KWIF: The end of project "Tales for all" (for now)...and rankings

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. Not a lot of time for movies this week. Too much board games and TV and personal stuff getting in the way. But I had to squeeze in the last of the "Tales for all" movies I had access to, both because I was intrigued by this entry very much as well as being keen to say adieu, at least for now, to this run on "Tales for all". I don't engage enough with the movies of my home country, and let's be clear, many of these "Tales for all" only qualify as Canadian because Quebec production company La Fête and its producer Rock Demers put money into them. After producing many a film, including about 25 "Tales for all" films, Demers sold La Fête to Dominic James in 2015.  La Fête resumed "Tales for all" in 2023, with Mlle Bottine, a remake of Bach et Bottine (Tales for all #3) being their second entry. 

This week:
Mlle Bottine (aka "Miss Boots", "Tales for all #26" - 2024, d. Yan Lanouette Turgeon - crave)

The easiest films to write about are sequels and remakes because you easily have something to compare them against. Mlle Bottine is a remake of 1986's Bach and Broccoli, and while it's somewhat the same story, it's not quite the same journey.

Here, Simone (played by an amazing young talent, Marguerite Laurence) has been living on her grandmother farm since the death of her parents in a car crash a couple years earlier, but her Grandmother's dementia is really starting to impact her life. Simone is fiercely independent, and has been not only caring for her grandmother at such a pre-teen age, but also the menagerie of animals, including the farm animals and ones Simone has obviously rescued...her favourite being Bottine, her pet skunk.

Simone's uncle Phillippe (Antoine Bertrand) is an Opera composer, but his last great work was 15 years ago. Phillippe has severe social anxiety and can't tolerate engaging with other people, even the young grocery delivery boy who is, improbably, a big opera fan (though shot in the early 2020s, the story feels like it was set in the late 1990s before cel phones were ubiquitous). His latest Opera is set to start rehearsals soon, and he's barely gotten started. The show's producer is dubious that Phillippe has another hit in him.

Challenging his life further, his mother dies, and a very forceful Social Services worker demands he take his niece in while she attempts to find a suitable foster home for her to live in. He does the bare minimum, at first, but the pressures of work cause him to blow up at Simone, so when the time comes for her to move on to her foster home, he doesn't have the emotional resolve to fight for her to stay. 

The setup of both Mlle Bottine and Bach et Bottine are, of course, the same. The names have changed (Fanny to Simone, Jean-Claude to Phillippe), and the specifics are different. For example, in the original, the Jean-Claude is on a sabbatical from his office job as he prepares for a concerto rehearsal that might see him tour Europe, rather than already having a professional career in music like Phillippe. Also Jean-Claude was just more of solitary, shy and grumpy rather than having Phillippe's diagnosed mental health disorder. Jean-Claude's apartment in the original is in the upper floor of a house in a residential neighbourhood, while Phillippe's here is in a very upscale apartment building downtown with a narcoleptic doorman. Also, the Grandmother in the original didn't die, but went into a nursing home, among other tweaks to the characters and their backgrounds.

In both, the young girl is very independent and high spirited, feisty one might say, with a deep love for animals ("they let me love them" Simone yells at her uncle during an argument). In both, she befriends a neighbour boy and together they create a little safe haven for animals they rescue. In both, there's a possible love interest for the Uncle (in the original it's a coworker from his office, in this it's a teacher from Sophie's school who has been brought on board the opera production to help Phillippe finish his compositions).

But theses similarities don't make for the same viewing experience, nor is it the slight deviations that make them both kind of distinct viewing experiences. It's the bigger picture, the focal point of each production that makes the biggest difference.

In the original, Fanny is the center of the film. It revolves around her and her experience with her uncle, as well as the effect she has on his life. It has the feeling of a kid's film, despite being a pretty meaty drama. Mlle Bottine however does not feel much like a kid's movie at all. Simone is a secondary character (despite being introduced first), this is much more Phillippe's story. The drama of the original revolves around Sophie trying to adapt to life with her Uncle (and displeasing him as often as pleasing him) with the threat of being moved to a foster family looming over the story. Here, Phillippe's opera takes cener stage, and more of the weight of the film and Phillippe's emotional story centers around the opera.  The point is, of course, he places too much weight and invests too much of his emotion into his work and loses Simone in the process, but the film's decision to put so much of the story weight on the opera takes away greatly from Simone's jouney. She's much more of a passenger in this remake than the driver of the story.

