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What’s up, Docs
May is the start of the silly season, when the gigantic, effects-driven
hyper-expensive Hollywood extravaganzas hit screens. What better way to
prepare than by spending the last week of April with a healthy, cleansing
dose of reality – real political dramas, people with real problems, social issues, tragedy -at
Hot Docs (April 23 to May 2). Of course, it could also have the reverse
effect. After all that reality, a summer full of CGI explosions and movies
where Keanu Reeves plays a nuclear scientist could be a relief. http://www.hotdocs.ca/
Do not pass Go
Several
months after its film festival premiere, Ron Mann ‘s oddball road movie
Go Further , a documentary featuring noted hemp-head Woody Harrelson ,
arrives in local theatres April 23. Challenges just about every part of
the Western lifestyle without self-righteous finger-pointing.
Strip search
George Hickenlooper
‘s Mayor Of The Sunset Strip is a sad, funny portrait of veteran L.A. scenemaker
and DJ Rodney Bingenheimer , who’s been around forever and is still hanging
on. Hickenlooper, who directed Hearts Of Darkness, uses the eternally optimistic
Bingenheimer to anchor a fascinating essay on celebrity culture. Bingenheimer
is in the peculiar position of being marginally famous without material
success, and this tension is the key to the film’s unexpected drama. In
theatres April 30.
Stake sizzler
From Stephen Sommers , the director of The Mummy, The
Mummy Returns and the best giant squid movie ever, Deep Rising, comes Van
Helsing . This is the first starring vehicle for X-Men’s Wolverine, Hugh
Jackman , who plays the younger version of Dracula’s nemesis, the vampire
hunter Van Helsing. It’s not exactly a remake of any of the Universal horror
classics of the 30s, but Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man are in
it. It does look a lot like House Of Frankenstein and House Of Dracula,
which have all three characters, though Van Helsing appeared in neither
of those films. Opens May 7.
Epic heights
With the absence of the regular summer franchises
(Mission Impossible 3 and Star Wars Episode 3 are both scheduled for summer
2005, and the new Harry Potter and Spider Man movies are coming in June),
you’d think the big May weekends would be a battle royal. But it turns
out everyone’s stepped back except Van Helsing and Wolfgang Petersen ‘s
Trojan War epic Troy , hitting screens May 14. Brad Pitt stars as Achilles
(Dude! Thou hast slain Patroclus!), Eric Bana as Hector, Orlando Bloom
as Paris and more big-name stars as people who learn to -beware of Greeks
bearing gifts.
Apocalypse now
The Day After Tomorrow boasts one of the year’s funniest
promotional items, a calendar whose pages are blank after May 28, the premiere
date for Roland Emmerich ‘s apocalyptic thriller. What if we ignore the
warnings about global warming and the Earth warms up and the ice age comes
back. (I’m not sure about the science, but that’s their premise and they’re
sticking to it.) With Dennis Quaid , Jake Gyllenhaal and Sela Ward , but
since this is from the director of Independence Day and Godzilla, the effects
are probably the real stars.
