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Movies & TV

Film Friday: The Dog, Frank, The Trip to Italy and more

The Dog (Allison Berg, Frank Keraudren) looks at the life of John Wojtowicz, whose 1972 attempted robbery of a Brooklyn bank to pay for his male lover’s sex-change operation inspired the Al Pacino film Dog Day Afternoon. Turns out that was only part of his story. Intensely active sexually – with both men and women – Wojtowicz was one of the pioneers of New York City’s gay liberation movement and did early work around same-sex marriage. After Dog Day Afternoon came out, he became a minor celebrity, a status he exploited after being released from prison. Most of the gay establishment shunned him and his renegade act. Directors Berg and Keraudren spent a decade on the film and often have difficulty organizing the material. But they’re helped by Wojtowicz himself, whose outrageous personality is caught in a series of interviews given over a span of years. Wisely, the filmmakers withhold key later footage of their subject (he died in 2006) until the end for maximum emotional effect. 100 min.

Rating: NNNN (GS)

Opens Aug 15 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. See here for times.


Frank (Lenny Abrahamson) is a total fabrication based on the British novelty singer who called himself Frank Sidebottom and wore a giant papier-maché head. Journalist Jon Ronson played keyboards for Sidebottom in the late 80s, and reimagines his experience as the story of a lost young man named Jon (About Time’s Domhnall Gleeson) drawn into the world of the enigmatic Frank (Michael Fassbender – yes, really). Joining the band, Jon finds himself recording an album in a remote Irish cabin and eventually going to perform in SXSW. The movie takes a central theme of Ronson’s work – our fascination with the unknowable – and runs with it. Director Abrahamson (What Richard Did) uses that giant head as a sort of emotional mirror, letting Frank’s collaborators project whatever they want onto his unblinking, placid gaze. Even disguised, Fassbender is amazing, often revealing Frank’s emotional extremes through body language alone. It’s really something. And the music is awfully catchy. 95 min.

Rating: NNNN (NW)

Opens Aug 15 at Carlton Cinema. See here for times.


The Trip to Italy (Michael Winterbottom) finds Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and director Winterbottom reuniting for another grand tour of fine dining, conversation and deep human insight, this time knocking around a splendid series of hotels and restaurants in scenic Italy. As in 2010’s The Trip, much fun is had with impressions and the professional rivalry between the two leads, but the fact that both Coogan and Brydon are now undeniably middle-aged makes everything seem a little more melancholic. The Trip To Italy addresses this head-on, as much as any movie in which real people play fictional versions of themselves can do that shift in status subtly informs every conversation and argument they have, even bubbling to the top in delightful exchanges in which one fantasizes about killing the other, if only to stop him imitating Anthony Hopkins in The Bounty. For all the glorious dishes we see being prepared and served, that’s where you’ll find the meat of this movie. 108 min.

Rating: NNNN (NW)

Opens Aug 15 at Varsity. See here for times.


The Giver (Phillip Noyce) is adapted with workman-like fidelity from Lois Lowry’s forerunner of the YA dystopian genre. Director Noyce and his screenwriters refuse to grapple with the material in any way that might be identifiably creative, content to shape the movie into a snack between Hunger Games. The text comes with its own visual gimmick: In a futuristic brave new world, everything is nice, sterile and the same, and anything that might inspire passion or fury is filtered out, including colour. As our pubescent hero, Jonas (a bland Brenton Thwaites), learns the truth from the titular wise old man (a fine Jeff Bridges), he cracks open the RGB chart and becomes a public enemy on the run. There are several nifty ideas at play here, some with a troubling Christian slant, but the movie zips through them in a way that will only satisfy genre fans. 91 min.

Rating: NN (RS)

Opens Aug 15 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, Carlton Cinema, Cineplex Cinemas Empress Walk, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Eglinton Town Centre, Grande – Steeles, Queensway, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Yonge, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.


Hard Drive (William D. MacGillivray) is a plodding, by-the-numbers adaptation of Hal Niedzviecki’s novel Ditch. Ditch (Douglas Smith) lives with his single mom (Megan Follows), works at the city dump and nurses delusions about his absent dad. When he meets Debs (Laura Wiggins), an underage rebel with a mysterious cause, the two fall in love and decide to leave home. The performances are fine. Smith smoulders with resentment, and Wiggins has all the right fucked-up energy. But there’s zero character development, and the only significant plot device – what is Debs hiding? – goes to very predictable places. The pic does gain some energy near the end in a scene with Debs’s father, but only for a few seconds. Veteran jazz drummer Jerry Granelli appears in a small role and wrote the score, which is way too invasive. There’s lots of talent here, but lack of execution is turning into a chronic problem for Canadian indie films. 90 min.

Rating: NN ( SGC)

Opens Aug 15 at Royal. See here for times.


It Was You Charlie (Emmanuel Shirinian) looks frickin’ gorgeous. Shot by ace cinematographer Luc Montpellier (The Saddest Music In The World, Take This Waltz), this is a film of splendid, textured images. Interior shots are beautifully lit exterior shots are expertly composed and organized. The rest of the movie is a mess – a mopey, sluggish study of suicidal doorman Abner (Michael D Cohen) burdened by painful memories and an inability to follow through on ending his life. There’s a reason for Abner’s suffering, and writer/director Shirinian squeezes it out with methodical, self-serious slowness, convinced he’s building to a twist no one will see coming. Except we all see it coming, because it’s staggeringly obvious. 80 min.

Rating: NN (NW)

Opens Aug 15 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. See here for times.


Yves Saint Laurent (Jalil Lespert) covers about 20 years in the life of its subject, from 1958 to 78, by simply telling us what the legendary fashion designer did and with whom he slept, one event at a time. I have no idea what drew director/co-writer Lespert to this story, other than possibly the chance to play in Saint Laurent’s world – and certainly it’s an awfully impressive world, filled with colours and clothes and flesh and all manner of debauchery. But we’re not invited in, just watching from the periphery as Pierre Niney maintains a single expression – eyes popped, lips pursed – as Saint Laurent and Guillaume Gallienne grows increasingly irritated as his business partner and lover, Pierre Bergé. And that gets awfully dull. Subtitled. 106 min.

Rating: NN (NW)

Opens Aug 15 at Varsity. See here for times.


Mood Indigo (Michel Gondry) tracks the doomed romance of Colin (Romain Duris) and Chloé (Audrey Tautou). He’s independently wealthy, and she’s one of those French gamines who exists to be wooed. They meet, they have a lovely date, and on their honeymoon she contracts a strange disease that sees a water lily flowering in her right lung. Ah, non! It’s supposed to be whimsically tragic, I guess, but director/co-writer Gondry fixates on the whimsy and keeps piling it on in every scene. Subtitled. 95 min.

Rating: N (NW)

Opens Aug 15 at Royal. See here for times.


André Rieu’s 2014 Hometown Maastricht Concert is a high-def performance by the acclaimed violinist. 180 min.

Opens Aug 17 at Cineplex Cinemas Empress Walk, Queensway, SilverCity Yonge, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.


The Expendables 3 (Patrick Hughes) brings Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford and Wesley Snipes into the franchise featuring leathery action stars from the 80s like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Dolf Lundgren. Screened after press time – see review August 15 at nowtoronto.com/movies. 127 min.

Opens Aug 15 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, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Yonge, SilverCity Yorkdale, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.

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