Author Archive

« Older EntriesNewer Entries »

KickassCanadians.ca partners with Fab YYC

Thursday, May 1st, 2014—News

I’m very proud to partner with Kickass Canadian Yiorgos Boudouris on his latest initiative, Fab YYC (previously called Acts of Fabulousness). Funded in part by Awesome Calgary’s migro-grant program, Fab YYC will “chronicle the individual stories of gender and sexual minority youth throughout Calgary.” The exhibit will feature photographic portraits by Kelly Hofer, and “as told to” interviews, which I’ll edit.

Fab YYC will be on display in Calgary this August; stay tuned for details!

CBC Docs calls out Dr. Niobe Thompson as Kickass Canadian

Tuesday, April 29th, 2014—News

Thanks to CBC Docs for their nod to Dr. Niobe Thompson and his KickassCanadians.ca feature! For the latest on Niobe and his films, visit Clearwater Documentary.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Tuesday, April 1st, 2014—Film

The Grand Budapest Hotel (USA/Germany 2014, Comedy/Drama), Writer/Director: Wes Anderson

I don’t know what it is about Wes Anderson movies, but looking back at my Moonrise Kingdom review, it seems I felt the same way I do now about The Grand Budapest Hotel: I loved the movie, so much so that I wanted to get something up on this blog, no matter how short, but I simply didn’t feel like writing much. Really, I just want to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel again and soak up any morsels of the delightful confection I might have missed the first time.

But before that, a few words about exactly why I loved it so much, in the hopes that your appetite may be whetted enough to get you to the theatres, ready to sink your teeth into this delectable treat.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is Wes Anderson in all his glory. The sets are masterpieces, oddball works of ornate, pastel art. The cinematography is extraordinary, ditto the score (with musical mastermind Alexandre Desplat returning to Budapest from the Kingdom to work his magic once again). And the story, chock full of absurd characters and absurdist scenarios, manages to touch on human and historical truths, all in a thoroughly engaging, giggle-inducing manner.

Most of The Grand Budapest Hotel takes place in 1930s Europe, although it moves around in place and time, being a story within a story, several times over. A young girl reads a book of the entire account, which was written by a now-deceased author, whom we meet as an older man (Tom Wilkinson) and then as a middle-aged man (Jude Law). As Law, the young writer travels to the Grand Budapest Hotel, only to encounter the hotel’s fascinating, if lonely, owner Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), who recounts the story of how he acquired it.

With that, the main story begins. It follows Mr. Moustafa in his youth, when he was a lobby boy who went by the name of Zero (Tony Revolori) and studied under the hotel’s expert concierge, M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes). M. Gustave is a spectacularly thorough concierge, even going so far as to take his patrons to bed—particularly the wealthy, elderly, female blonds. When one of those patrons is murdered (the mysteriously named Madame D., played by Tilda Swinton) and M. Gustave inherits her most prized possession, her greedy family is understandably suspicious. From there, Gustave and Zero embark on a wacky caper that makes its way across fascist-era Europe, into jail and down the snowy Alps near the fictional Republic of Zubrowska, where the Grand Budapest stands tall.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is as fanciful as Moonrise Kingdom, but even quirkier and much heavier. For all its whimsy and brightly coloured décor, the film’s historical backdrop sets some darkly hued undertones. Case in point: the ZZ officers who invade Gustave and Zero’s train compartment.

But Gustave refuses to bow down to the rising wave of fascism. He insists on preserving the “faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.” Indeed, the Grand Budapest itself is a nostalgic nod to Old Europe’s refinement and romanticism. (Driving the point home, the film’s 1930s storyline is shot in the nearly square aspect ratio used in the golden oldie movies of yesteryear.)

Gustave runs the hotel with panache, leaving a haze of cologne and exquisite Mendl’s pastries in his wake. Shamelessly flirtatious and unfailingly polite (minus an f-bomb here or there), he manages to come across as that oh-so-rare creature: an honourable jackass. This spectacular combination is delivered courtesy of Fiennes’ brilliant performance. As Gustave, he’s staggeringly hilarious; his brand of straight-up comedy is perfectly on point and appears utterly effortless.

