For complete schedules and mini-reviews see the Movie Times & Reviews and Indie & Rep Film. Rating: NNNNN
THE MAN (Les Mayfield) Humiliates Samuel L. Jackson, Eugene Levy and a good chunk of the Canadian film industry. Levy plays a chatty dental supply salesman mistakenly caught up in a Detroit gun-running case. Jackson is the badass federal agent who screams at him like a six-year-old. Toronto plays Detroit, and a cast of decent Canadian actors shows how little it takes to buy talent. The Man aims for the mismatched-buddy mania of Analyze This, but it’s lame and sweaty beyond belief. 84 min. N (CB) Opens Sep 9 at 401 & Morningside, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Eglinton Town Centre, Elgin Mills, First Markham Place, Grande – Steeles, Paramount, Queensway, Rainbow Fairview, SilverCity Newmarket, SilverCity North York, SilverCity Richmond Hill, SilverCity Yorkdale, Silvercity Yonge, Winston Churchill.
THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE (Scott Derrickson) is based on a true story, and stars Tom Wilkinson as a priest charged with killing a young woman (Jennifer Carpenter) whom he believes to be possessed but whom her doctors believe to be epileptic. Laura Linney plays his lawyer, who may also be the target of dark forces. It’s fitting that Emily’s story has been turned into a horror film, a genre in which women are so often victims, and the superlative cast and lack of projectile vomiting keep it from being too clichéd. But it’s sad that the lasting images aren’t the courtroom debates about science and religion but those of yet another woman having the bejesus scared out of her. 110 min. NN (DS) Opens Sep 9 at 401 & Morningside, 5 Drive-In Oakville, Beach Cinemas, Coliseum Mississauga, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Eglinton Town Centre, Elgin Mills, First Markham Place, Grande – Steeles, Grande – Yonge, Kennedy Commons, Paramount, Queensway, Rainbow Fairview, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, SilverCity Mississauga, SilverCity Newmarket, SilverCity Richmond Hill, SilverCity Yorkdale, Silvercity Yonge.
HANK WILLIAMS FIRST NATION (Aaron James Sorensen) starts off as a road movie, with Martin Fox (Jimmy Herman), a Cree elder, and his great-nephew Jacob (Colin Van Loon) taking off for Nashville to find out if Hank Williams Sr. is really dead. But the story focuses on the people they leave behind, like Huey (Bernard Starlight), the local charlatan, and Jacob’s sister (Stacy Da Silva), who gets dumped just before graduation. Although the characters are people I’d like to know, the story moves slowly, and too many subplots go nowhere. As a snapshot of a community, the picture is lovely as a film, it’s static. 92 min. NN (DS) Opens Sep 9 at Carlton, Kennedy Commons, Winston Churchill.