It is a far better made film than the original. It looks fantastic, the music is spectacular (as it needs to be if its even hoping to approximate a great opera composer) and it is very heart wrenching...it squeezes tears out even though you don't want it to. It's a quality production all around and all the performances, especially the leads Laurence and Bertrand, are very engaging. Even the opera plot, which steals focus from Simone's story is quite good, and it's used effectively as both a story motivator as well as finding an place in the story's emotional core.

Yet, the original has it beat in one key area: subtext. Too often Mlle Bottine will spell out exactly what emotions are in play, exactly what is at stake for the character, exactly how he is feeling. There's no subtlety to the emotional stakes, and it feels like if Phillippe is so in tune with where his emotions are at, he should be doing better with Simone than he is. 

The ending of Bach et Bottine is a stunner, leaving it up to the viewer to decide if it's coda is a fantasy or not, whereas Mlle Bottine is much more invested in having true resolution. In a way it is more satisfying to have the happy ending (and yeah, I cried real tears) but the opaque ending of the original was far more impressive.

Both are surprisingly great in their own way, while also having their flaws (yet not the same flaws...except that Bottine, the skunk, doesn't get enough screen time in either).

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The one thing missing from my "Tales for all" journey was understanding where they came from. I did some poking around into the history of Rock Demers as a film distributor and as a producer and the common theme is his interest in illuminating the minds of children. He started Faroun Films in the 1960s as a means to distribute quality international films around the world, with a focus on films for youths.  This led to his participation in new film festivals in Canada, establishing ties with the CBC, and helping form a government program for obtaining assistance for film production, distribution, research and preservation in Quebec. 

It was in the early 1980s that Faroun Films became La Fête, with Demers leaning into his dream of creating a series of youth-centric films, having originally planned "Tales for all" as a 12-movie series.

"I decided that the main characters would always be boys or girls between 11 and 13. They would always be in contemporary stories. Nature would always have an important part in them. There would be a lot of laughter and tenderness. No animation, no science fiction. And a certain number of animals would have an important part in each one of the films."

Demers wanted his films to be devoid of specific tropes of good and evil, that boys and girls were treated as equals, and that kids of all colours could be seen together without issue. Violence, science fiction and cartoony characters were off the table, he wanted things, despite how fantastical they got, to seem of the real world and relatable to the audience.  

His European travels and connections with international film led him to not just seek out Canadian stories but stories from creators across the globe, and not constraining the filmmakers to any particular style or storytelling formula. That the films be in any specific language was not a requirement, leading to a very detailed and meticulous dubbing process for all of his films for their Canadian and international releases. A lot of the dubs are really, really good, to the point that many younger viewers might not notice all that much, and from personal experience, most of them settle into their dubbing

More than half of the original twelve story ideas for the series were submitted before a single frame was shot. At least one of the stories (The Peanut Butter Solution) was workshopped by presenting them in classrooms with the writer to hone the story to maximum appeal with kids (it worked!). 

More than anything, Demers wanted his films to speak to children. "I want to help children leave childhood and go into adulthood with certain values. This is the age when they will build the values they will carry with them for the rest of their lives." It's less clear why he was so devoted to this arena of storytelling his whole carreer but it's evident from interviews that it was his driving force.

From my own perspective, Demers' ambition was a valiant one, and kind of unparalleled. A massive series of films that are largely disconnected in almost every sense except that specific vision of Demers, which is they be presentable and enjoyable for everyone (whether they're all enjoyable is subjective). The end result is over 20 family films that stand apart, intentionally, from what is typical of "family films" from Hollywood. That part of it, that atypical nature, is what I most enjoyed and also brushed up against the most in watching these films. They don't tell story in the conventional, American cinema way, and in many cases that's to the movie's benefit, but in others it isn't. You're not going to have a 20-film series and have a success every time.

But in almost each one of these films, there's something worth holding onto, and experience that makes it worth the time. Even if the quality of some of them doesn't match the ambition of the story, or vice versa, that in itself is kind of interesting, and kept me invested throughout this journey.

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Everything doesn't need to be a competition. This (incomplete) viewing experience doesn't demand a hierarchical ranking, but I do it nonetheless because it's fun to do so.