Fiennes steals the show, but he’s backed by a seemingly endless supply of impeccable actors, none above even the smallest cameo in a Wes Anderson film. In addition to those already mentioned, The Grand Budapest Hotel features an overwhelming ensemble cast that includes many Anderson favourites, not to mention mine—Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Edward Norton, and Saoirse Ronan as Zero’s true love Agatha, the creator of those adorable little Mendl’s pastries that look as scrumptious to eat as the movie is to watch. (It’s a lot of fun to see Ronan in another fairytale-esque flick gone mad, after her outstanding turn in Hanna.)

All this to say I absolutely adored The Grand Budapest Hotel; I even managed to write a full review of it after all. Still, there is some small print to read: As soon as the credits rolled, a guy behind me in the theatre said, “That was the strangest, most boring movie I’ve ever seen.” Strange? Yes. Boring? Not in the least, not in my opinion. Maybe this movie isn’t for everyone. But if you’re a Wes Anderson fan, or even more generally an art fan, you should absolutely get thee to The Grand Budapest Hotel, post-haste. And you might want to bring along some pastries for the ride.

Divergent (feat. Isaac and Jonathan Walberg)

Monday, March 24th, 2014—Film

Divergent (USA 2014, Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi), Writers: Evan Daugherty, Vanessa Taylor; Director: Neil Burger

This Divergent review comes at the request of my eldest nephew, 11-year-old Jonathan. Together, we reviewed The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, with his younger brother Isaac joining us for the second adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ franchise. So I guess Jon got a taste for it, which is pretty cool. And since I passed on reviewing the Ender’s Game adaptation with him, what kind of an aunt would I be if I didn’t step up for Jon’s next request?

Given that it was his idea, I wanted Jon to have a more active voice in this review, so I tasked him with outlining Divergent’s plot: “It’s about a dystopian society where, at age 16, children take a test to see what category they fit in. Everyone fits into one thing only, except those people who fit into more than one, who are called Divergent. Some people see them as a threat to the society. So the movie is about someone who is Divergent.”

Well said, Jon! To that I’ll add that the categories, or factions, are Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite, and that the Divergent person who shows traits from multiple factions is Tris Prior (the excellent Shailene Woodley).

Divergent is based on the novel of the same name, which is part of a trilogy by Veronica Roth. The series draws obvious parallels to The Hunger Games franchise, among them: a strong young female protagonist who exists in a dystopian future and who helps lead the charge against a controlling system that denies individuality and restricts civil liberties; an ardent following at my nephews’ house; and, according to Jon, “really good first two books and horrible third books.” (His words, not mine; I still haven’t read the other books in the Divergent series, Insurgent and Allegiant.)

I prefer The Hunger Games, both in the story and in the telling. On top of what else the series explores, I find its additional commentary on our fixation with appearances, celebrity and others’ lives adds a significant point of interest, not to mention how well the reality show slant lends itself to a visual adaptation. And although I appreciate the notions Divergent explores, like our need to label people and the desire to conform, its world is somewhat underdeveloped.

My nephews think otherwise. (Evidently we diverge.) Both Jon and Isaac prefer Divergent to The Hunger Games adaptations, although they’re still big fans of both series. (And I still like Divergent, on the whole.)

“Divergent was really good,” says Jon. “I would say I liked it a bit better than The Hunger Games because it followed the book and they did everything really well. The actors were really good. For both series, the main idea of the plot is really interesting but I found Divergent way more action-packed.”

The movie does take some liberties with the novel, smoothing out a few of the rougher, non-PG-13 bits, removing or downsizing some extraneous characters and, in particular, shaking up the ending a little. But generally, I agree with Jon that the film follows the book quite closely—sometimes to its detriment. It felt a bit like the movie was plodding through each plot point; it was too long and not as well paced as The Hunger Games.

Jon, however, takes no issue with that. He likes that the movie has “no surprises” and is “almost exactly like the book.” He doesn’t find that boring, but rather a testament to its strength as an adaptation.

Isaac, now 10, read the book when he was eight, so he doesn’t remember it very well. His appreciation for the movie stems less from how faithfully it follows the book and more from the premise itself. “I liked Divergent a bit better than The Hunger Games because I think I like the idea better—choosing where you belong vs. playing games to the death,” he says. (Not that Isaac is opposed to violence in general; he also says “I liked when Four [the Dauntless trainer and Tris’ love interest, played by Theo James] beats people up.”)

