Rating: NNNN (NW)
Opens Jul 13 at Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.
Boy (Taika Waititi) stars writer/director Waititi as Alamein, a negligent dad who returns home after a seven-year prison term to dig up the money he stashed before he went into the slammer. His son, Boy (James Rolleston), whose mother died giving birth to younger brother Rocky, is home alone, taking care of the family while his grandma is away. Boy greets Alamein as a returning hero, but soon discovers he’s chosen the wrong role model. The script has real insight about the fantasies kids generate as survival mechanisms, and an important underlying theme is how American pop culture works to undermine New Zealanders’ own history and traditions. Waititi is charismatic as the reprobate dad – the other “boy” in the pic – and he’s found a great young actor in Rolleston. Not much new in the plot department, but Boy has a lot of appeal. 88 min.
Rating: NNN (SGC)
Opens Jul 13 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. See here for times.
Neil Young Journeys (Jonathan Demme) is Demme’s third Young concert picture in six years, and finds the performer opening up to the director more than ever. Shot in May of last year, Journeys interweaves Young’s 2011 Massey Hall solo shows with hand-held footage of his drive into Toronto from his hometown of Omemee. Young shows us the sights, reminiscing about this vanished school or that little outpost by the lake where he and his brother knocked around as children. And eventually he gets to Toronto, observing that things sure look different these days. Echoing the looking back/moving forward theme of the road trip, the song selections contrast Young’s early 70s compositions with tracks written in 2010 Demme helpfully identifies each track with an on-screen super, along with the year of its composition. Diehard fans will obviously get more out of this than the uninitiated. 87 min.
Rating: NNN (NW)
Opens Jul 13 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. See here for times.
Union Square (Nancy Savoca) opens with Lucy (Mira Sorvino) at the titular subway station on her cell, trying to convince her married boyfriend to meet her. He’s obviously not that into her, which makes her a shrill mix of needy and demanding. When she turns up unexpectedly at Jenny’s (Tammy Blanchard) apartment and aggressively settles in, endlessly mocking Jenny’s wholesome lifestyle, she’s become insufferable. But Savoca knows how to tell a story. Soon you discover the nature of Lucy’s connection to Jenny and start to relax. The film is shambolic and lacks texture, lurching from one emotional moment to another but, as information steadily leaks out – most of it surprising – it becomes wholly absorbing. Look for Patti LuPone in a gem of a small role. 80 min.
Rating: NNN (SGC)
Opens Jul 13 at Carlton Cinema. See here for times.
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin) is an allegorical drama about the spirited, predominantly black inhabitants of a fictitious New Orleans district known as “the Bathtub” – so named because it’s a flood zone just waiting to happen. Seen through the eyes of six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), who narrates in a voice that’s meant to be simple yet profound, the movie establishes a hazy, dreamlike state. Its early movements have a powerful, intuitive sort of energy, and Wallis is terrific, utterly open and radiating emotion in every scene. But think about what you’re watching for even two seconds and the whole thing collapses every supporting character is a caricature of brusque resourcefulness, some literally killing themselves for the sake of homesteading. They’re not human beings, they’re narrative devices. It probably worked a lot better onstage, where Hushpuppy’s squalid, dangerous environment was largely left to the imagination here, confronted with the horrible reality of the post-apocalyptic Bathtub, you just want these morons to get the hell out. 93 min.
Rating: NN (NW)
Opens Jul 13 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. See here for times.
Ice Age: Continental Drift (Steve Martino, Mike Thurmeier) is showing its age with gags that are prehistoric. After 10 years, the Ice Age movies have exhausted their characters and whatever charms they had, leaving this fourth instalment scrambling for material and feeling laboured. Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano), Diego the sabre-tooth tiger (Dennis Leary) and Sid the dimwitted sloth (John Leguizamo) are now faced with Pangaea breaking apart into continents, separating them from their herd. The plot hinges on natural forces, but Continental Drift seems overly schematic, as if written by a boardroom who hit all the predictable notes. Kids won’t mind the familiar elements, but adults will be bored and puzzling over which of the bland new creatures are voiced by Drake or Nicki Minaj, who are here as a ploy to show that Ice Age can still be hip instead of extinct. 94 min.
Rating: NN (RS)
Opens Jul 13 at Beach Cinemas, Carlton Cinema, Coliseum Mississauga, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Eglinton Town Centre, Empire Theatres at Empress Walk, Grande – Steeles, Humber Cinema, Queensway, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Mississauga, SilverCity Yonge, SilverCity Yorkdale, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.
WWE Money In The Bank 2012 is a live WWE match in high-def, featuring John Cena, Randy Orton, CM Punk and others. 180 min.
Opens Jul 15 at Coliseum Mississauga, Colossus, Eglinton Town Centre, Queensway. See here for times.