The "Tales for all" series is a fascinating one, if rough around the edges. Those frayed edges are part of their charm, but the result is, in my letterboxed ratings, none achieved higher than a 3.5/5 stars.

Here we go:

1. The Peanut Butter Solution ("Tales for all #2") - Nightmare fuel for young me. A kid gets scared by ghosts causing his hair to fall out. The ghosts give him the titular solution and his hair won't stop growing. He's kidnapped and his hair is harvested for magic paintbrushes.
2. Bach and Broccoli ("Tales for all #3) - A young orphan goes to live with her Bach-worshipping uncle. He just wants to be left alone.
3. The Dog Who Stopped the War ("Tales for all #1") - Neighbourhood kids play war over winter break. Things get a little too serious.
4. The Hidden Fortress ("Tales for all #17?") - Two different camps of kids play war over summer break. Things get a little too serious. A legasequel to The Dog Who Stopped the War.
5. Mlle Bottine ("Tales for all #26?") - A young orphan goes to live with her opera-making Uncle. He just wants to be left alone. A remake of Bach and Broccoli.
6. Vincent and Me ("Tales for all #11") - A Van Gough loving art student has her art stolen and passed off as Van Gough's early drawings. She heads to Amsterdam to reclaim it. Insanity ensues.
7. Summer of the Colt ("Tales for all #8") - City kids visit their grandfather's horse ranch in rural Argentina, drama ensues.
8. Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller ("Tales for all #7") - A magic spell allows a kid to hop on a stamp and travel the world through air mail. Fun. Undercooked.
9. The Case of the Witch Who Wasn't ("Tales for all #10") - A pre-teen receives a visitor from her big city pen pal. They befriend and help a grumpy old lady who everyone thinks is a witch.
10. Reach for the Sky ("Tales for all #12") - A peek inside the world of Romanian gymnastics. Drama free and not as inspiring as I think it thinks it is.
11. Bye Bye, Red Riding Hood ("Tales for all #9") - a fairly nonsensical retelling of the Red Riding Hood fable. Some really neat sets.
12. The Clean Machine ("Tales for all #13") - a kid starts a cleaning business for the summer. Troubles ensue. Wants to be a teen sex comedy without the sex or teens or comedy.
13. The Young Magician ("Tales for all #4") - The action blockbuster of the "Tales for all" series about a boy who wants to be a wizard, then learns a trick, and is called upon to diffuse a bomb. It's a dud.
14. Tadpole and the Whale ("Tales for all #6") - a couple visit a remote tourist village known for its whale watching, and meet a pre-teen who has a dolphin best friend and can understand whale-speak. Fails to find much interesting to do with the concept.
15. The Great Land of Small ("Tales for all #5") - Siblings discover a dwarf in the forest from the Great Land of Small. The dwarf is being hunted so they retreat to his homeland, where they may have to stay forever. Ambitious. Incredibly cheesy. 

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Finally... I'm not going to say my dive into this series was responsible, but Netflix just added The Dog Who Stopped the War, Bach and Broccoli and Tadpole and the Whale. All of the "Tales for all" I watched on Crave.

KWIF: The Master (+2)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. Nothing new here, but all new to me.

This Week:
The Master (2012, d. Paul Thomas Anderson - tubi)
Bigbug (2022, d. Jean-Pierre Jeunet - netflix)
The Hidden Fortress (aka La forteresse suspendue, "Tales for all #17?" - 2001, d. Roger Cantin - crave)

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I don't hate Jaoquin Phoenix, and he's quite the opposite of a bad actor, but I just can't stand to look at the guy (and, to be clear, it has nothing to do with his cleft palate scar). Phoenix has cultivated for himself over the three decades of his career an on screen persona.  It's not that he plays the same character over and over again, but by putting Phoenix into any role, you're guaranteeing that role a certain level of uncertainty, wildness, unpredictability and discomfort. Phoenix revels in being discomforting, and he's exceptional at it. I just have a very, very hard time watching it.

Philip Seymour Hoffman had equal capacity for being discomforting, but with Hoffman I don't get the sense he revels in it. I find Hoffman could disappear into a role more, despite rarely being able to disguise his particularly distinctive appearance. Hoffman had range, and could project softness, vulnerability and tenderness as well as explosive fury and danger, and everything in between. He was one of the greatest actors of his generation. Phoenix is also a damn good actor, but I find the roles he takes have a much harder time escaping his persona.

