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Movies & TV

Film Friday: Frankenweenie, Detropia, Samsara and more

Detropia (Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady) finds the directors of Jesus Camp and 12th And Delaware turning their culturally incisive eyes on the city of Detroit, capturing the citizens, businesses and government of an automotive boom town on the verge of bankruptcy. Ewing and Grady explore the issue of American economic decay through small, personal moments like a barista’s awkward encounter with obnoxious Swiss hipsters at a coffee shop or a production of The Mikado that puts various politicians and auto companies on the Lord High Executioner’s little list. With its sense of a despairing populace tilting toward chaos while hapless politicians struggle to find solutions that are both popular and possible, Detropia plays like the prequel to RoboCop. Make of that what you will. 91 min.

Rating: NNNN (NW)

Opens Oct 5 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. See here for times.


Frankenweenie (Tim Burton) is simultaneously the best movie Burton’s made in years and proof of his arrested artistic development. After more than a decade of uninspired remakes and reimaginings – his Gothic take on Sweeney Todd the one exception – he’s had to return to a short film he made in 1984 to find a project he cares about. But he’s fully invested, expanding the story of suburban kid Victor Frankenstein’s quest to resurrect his beloved dog Sparky into a gorgeous black-and-white stop-motion feature filled with striking images, smart commentary on the value of intellectual curiosity and devastating emotional beats. Fleshing out the story to feature length, screenwriter John August brings the material back to its miserable origins, giving us room to consider Victor’s selfish motivation for reviving his dead pet. (Burton backs away from it pretty quickly, but it’ll resonate with anyone who’s lost an animal.) And a subplot in which Victor’s classmates create their own abominations gives Frankenweenie a great third act – and suggests Burton has one hell of a Godzilla movie in him. 87 min.

Rating: NNNN (NW)

Opens Oct 5 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Courtney Park 16, Eglinton Town Centre, Empire Theatres at Empress Walk, Grande – Steeles, Interchange 30, Queensway, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Mississauga, SilverCity Yonge, SilverCity Yorkdale, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.


Dial M for Murder (Alfred Hitchcock) is one of the director’s lesser productions – a trifle he tossed off on the way to making the far more involving Rear Window. Grace Kelly’s English accent is awful, but you make allowances because everyone else is pretty broad, too. Ray Milland’s a hoot as the endlessly self-satisfied husband who’s spent a year devising what he’s sure is the perfect murder, Robert Cummings is exactly the right sort of well-meaning tool as Kelly’s crime-novelist lover, and John Williams brings a drawing-room veteran’s dignity to the role of the police inspector whose job it is to suspect everyone of everything. And it’s certainly fun to watch Hitchcock use the 3D process to subtly remind us of his movie’s stage origins shots are framed as though the camera is in the orchestra pit or the mezzanine, with our view of the actors occasionally obstructed by an uncooperative prop. I can’t say I ever cared about the story, but I sure did enjoy watching the master tell it. 105 min.

Rating: NNN (NW)

Opens Oct 5 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. See here for times.


Samsara (Ron Fricke) picks up where Baraka left off. Travelling the world with a 70mm camera, the director captures awe-inspiring images of Earth’s spectacular beauty and the hustle and bustle of humanity. (Because, you know, contrast.) It’s lovely to look at – TIFF Bell Lightbox is screening it in a 4K digital presentation – and the musical score, featuring contributions from Lisa Gerrard, Michael Stearns and Marcello de Francisci, strings everything together smoothly. But Fricke isn’t saying anything he wasn’t saying 20 or even 30 years ago, and Samsara moves slowly enough that one has time to think about the way Geoffrey Reggio used his own follow-up projects, Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi, to expand upon and reconsider the themes he and Fricke raised in Koyaanisqatsi. Fricke’s content to keep on trucking. 102 min.

Rating: NNN (NW)

Opens Oct 5 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. See here for times.


Winnie (Darrell Roodt) doesn’t get interesting until two-thirds of the way through, which is way too late. Otherwise, it’s a cliché-ridden story in which saintly Nelson Mandela (Terrence Howard) leads the struggle against apartheid until he’s incarcerated, leaving his wife, Winnie (Jennifer Hudson), to carry on the fight on the outside, where she turns into a ruthless leader capable of her own kind of violence. Director Roodt wastes the opportunity to create an intriguing examination of how a brilliant, politically committed woman lost her moral compass, and we get no sense that Nelson’s brand remained pure precisely because he was in prison, while Winnie didn’t have a chance while living in the real world. Hudson’s screen presence is riveting as always, but she and Howard can’t conquer their accents, confusing the measured cadence of both Mandelas with a sense that they’re speaking in slow motion. 106 min.

Rating: NN (SGC)

Opens Oct 5 at Grande – Yonge, Queensway, Varsity. See here for times.


Taken 2 (Olivier Megaton) is a sequel that finds retired CIA operative Liam Neeson involved in another kidnapping and capture. Screened after press time – see review October 5 at nowtoronto.com/movies. 92 min.

Opens Oct 5 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Eglinton Town Centre, Empire Theatres at Empress Walk, Grande – Steeles, Queensway, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Yonge, SilverCity Yorkdale, Varsity. See here for times.

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