Jon is a fan of Four, too, although he says Four was the only character who didn’t turn out the way he pictured him in the book. “There’s another book, called Lorien Legacies, where there’s a character name Four,” says Jon. “I pictured him like that guy.”

Four prompts an interesting insight from Jon about the (slim) illusion of choice created by the founders and governors of Divergent’s Chicago, where the story is set. “As Four was saying, he wants to be everything,” says Jon, referring to the scene when Four admits he wants to embrace the traits of all five factions rather than be only one thing. “So it’s like all the people are given the option to choose what faction they want to be in when they’re 16, so it’s almost like freedom. Except it’s not freedom because they can’t be more than one thing.”

I ask Jon and Isaac which faction they would choose if they had to pick one. “I did an actual test on the computer, the Divergent Aptitude Test, and I was Divergent,” says Jon. I tell him that’s probably the point of the test; beyond pure publicity, it aims to reinforce the trilogy’s lesson that we are all more than just one thing. “Yeah,” he says, “almost everyone who takes the test is Divergent. I was Divergent for the exact same things that Tris was in the movie.” (That would be Dauntless and Erudite, as well as her birth-faction, Abnegation.)

If Jon HAD to choose a faction, he says, “Amity would probably be the safest.” But “if Dauntless didn’t have that rule that if you’re below the line [i.e., don’t make the cut during initiation], you’re out, then it would be pretty awesome.”

Isaac has a similar thought. “I’d want to be in Divergent—but does that count or not?” he asks. Assuming it doesn’t count, he says, “If there wasn’t the ‘below the line, you’re out’ rule for Dauntless, I would be that. It’s the most fun.”

I ask Isaac if he would want to live in a world divided so rigidly by factions, and he says, “I would never want that to happen. I wouldn’t like that. I like how it is right now in real life. But it would be cool to try it out for a day, or something like that.”

As long as it’s just at the movies.

*            *            *

Thank you to Isaac and Jonathan for joining me once again in a movie review, and to their parents for helping arrange the interviews!

Enemy

Tuesday, March 18th, 2014—Film

Enemy (Canada/Spain 2013, Mystery/Thriller), Writer: Javier Gullón; Director: Denis Villeneuve

If you read my Prisoners review, you’ll know how much I’ve been looking forward to the release of Denis Villeneuve’s subsequent film, Enemy. In anticipation, I read José Saramago’s novel The Double, on which the movie is based. This was my second exploration of a film adaptation of one of Saramago’s works, having read and seen Blindness. But unlike with the first experience, this time I had trouble getting through the book.

In writing Blindness, Saramago took liberties with punctuation (i.e., he didn’t use much of it), but it’s even more extreme in The Double, where he spends countless pages detailing inanities in a confusing, repetitive manner. All that made for a bit of a tedious read.

Still, The Double does delve into interesting ideas about identity, perception, purpose and our very existence. So it was worth exploring. But for me, those ideas were better presented in Villeneuve’s film adaptation than in its source material.

In Enemy, as with most film adaptations, the story is pared down from the novel, offering a leaner, and in this case meaner, version of events. (One minor but notable difference is the protagonist’s name: Adam Bell in the movie is Tertuliano Máximo Afonso in the book, a lengthy moniker that its bearer loathes and that is repeated in full every time the character’s name comes up.) Enemy cuts to the chase—even if that chase leads you in circles, after your own tail.

So what’s the movie about? Well, that’s a little complicated, but I’ll start with what happens in the movie. We’re introduced to Toronto-based history professor Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal), who goes about his dreary, repetitive life, trapped in a cycle of routine lectures (on the ways totalitarian states keep people down), mundane sex (with his girlfriend, Mary, played by Mélanie Laurent) and restless nights. His pattern is shaken up when Adam rents a movie, on a colleague’s recommendation, and discovers an actor who looks just like him.

Adam tracks down the actor, a man named Anthony Claire (also Gyllenhaal), who already operates under a dual identity, having the stage name Daniel Saint Claire. Anthony’s exterior matches Adam’s, but his interior harbours a much darker side.

The men confirm that they are one another’s exact double, complete with matching scars. From there, things really start to unravel, particularly when the men swap women without consulting their partners (Anthony has a six-months pregnant wife named Helen, played by Sarah Gadon; interestingly, he’s also been absent from his acting career for six months—perhaps while embracing a teaching career as Adam?).