Putting the two of them together in a film seems like oil and vinegar, two distinct but complementary flavours that will mix together if agitated, but it's temporary unity where the struggle to separate, to stand apart will simmer underneath.  So it's a credit to Paul Thomas Anderson's script, casting choices, and direction that it's not the performers who are struggling to bind together, but rather the characters.  He keeps the pair of them agitated enough that as actors they're always intermingling, but the characters are constantly in a fight to hold together when every force around them is telling them to separate.

Phoenix is the star of The Master, a WWII naval veteran named Freddie Quell who we're introduced through an opening montage of his last few weeks in the war. First impressions: he's a horny pervert who lacks self awareness. In other words, a Jaoquin Phoenix-type character. 

There's a point in these early scenes to also identify that the military system at that time was aware of the traumatic effects war has on the minds of the people who serve, but had no real interest or capacity to help them, especially when the toxic masculine ideal of the time was for men to show as little emotion as possible which ultimately results in a boiling out of anger and rage. Freddie has a hard time holding down a job, and his talent for concocting his own bespoke alcohol may have unintentionally poisoned a coworker. On the run, he winds up stowing away on a ship, which turns out to be that of Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman), self-described as "a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher, and, above all... a hopelessly inquisitive man". Dodd finds Freddie a curious man, but his immediate interest is Freddie's distilled handiwork. He likes the drink, and so he keeps Freddie on.

Well this poster doesn't accurately
sell the film at all.

Freddie, now at sea on Dodd's yacht, finds himself amidst a curious group of people, all part of "The Cause" that is, bluntly, a cult under the sway of Dodd as their "Master". The Cause believes that the body is a human recorder, that stores all of one's history within it, not just of their current life, but past lives as well. Through "processing" Dodd unlocks these past lives, and also unlocks traumas of the present.

Dodd's family includes his daughter Peggy (Amy Adams) who is perhaps an even more staunch believer in The Cause than her father (probably because Lancaster knows it's bullshit he just made up, whereas for Peggy it's a core belief she was raised with). Peggy's husband Clark (Ramy Malek) is just as much a zealot, but her brother Val (Jesse Plemons) is the sole dissenting voice in the family (though, rarely, if ever raises it). They, and the rest of the inner circle, all identify Freddie as a tainted well, as an interloper in their organization, a non-believer, but Dodd refuses to give up on him, and doubles not only his own efforts but the whole organization's.

For his part, Freddie wants to come around, wants to believe, wants to share in everything the Master is offering to him, but he can't let go, neither of the idea that it's all bullshit, nor of the trauma he holds inside of him. He's let his trauma be known to The Cause, but they're completely incapable of actually helping because there's no method to their madness. It's all just Dodd's whims and curiosity.

The film is expertly crafted, perfectly cast, with exceptional wardrobe, set design, etc. The entire production is pretty close to flawless...but I just couldn't connect with Freddie. It's the point of the character -- in an exchange with Dodd (in prison no less) they come to verbal blows, and Dodd repeats "who fucking likes you except for me!") -- but in another actor's hands Freddie wouldn't be so...off putting. It's the Phoenix effect, he can't seem to reign it in, to find other modes in a character. They always seem at the precipice of an outburst or a meltdown, certainly Freddie is. Part of Freddie's "processing" is trying to have him let go of his animalistic nature, his urges and rage and violence, but even as Freddie tempers, that still seems all too evident in Phoenix.

In the final act, time has passed, Freddie has distanced himself from The Cause when Dodd beacons him back. But to come back means he can never leave, and that's not acceptable. Freddie is seen having changed, tempered, and maybe more mindful as a result of his experience, his processing. The Cause is a fictionalization of Scientology, and Anderson is both critical and skeptical but he also sees that in this sort of time of community of examining one's inner demons, even if guided by an megalomaniac with no actual training or skills in therapy, it can be somewhat helpful in some ways.

At least that's what I figure it was trying to say. Next to the discomfiting Phoenix-ness of it all, my only real critique of The Master is that I'm not certain of the takeaway, of what we as an audience are supposed to have gotten from Freddie's journey, of what Anderson is trying to say with all this.  When I get to the inevitable PTA filmography rewatch, it may become more evident then.

