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Movies & TV

Film Friday: Lincoln, The World Before Her, Skyfall and more

The World Before Her (Nisha Pahuja) brilliantly assesses women’s choices in modern India where two vastly different movements – the Miss India pageant and the women’s branch of militant fundamentalist Hinduism – claim to promote female empowerment. At the pageant, young women who yearn for stardom go through the paces of objectification. The Hindu militants will eventually marry and make meals for their husbands, but right now they’re learning to use guns and to hate Christians and Muslims. Don’t assume any of these women are unsophisticated. The beauty contestants are intelligent, working hard to earn income for their families. And the passionate leader of the militant youth movement – a latent lesbian if I ever saw one – knows she’s not exactly fitting in. Winner of best documentary feature at Tribeca and best Canadian feature at 2012’s Hot Docs. Don’t miss it. Some subtitles. 90 min.

Rating: NNNNN (SGC)

Opens Nov 9 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. See here for times.


Lincoln (Steven Spielberg) is, much like Spielberg’s Munich, a film about history that’s really about contemporary American politics, illuminating the elaborate manoeuvring with which Abraham Lincoln passed the 13th Amendment – which ended slavery – while secretly negotiating with the Confederacy to bring the Civil War to a close. The film draws a precise contrast between the Congress of 1865, whose members were willing to work together despite their ideological differences, to the present-day reality when ideology is all that matters. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Lincoln as a man aware of his own legend, and Tony Kushner’s script gives him a wonderful tic of buying time with folksy parables when he’s trying to figure out how best to sell an idea. But it’s Tommy Lee Jones who really astonishes, instilling abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens with the full force of his wily, spiky charm. The movie doesn’t know when to stop, but that happens with all of Spielberg’s serious projects. 150 min.

Rating: NNNN (NW)

Opens Nov 9 at Varsity. See here for times.


Skyfall (Sam Mendes) makes it clear from its very first frames that it’s not just another James Bond movie. After the clumsy Quantum Of Solace, which tried to speed up the transformation of Casino Royale’s battered, freshly licensed Bond into the slick, super-competent operative we’ve known for decades, the 007 of Skyfall spends a lot of time being uncertain. Daniel Craig’s Bond is wounded, off-balance and not sure who he can trust – and that’s before a mysterious cyberterrorist blows up MI-6 as part of a vendetta against M (Judi Dench). This is a more human-scale adventure this time it’s personal. Master cinematographer and frequent Coen brothers collaborator Roger Deakins makes this the most visually striking Bond yet, with images that treat Craig as the icon he’s becoming. Mendes lets his cast invest the action sequences with soul and depth. (Not too hard, when that cast includes Dench, Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney.) I’m conflicted about what the very last scenes say about where the franchise is headed, but that’s a question for another picture. This one’s great. 143 min.

Rating: NNNN (NW)

Opens Nov 9 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Eglinton Town Centre, Empire Theatres at Empress Walk, Grande – Steeles, Humber Cinema, Queensway, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Yonge, SilverCity Yorkdale, Varsity. See here for times.


We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists (Brian Knappenberger) is a nimble, multi-faceted look at the rise of leaderless global protest organizations in the last decade or so – bands of tech-savvy activists like Anonymous, WikiLeaks, and LulzSec. Enabled by the web’s connectivity and (mostly) protected by its anonymity, the hacktivists are a fluid and effective force, though, as Knappenberger points out, their inevitably self-righteous world view means they keep splintering apart as some members seize upon a new cause. Knappenberger sees hacktivism as a general positive – restoring the net to a convulsing Egypt during the Arab Spring, for example – but also shows the personal cost of armchair action, as when a Nebraska man finds himself facing federal prison time for helping take down the Church of Scientology’s website in 2008. This explains all those people in Guy Fawkes masks lining up in front of the organization’s offices on Yonge Street. Some subtitles. 93 min. NNNN (NW)

Opens Nov 9 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. See here for times.


Chasing Ice (Jeff Orlowski) follows National Geographic photographer James Balog through unstable terrain as he surveys eroding glaciers. Balog and crew hazard the Arctic to mount 25 cameras rigged to capture a frame every hour for a few years. After the cameras are set, the film twiddles its thumbs waiting for the results. Orlowski explores routine avenues in a desperate attempt to expand the narrative to feature length. Interviews with Balog’s family, crew members and admirers repeat the same things about the climate crisis and his commitment to the cause. Images of Manhattan-sized glaciers folding over are not just breathtaking, but in desperate need of our attention. If only the film let the pictures do the talking. 76 min.

Rating: NNN (RS)

Opens Nov 9 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. See here for times.


Dangerous Liaisons (Hur Jin-ho) transplants Choderlos de Laclos’s oft-adapted epistolary novel from 18th-century France to 1930s Shanghai, though the change in setting has a lot more to do with decor than with politics or culture. The glowing fabrics, the gold and amber hues of the interiors and the creamy obsidian undulations of the stunning hairdos are all visually delicious, but you’d rather be seduced by the characters. An affluent rake (Jang Dong-gun) bets a master manipulator (Cecilia Cheung) that he can bed a chaste, morally unimpeachable widow (Zhang Ziyi). The complicating factor is love, which creeps up on the rake, much to his dismay. But there’s not enough genuine heat generated between any of these characters to raise this Dangerous Liaisons above the level of haute soap. Subtitled. 111 min.

Rating: NNN (José Teodoro)

Opens Nov 9 at Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.


Pusher (Luis Prieto) is actually the second British remake of Nicolas Winding Refn’s 1996 breakout thriller about a mid-level coke dealer who finds himself on the hook to a vicious mobster an Hindi version was produced in 2010. Richard Coyle (Coupling) takes on the role of the increasingly panicked anti-hero, and Zlatko Buric reprises the role of the fatherly heavy. It’s all hand-held cameras, crisp editing and pounding music, and Coyle is fine – though he’s styled to play up his resemblance to Andy Serkis, making one wonder how much more effective Serkis would have been in the role. But as slick as director Prieto makes the production, he never quite pulls it out from under Winding Refn’s shadow. 89 min.

Rating: NNN (NW)

Opens Nov 9 at Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.


The Oranges (Julian Farino) is about a lifelong friendship between the neighbouring Ostroffs and Wallings that gets trashed when 24-year-old Nina Ostroff hooks up with David Walling, who’s also her father, Terry’s, best friend and one-time pal Vanessa’s dad. Too bad first-time director Farino smoothes out all the edges. Given the creep factor in the plot, it could use a little more ick. What is surprising is that the two younger actors, Leighton Meester as Nina and Alia Shawkat as Vanessa, steal the movie from Oliver Platt – whose hangdog routine is getting old – as Terry, Hugh Laurie as David and Allison Janney and Catherine Keener as their respective wives. Woody Allen would have made this material into a full-on comedy that would be both amusing and appalling. This is not. 92 min.

Rating: NN (SGC)

Opens Nov 9 at Carlton Cinema. See here for times.


The Metropolitan Opera: The Tempest is a live high-def broadcast of Thomas Adès’s opera, conducted by the composer and directed by Canada’s Robert Lepage. 180 min.

Opens Nov 10 at Beach Cinemas, Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Eglinton Town Centre, Grande – Yonge, Queensway, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Mississauga, SilverCity Yonge. See here for times.


The Rolling Stones: Crossfire Hurricane (Brett Morgen) is a look at the legendary rock band, featuring never-before-seen footage. 100 min.

Opens Nov 8 at Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Queensway, SilverCity Fairview, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.

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