Enemy does more than tighten The Double’s plot points; it takes liberties with events, trimming some here, adding others there. But it hits all the unmissable points.

The film also nails the novel’s creepy tone, capturing the feeling of being caught up in the minutia of daily life, of endlessness, pointlessness and powerlessness. Capitalizing on the poignancy of the visual image, as opposed to the written word, Enemy’s cinematography depicts a bleak, dingy cityscape, one that’s yellowed out somehow, like faded images—relics of the past, or a history destined to repeat itself.

Beyond its cinematography, Enemy incorporates a visual metaphor and representation of The Double’s twisted surrealism and sense of being trapped in a web. From the low-angle shots of streetcar wires that hang over the city like spindles, to the appearance of actual arachnids (for example, at an elite sex club, where men stare vacantly as naked women release live tarantulas from captivity), spiders are a recurring symbol in the film.

I don’t want to break Enemy down too much, both because I want to avoid spoilers and because I should watch the movie a second time before trying to really analyze it—the film bears repeating. But it’s definitely not for a lack of material to explore. Enemy, like Drive, is another great candidate for a film essay. Its script is loaded with double meaning and leaves even more open to interpretation than does The Double (as far as I can tell, anyway).

Whereas the book treats the two men, Tertuliano and António Claro, as being quite separate, the movie drops hints that they may actually represent two sides of the same person. We’re given clear evidence that they are two different people, but there are also suggestions to the contrary, letting the complexity and ambiguity of the novel’s themes emerge from the cluttered prose to rise to the surface.

Then there’s the significance of changing the title from The Double to Enemy. The focus is directed away from the notion of a doppelganger and toward the threat it represents, but who is the enemy here—the state? the self?

And so on.

There’s a lot to uncover, and it all culminates in a staggering ending; the final shot is a total WTF moment (and another departure from the novel, although it does bring to mind a line from The Double: “… sometimes dreams do step out of the brain that dreamed them…”). But after the initial shock wore off, I found it to be perfectly fitting with Enemy’s themes, absurdity and apparent quest to get the neurons firing. A more conventional conclusion might have been clearer, but it likely would have felt trite or unsatisfying. As it is, Enemy keeps its viewers dangling, and I think that’s exactly what the filmmakers intended.

Enemy is an interesting study in the possibilities of moving from page to screen. And while its tone, cinematography and trippy dream sequences are reminiscent of the Davids (Cronenberg and Lynch), more than anything else, the artistic choices behind Enemy demonstrate Villeneuve’s own astonishing range; to go from Maelstrom to Incendies to Prisoners to this is quite incredible.

Enemy also features another of Villeneuve’s fantastic casts. Laurent, so great in Inglourious Basterds and Beginners, is in fine form. Gadon, who was excellent in A Dangerous Method, is at least as good in Enemy; her performance earned her a Canadian Screen Award for Best Supporting Actress. (Interestingly, Gadon was also one of the panelists for this year’s Canada Reads competition, defending Kathleen’s Winter’s book Annabel.)

As strong as the other actors are, the film rests on Gyllenhaal’s shoulders, requiring him to do double duty as both protagonist and antagonist (or are they one and the same?). He’s more than up to the task, proving yet again that he’s one of the finest actors working today (see If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet).

With Enemy, Gyllenhaal also reinforces what a remarkable duo he makes with Villeneuve. I look forward to their next collaboration; what form it will take is anybody’s guess.

*          *          *

For more on the great work of Denis Villeneuve, see my Kickass Canadians article.

Winter’s Tale (feat. actor Alan Doyle)

Friday, February 21st, 2014—Film

Winter’s Tale (USA 2014, Drama/Fantasy/Mystery), Writer/Director: Akiva Goldsman

Winter’s Tale is a fantastical story about love overcoming odds and overpowering evil, a story that defies the linear boundaries of time and embraces magic, miracles and the notion of destiny.

Based on Mark Helprin’s novel of the same name, Winter’s Tale features Colin Farrell and Jessica Brown Findlay as star-blessed lovers destined to find one another, and Russell Crowe as Pearly Soames, a demonic gang leader on a quest to stop them.

The film also features Alan Doyle, who happens to be the newest Kickass Canadian, as well as Great Big Sea’s frontman and a regular on TV’s Republic of Doyle. In Winter’s Tale, Alan plays Dingy Worthington, an “Irish ruffian” and one of Pearly’s lieutenants. The movie marks the third time Alan and Crowe have teamed up for the camera; Alan played Allan A’Dayle to Crowe’s Robin Hood in the 2010 Ridley Scott film, and later acted with him on an episode of Republic of Doyle.