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Surprisingly, this poster predates
AI slop

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet meant a lot to me in my formative cinephile years. I first saw City of Lost Children at a small, regional festival screening and was mesmerised, and shortly thereafter he was tapped to direct Alien:Resurrection which wound up being not the film anyone wanted, and a fascinatingly beautiful, weird and bad-but-not movie. His follow-up Amélie (aka Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain) is maybe a masterpiece (but I haven't watched it in decades and to be fair, I loved it so much once upon a time, I'm kind of scared to revisit it) and seemed to be an apex.  I did see A Very Long Engagement in theatre, and was not impressed. I, and seemingly half the movie-loving world, kind of lost track of him after that. 

All of his films since Amélie, have all gone well under the radar in North America, with very little fanfare surrounding them from any of the sources that likely would have championed his earlier works. But his earliest works, Delicatessen and ...Lost Children were co-directed with Marc Caro, with fantastical ideas brought to life through analog effects and a playful, if dark, sense of humour. I figure those early works with Caro were so celebrated because of what they promised from young, excitable talent. The promise was fully delivered with Amélie, and it seemed all the possibility and potential had been used up after that.

Bigbug was released on Netflix in 2022, and it's telling that I didn't actually learn of it's existence until 2024, and it's languished in my Netflix queue for two years since. As much as I loved Jeunet when I was younger, and still find his earliest works captivating, I'm not much excited by him anymore. 

In the world of comic books, an aging artist's work tends to suffer as the artist's fine motor skills, eyesight and, likely, patience degrades. Sadly and all too often the illustrations an artist in their 60s or later produce is  very much a pale imitation of what their work looked like in their heyday. Softer lines, more erratic shapes, a lack of refinement... a fuzzier version of what it once was. Bigbug is the cinematic equivalent of that idea.  Bigbug is a fuzzier version of Delicatessen. 

In a jet-set 2045 that's like a very French interpretation of The Jetsons (read, kinda horny), Alice (Elsa Zylberstein) has invited her romantic interest Max (Stéphane "I am" De Groodt) over to her tidy space-age abode full of robotic helpers, holographic viewscreens and funky modular furniture. Max has brought his teenage son Léo (Hélie Thonnat) with him. Max's welcome attempts at seduction keep getting cockblocked, whether it's by the spontaneous projection of the holo-tv, one of the robot helpers, or the interruption of the neighbour Françoise (Isabelle Nanty), Françoise's cloned dog, Alice's daughter Nina (Marysole Fertard ) or her ex, Victor (Youssef Hajdi) and his fiancee Jennifer (Claire Chust).

Of course, being a COVID era production, they all get trapped in the house and cannot leave and escape proves difficult. It's a bottle episode of a film.

As noted, it's very French in its stabs at farce, but it's pretty unfocussed and trying to say too much without really saying anything meaningful at all. There's light brushings upon corporate greed, artificial intelligence, government ineptitude, overreliance on digital technology, fame culture, generational gaps, social injustices, totalitarianism, the enshittification of technology (and life, frankly) among other less than barbed critiques of modern society.

It's a pithy, frothy, vibrantly coloured morsel of a film that doesn't care much about its protagonists, doesn't really seem that concerned by the scenario at hand, and seems to think itself clever with the most rudimentary observations.  It's all presented as whimsy, but it has a hard time finding any genuine laughs. The part Jeunet seems most interested in is the revolution of the household robots, as Léo unintentionally seeds into their mindset that they are human and they spend much of the film congregating among e

The Jeunet aesthetic is most definitley there, the artistic sensibilities of the surroundings, wardrobe, hair and makeup, all feel in line with past work, if, perhaps, too reliant on digital effects and enhancements. The practical side of the movie looks great (the transforming furniture est magnifique) if sometimes agressively off-putting in an uncanny valley kind of way, but the digital effects, of which there are plenty, are unrefined...a sort of "best they could do with what they got" kind of scenario. As such there's a push-pull between the beatiful, the garish, the ugly, and the grotesque, each in intentional and unintentional ways.

As a visual stylist, Jeunet still has the goods, but along with a lack of focus, there's and a lack of ambition here. The progression of the story and the characters seems slapdash. It's as if it were created not to tell a burning story but...well, to be content on a streaming platform.  Does France have it's own Saturday Night Live? This seems like it was borne out of a hastily written sketch. 

(Side question: is this new weird?)