I had the great fortune of talking with Alan about his experience making Winter’s Tale. But before we got into the movie, the accomplished musician caught me up on where his upcoming solo CD is headed, having recently returned to his St. John’s, Newfoundland home after a musical jaunt to the U.S.

“I recorded a bunch in Nashville and a bunch in Los Angeles,” says Alan. “I got to work with some old friends and some new friends. It was awesome.”

When I interviewed Alan earlier this month for Kickass Canadians, he still hadn’t decided on the direction his second solo album would take. Now, he’s a lot closer to making that decision.

“The more I think about it, the more I’m comfortable with the record being an honest representation of where my head is, which is kind of in 12 different places,” he says. “I’ve never really been afraid to have rock ‘n’ roll songs sitting next to folk songs. If the record ends up having a little section that’s very pop and another section that’s country and another section that’s rock ‘n’ roll, that’s totally fine with me.

“I’m not sure people put on records and listen to them beginning to end anymore. I think people like hearing their favourite singers sing different kinds of songs.”

Alan’s recent recordings kept him from catching the Winter’s Tale premiere in Los Angeles, but he did find time to see a regular theatre screening after its February 14, 2014 release. He was pleased with the results.

“It was really good, man,” says Alan. “I thought it was beautiful in a really classic, old school kind of way.”

For his role in the film, Alan shot about 21 days over a four-week span (the entire production took approximately two months). He says there were plenty of challenges throughout the relatively short shoot. For one thing, it was shot entirely in greater New York City during autumn 2012, when Hurricane Sandy blew through. For another, the film features plenty of busy public venues.

“There were no typical days on that shoot, because we were shooting in New York City,” says Alan. “It’s not like you’re on a sound stage for most of it, where you can just roll camera whenever you want.”

Case in point: the scenes they shot in Grand Central Station.

“Of course Grand Central Station never closes, so how do you shoot in there?” he says. “We shot those scenes one evening in between arrivals and departures of trains, so we would hold (the public) for 30 seconds and we’d shoot it one way and then we’d wait for another 15 minutes and reset and wait for the trains to leave and then we’d go again. Those are the challenges of shooting; it’s very difficult.”

I ask Alan if he found it challenging to concentrate on his performance during such trying circumstances. Impressively, the answer is “No,” but he credits his co-stars for making it easy to stay in character.

“I was always either with Russell or Colin, and they’re such pros,” says Alan. “They’ve had so much experience developing the arc of their performance in the most imperfect surroundings. That’s one of the hardest jobs an actor has, is to do all the stuff they intended to do, in conditions that are never ideal. They have to be able to deliver no matter what.”

Alan attributes this ability in his Winter’s Tale cast mates to being thoroughly prepared. For instance, he says, “there’s nobody more ready to go to work than Russell Crowe. That’s the reason why he’s been in the business for so long and remains at such a high level—because he works the hardest.”

Of course, Alan had plenty of prep work of his own to do. His character, Dingy, handles a gun, so Alan worked with a weapons trainer to get the technique down. He’d had similar training for Robin Hood, but still found it a challenge to master the necessary subtleties for Winter’s Tale.

“When you’re firing a weapon, it’s hard if you’re not used to it to not look at it while you’re shooting,” says Alan. “Without giving too much away about the movie, the character I played had shot a gun many times, but the real me, I play the mandolin!

“So it’s just another skill set, (being able to master skills you’ve never applied in real life)… It’s the skill set that separates me, a very novice actor, from the other guys who have many skills they’ve picked up over the years—whether it’s gun work, dancing, axing, all the skills that you learn on the job. They’re awesome at it.”

One of the biggest lessons Alan learned from working on Winter’s Tale had nothing to do with the action sequences. For him, it was all about stillness.

“In the film, the love story and the power of love is the central theme, and of course (characters like Dingy and the rest of Pearly’s gang) are all the antithesis of that,” says Alan. “We’re bad and we have to appear so in a very quiet way, especially when we’re in the background. So how do you do that?

“It was really a lesson for me, because I’m not usually a quiet person and I’m not usually an evil person, I don’t think, but (I had to learn to harness) the power of stillness and overcome the difficulty in doing nothing. There’s an awkwardness and uneasiness that you create when you’re just quiet and still, and it’s so powerful.”

Looking ahead, Alan is excited to apply his newfound skills and knowledge to his next acting role, as Senator Gideon Robertson (“another bad guy”) in Canadian filmmaker Danny Schur’s production of Strike!. Filming begins this summer, and the movie is slated for a spring 2015 release.

Beyond Strike!, Alan says he’d love to do something along the lines of “a weird, quirky Coen brothers movie.” He mentions the filmmakers’ latest feature, the excellent Inside Llewyn Davis, starring his friend Oscar Isaac, as a great example of what can happen when a movie plays to an actor’s particular strengths.

Oscar has sung for the movies before, including in the 2012 film 10 Years. That time, he and Alan co-wrote a song for Oscar’s character to perform, and the experience left a big mark on Alan.

“I think it would be an amazing thing to find a role where you can sing a little bit and have all your talents out there,” he says. “That would be so much fun to do.”

*            *            *

Winter’s Tale is in theatres now. A big THANK YOU to Alan for making time to chat with me about it!

The Lego Movie (feat. David, Isaac, Jonathan and Sean Walberg)

Tuesday, February 18th, 2014—Film

The Lego Movie (USA 2014, Animation/Action/Comedy), Writer/Directors: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

A few years ago, back when I had only two nephews, I was on a quest for real Lego—those loose pieces that come in all sorts of shapes, colours and sizes, the kind you could build into whatever you wanted, the kind that didn’t come with a set of instructions and a specific purpose in mind. I wanted to give my first nephews, Jon and Isaac, the kind of Lego I grew up playing with. But all I could find in my local toy stores were Lego kits, designed more for crafting predetermined ships or boats or planes than to stimulate the imagination. It wasn’t until I stopped in at Toys “R” Us in Times Square that I was able to find a box of the prized pieces.

Today, I’ve got three nephews playing with that New York City Lego (young David joined the gang about six years ago). I’m proud to say that all of them prefer making their own Lego creations to sticking with the instructions. They love the kits, too—they’re a new generation, after all—but once they’ve finished following directions, they take the finished product apart and start inventing their own versions.

As much as my nephews and I love Lego, we weren’t on board right away with the idea of a Lego movie. When Isaac and I discovered the movie’s poster during his recent visit to Ottawa (the boys live in another province), we were left wondering what on earth the plot would be about for such an obvious marketing piece.

Jon had the same doubts, although they were quickly turned around once he saw the movie last weekend. “When I started watching it, I was thinking, ‘How can a movie about Lego have a plot?’” he says. “And then after, I realized it was pretty cool how they took Lego and made it into a huge movie.”

It’s a huge movie, indeed. The Lego Movie comes from the genius writer/director team behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Here, they’ve created a brilliant, self-reflexive animated flick that, in the words of fellow Lego junkie Thomas J Bradley, “perfectly captures the ideas of Lego.”

So what is the plot? I won’t reveal the overarching premise, but the main story follows Emmet (Chris Pratt), a regular Joe Lego man presumed to be the “Special” destined to save the world from the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell), who rules over all things Lego and insists that everyone always follow the instructions. Emmet joins forces with a fantastic group of rebel figurines, including Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett), Spaceman Benny (Charlie Day) and the wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman). Standing in the way, alongside Lord Business, is Liam Neeson’s conflicted Bad Cop.

The Lego Movie holds together with shrewd observations about the real world and very clever plays on sayings, words and product names. It turns ideas on their heads and offers hilarious insights into the way children interpret their surroundings—all without alienating the parents in the audience.

Sean, my brother-in-law, dutifully took the boys to the movie, but he was pleasantly surprised by how much he himself enjoyed it. “There were a lot of adults laughing their heads off in the movie,” he says. “It was well done.” Sean also commented on the “nostalgia factor” the movie tapped into. For example, Spaceman’s faded logo, or his broken chin strap. “That was what would always break first on those things.”

There’s no question that The Lego Movie is an unabashed marketing campaign. The filmmakers deliver a fabulous one-two punch, targetting grown-up kids who were raised on Lego, just as much as the kids who play with it today. But they’ve also built a smart, inventive flick that shows what’s at stake when imagination is squelched for the sake of compliance, and concludes perfectly by driving home the idea that one person’s happy ending isn’t necessarily the same as everyone else’s.