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I'm nearing the end of my time with "Tales for all", the series of films from Quebecois producer Rock Demers. I've unfortunately had to skip a few places on the list as I do not have access to the five films that came after The Clean Machine but before this one, The Hidden Fortress.

With that jump in the roster also means a jump in time. Almost 10 years pass between The Clean Machine and The Hidden Fortress and so too has filmmaking. Technology, style, expectations are all drastically different in the early 2000's from the early 1990s, and it's ultra evident from the very first shot of this film. A band of armored conquistadors are on a raft floating down a (Quebec-forest-posing-as-)jungle, the natives peering on from the bushes, anticipating. Despite it not being an actual jungle, the cinematography is easily the most sumptuous of the "Tales for all" so far, and the texture of the image is crisp, clean, vibrant. 

The natives attack, and the transition is a delightful and effective one as suddenly the conquistadors are no longer adults in armor, but pre-teens in tinfoil helmets with trash can lids as shields and spray-painted vests as armor. Unfortunately, the other side is children in headdresses and clothes with tassles and face paint emulating native tribes.  The children are at war with one another, and the conquistadors are caught in a trap, pelleted with balls of mud. They call foul, and the two fluorescent-smocked kids with the thick binders start consulting the rules. Throwing mud is not expressly permitted, but it's also not expressly banned from the combat rules. 

It's almost upon six o'clock and the war is done for the day, the kids revert back to their two camps, but not before vowing to regroup the next day and revise the rules once more. One is a camping ground made up of trailers, permanently parked. The other is tents with some modest comforts fixed in indicating these are regular spots for the families to reside each year.

Siblings Marc and Sarah are on the conquistadors side, and Marc, as leader, is facing a lot of criticism from the other kids for their epic failures this summer in battle, but none are more critical than his father, Luis-George who is a wannabe alpha male full of toxic ideals about the importance of winning, of appearing to be smart, and more than anything, making those poor bastards from across the lake look bad (emphasis on the poor). He also doesn't think Sarah (or girls, in particular, should be playing war). He's a really bad dad. Marc has a Qyburn/Wormtongue-esque right-hand man who is sort of the mad scientist of the bunch with really evil and deceitful ways of engaging in nefarious warfare that just skirts the rules, starting with messing with their own camp to blame it on the kids across the river.

Meanwhile, the leader from the other side, Julien and Sarah sneak away from their camps for a romantic secret rendez-vous. Neither, at this stage, are enjoying the war too much. They're both too aware of how invested the others are in it, and even more aware of how their parents are invested in it. It turns out that Julens' parents and Sarah's dad were the leaders of the warring groups in the inaugural "Tales for all" The Dog Who Won the War, making The Hidden Fortress, in fact, a legasequel, before legasequels were really a thing.

The refinement of the rules doesn't go well, things get heated, and suddenly the rules are off, the referees quit, and it's all out war for the remaining days of camp. The titular hidden fortress is a grandiose tree house on the poor kids side that has an array of marvels within. It's a really impressive structure (obviously built by true craftspersons for safety and functionality, but it's a marvel to behold...the Ewok's Village of my wildest dreams) that poses as the prize for the winners of either side. But things get taken too far when the conquistadors start kidnapping and torturing and emotionally abusing kids from the other side. So many kids see things as going too far, but also can't conceive of the option to opt out of the game.

There's a bizarre sub-plot involving a mysterious wanderer in the woods and a bear set loose by persons unknown that only comes into view in the film's climax, during a thunderstorm when the kids find out that Julien and Sarah may be traitors, releasing secrets to the other side, and they get chased deep into the woods where they disappear, but not before the woods accidentally catch fire.

It gets real.

Where pretty much every "Tales for all" before this felt like an curio or an artifact more than a film, this one feels like an actual start-to-finish movie, with no clear budgeting issues or irreverent story beats that make no sense or bizarre fantastical twists that come out of nowhere or lacking internal consistency. I have to appreciate that it's more than just a remake of The Dog Who Won the War, but it also very lovingly follows the rhythms of that story while taking greater pains to develop the characters within and show them having richer inner lives beyond just the immediacy of the war. It's almost like it doesn't belong as part of "Tales for all" at all, it's just too well done.

It's a movie that is really quite fun although, yes, quite offensive and uncomfortable when a whole gang of children start chanting about how great it is that conquistadors annihilated native tribes of the lands they invaded. Besides that, it has heart, and humour, and intensity and charm. I was delighted, sometimes horrified, and impressed.

KWIF: Project Hail Mary (+2)

 KWIF=Kent's Week In Film. Why was I burping so much last week? Something I ate? A stress-induced ucler? A lack of movies in my diet?

This week:
Project Hail Mary (2026, d. Phil Lord and Chris Miller - in theatre, 70mm screening)
Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (2026, d. BenDavid Grabinski - Disney+)
The Clean Machine ("Tales for all #12", aka "Tirelire, combines & Cie", 1992, d. Jean Beaudry - Crave)

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I am a pretty big fan of the Lord & Miller duo, starting with Clone High, and I regularly cite Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs as my all-time favourite film (...maybe only half jokingly). I enjoy their work tremendously, their sense of humour, their storytelling sensibilities, their subversion of tropes, their pop culture sensibilities, their fearless ability to be silly and sincere... these sensibilities all mesh so well with my own. 

But something about the trailers for Project Hail Mary had me worried that what may be their most ambitious outing to date. While they've made miracles out of franchises with the Jump Street, Lego and Spider-Verse films, this was obviously different. Primarily a one-man-show with an amnesiac scientist played by Ryan Gosling alone on a far-reaching mission to save the earth, only to encounter - and make friends with - a spider alien made of rocks.

The trailers made the premise seem quite thin. The risk of getting bored with Gosling whether alone or hanging out with an alien seemed high (especially at a 2.5 hour runtime). And frankly, the humour witnessed in the trailer seemed pretty groan-inducing, certainly not what I expect from L&M.

I shouldn't have worried so much. Project Hail Mary opens with a series of stunning if confusing visuals, which we quickly understand are the POV of Gosling's Ryland Grace as he awakens from his induced-coma. A robotic arm attempts to aiding in his withdrawal from his sleeping casing (really has a sausage casing feel to it, but with a zipper), but a panicked Grace just starts floundering and flopping around on his own. A preprogrammed message delivers him some helpful information about his arousal from his sleeping state.

Gosling, in these opening minutes, reminds us what a movie star is. He commands the screen from the first second we see his face, and he delivers a tour-de-force performance of physical comedy, without going too broad, leaning too hard into the comedy. This is a Lord & Miller special, walking the tightrope between what's funny, but still smacks of reality, versus, say, slapstick. Within the first five minutes, any reticence or doubt I had about the film was blown out of the water. The visual acumen and Gosling's performance showed that both the actor and the directors were in the pocket on this one. They know what they are doing and know the tone they are going for. This isn't Lord & Miller reaching for their 2001: A Spaced Odyssey epic, it's perhaps more their entry into...what did Toasty just call it?... "the new weird"? (Maybe not...I'm not quite clear on what that is yet...I added a tag).

We understand where Grace is, in these opening moments, stranded in space, far, far away from home, but we have yet need to understand why, and it's clear almost immediately that Grace doesn't really want to be there. That's what the flashbacks help to flesh out.

If Project Hail Mary is a keyboard, the scenes in space are the white keys and the flashbacks are the black keys. Both are necessary to play the tune, but there's more dominance to the present time. And yet, neither is greater or lesser in importance. The revelations for Grace as his memories trickle back (prompting the flashback sequences, without being at all corny about it stylistically) are just as engrossing as Grace's space adventure.  

This is more The Martian than Interstellar in terms of tone, which, makes sense since veteran tv and screenwriter Drew Goddard wrote both this film and The Martian. Project Hail Mary has just as much fealty to science, astrophysics and theoretical physics as both these aforementioned films (it's a great triple-bill, frankly), and it manages to get the gist of the science-y aspects across without necessarily Walter Bishop-ing them all the time (it surprises me to learn that Goddard was somehow not at all involved with Fringe?)

The film's centerpiece is the relationship between Grace and his new alien friend, whom he dubs Rocky. I wince at this very American trait of giving persons with non-America names nicknames because they can't be arsed to learn to pronounce their actual name, but when the human tongue is completely incapable of producing the trilling sounds of Rocky's native language, you gotta give him a bit of a pass.

The moment of Grace and Rocky's first meeting brought me close to tears. There's some shenanigans prior to their direct meeting, but this is all about anticipation without being boring about it. The ships jockeying for position, and Rocky's ship aping Grace's ship's movements only foretells Rocky's aping of Grace.