More to the point, The Lego Movie is piles of fun. It’s hilarious and visually awesome, and it makes it very clear that playing with Lego (or at least being creative, taking risks and believing in yourself) forms the building blocks of a happy childhood and an accepting, inspired adulthood.

I don’t want to spoil the surprise by rattling off too many examples of what’s so funny and clever about the movie. So I’ll keep it to just a few of the best bits, according to my nephews and me.

David: “Everything is AWESOME!!! I liked the Lego lava at the beginning. It’s so cool when it boils, Lego hot stuff goes flying up in the air. They used a lot of Lego pieces for that. Except it’s not so realistic Lego. I love how that spaceship guy was screaming ‘SPACESHIP!’ the whole entire time he was flying; it was so funny. How does that work, Lego people talking? I guess people were dressing up as Lego blocks.”

Isaac: “I liked the rocket ship guy. And the Millennium Falcon. I thought it was funny. The ending was really funny. I don’t know what my favourite part is; I just like building Lego. I just finished building a Lego castle, it’s like six little rooms, each side of it has a roof and then a base on top. It has walls and a sniper tower. And I added more to the Lego ISS.”

Jonathan: “I really liked the part where the bad cop keeps changing into a good cop. I liked the plays on terms. And the ending was pretty funny. I read a lot about it in Isaac’s Lego magazine so I kind of knew what was coming. It was really good.”

Me: “I loved Batman’s song, Untitled Self Portrait: [To the barking beat of the Batmobile’s subwoofers] DARKNESS. NO PARENTS. SUPER RICH. KINDA MAKES IT BETTER.”

*            *            *

Thank you to Rebecca and Sean for casting aside the instructions and putting together the best nephews an aunt could ask for. They’re colourful, animated and totally awesome.

Happy to get ‘Snaps’ from Capital Parent Newspaper

Friday, January 17th, 2014—News

The latest issue of Capital Parent newspaper features one of my photos in the Family Snaps section—a shot of WIDE OPEN: A Canadian Perspective designer Shawn Phillips with his wife and baby. Thanks to the paper’s editor, Andrea Tomkins, for selecting my photo!

The Champion’s Mind gets Kickass boost

Wednesday, January 8th, 2014—News

Just got my copy of Dr. Jim Afremow’s new book, The Champion’s Mind: How Great Athletes Think, Train, and Thrive, featuring a piece I wrote on Kickass Canadian Glenroy Gilbert:

Very excited to be part of this project! You can buy your copy of the book at goldmedalmind.net.

Inside Llewyn Davis

Monday, January 6th, 2014—Film

Inside Llewyn Davis (USA 2013, Drama/Music), Writer/Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

The Coen brothers don’t seem to feel bound by any particular genre, and that’s a lovely thing for their viewers. With Inside Llewyn Davis, the writer/director duo delivers a gem of a movie about New York’s 1960s folk music scene. Told in a pseudo-documentary style, the flick follows fictional Dylan-era singer Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) as he spends a week bopping from couch to floor to car, from New York to Chicago and back again, pursuing a career in music even as he becomes less enchanted with his calling—or at least with the lifestyle it entails.

Inside Llewyn Davis is told so skillfully and with such authority that you imagine Llewyn really was part of Bob Dylan’s scene. The film is grounded by a fabulous performance from Isaac, who nails the singing and guitar playing along with the acting. It also features an excellent soundtrack, produced by industry mogul T Bone Burnett.

As you would expect from looking in on a week in the life of a talented, vagabond musician, the film unveils a fascinating smattering of characters, human and otherwise, who cross Llewyn’s path. The supporting cast includes John Goodman, a scene-stealer as bluesman Roland Turner, and Isaac’s Drive costar Carey Mulligan as songstress Jean, showing off the vocal chops she debuted in Shame.

Overall, Inside Llewyn Davis is an emotional arrangement rich with mood and atmosphere; watching it often feels more like dropping in at a club than taking in a movie. There isn’t always a clear direction, but each performance leaves you with the impulse to clap. And it’s all wrapped up in an interesting finale that perfectly ties the film to time and place.

This is a great picture. I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t wind up with more than a few nods, come Oscar season.

« Older EntriesNewer Entries »