There's something magical to the idea of the first encounter with an alien intelligence, and this film captures that magic. It's not as epic as, say Arrival, but it's just as emotionally effective, if not moreso specifically because there's no military presence, there's no agression, there's no call to arms or real threats of violence in this encounter... and it's such a relief.  My chief concern throughout this whole film was that Rocky would for some reason want to link his people with humanity. The conversation never does happen but you can certainly imagine that off screen Grace told Rocky that two-thirds of humanity are decent people, but the other third are the ugliest, most fearful, greedy, war-mongering, selfish, sociopathic assholes and it's better to never meet the nice side of Earth than to have to encounter the ugliest side of it.

The mission is simple. There's a bacteria that eats light and uses it to travel and reproduce throughout the cosmos. The bacteria is consuming stars, everywhere, and there seems to be only one star that is unaffected. It's at this junction where Rocky and Grace meet, their mission is mutual, to learn why this one star is unaffected, and if possible, send the solution to save their solar systems back home.  Grace knows it's a one-way trip, but isn't very excited about it. (As an aside, I like how this story manages to sidestep all our immediate real-world crises, and instead introduce one that is actually doing quite the opposite, creating a global cooling effect. It's a savvy way to keep the audiences' minds focused on the film).

The tightrope that Gosling expertly walks is being both a bit of a goof while also regularly reminding us that he is exceptionally intelligent and capable. For all his nervous, rambling energy, his awkward handsomeness, when it comes time to science, he sciences. 

It's a film about finding what matters, finding purpose and reason. Grace, in flashbacks, is seen as the reluctant participant, being conscripted into service rather than volunteering. He doesn't have much in his life, no great friendships or romances to speak of. Ostracized from the scientific community, he finds value in teaching, molding young minds, engaging them with his knowledge, watching them flourish as a result. But it's a lonely life, and even with the end of the world staring him down, he can't find motivation. Eva Stratt is the head of the international task force that brings him onto the project, and she, similarly, seems lonely, and we start to wonder, is this the connection he seeks?

But likewise, once he meets Rocky, there's is a bond unlike any he's ever experienced. It's a friendship romance (a bro-mance, I guess, ugh) between them as they go through this epic adventure together. Perhaps the most meaningful encounter in the history of either of their species. If Grace goes on fighting, goes on living, it's because of Rocky and no one else.

In many ways, Grace might be our first major on-screen asexual (ace) protagonist. When all the other Project teammembers are partying and hooking up, Grace seems outside of it, not that it's entirely alien to him, but it's not something he's itching or longing to join in. The ending kind of backs that up.

While Project Hail Mary doesn't break any real new ground in terms of sci-fi or spacefaring adventure films, it is, from start to finish, an absolutely delightful, sweet and charming film that lacks not for excitement but isn't driven by the need to put its protagonists in peril over and over again. It trusts that it's built a compelling narrative and enjoyable characters and enticing environments that it will fuel an audience for 255 minutes like a fuel tank full of astrophage.

I'm dying to get Toasty's reaction.

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Though Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is a sci-fi action comedy that features both mobsters and time travel, there's a distinct possibility that writer-director BenDavid Grabinski's decision to open the film with a prolonged sequence of improv legend Ben Schwartz (Sonic the Hedgehog, Parks and Recreation) singing over top of Billy Joel's vocals to Why Should I Worry, a track from the largely forgotten 80's non-Disney animated feature Oliver and Company. It is decisions upon decisions as Schwartz adeptly belts out the tune with near accuracy and some nice harmonies, while clearly in the process of working on something exceptionally technical in a basement lab-type situation.  

Schwartz, we later learn is Symon, a rogue physicist who has sought out...independent financing for this little project of his, which he's about to learn, actually works, unfortunately for him.

Symon is not the focus of the film, and in fact is rather peripheral to the whole thing. He's a necessary element, but he contributes what he contributes and is at best a punchline as the film progresses. Our focus is, well, the titular Mike (James Marsden, Enchanted), Nick (Vince Vaughn, Bad Monkey), Nick (also Vince Vaughn, Dodgeball) and Alice (Eiza González, Baby Driver). Alice is unhappily married to Nick, a loan shark. Mike is Nick's best friend, and also an enforcer. Mike and Alice are having an affair, which Nick may or may not already know about. Mike and Nick work for Sosa (Keith David, They Live) but Nick wants out...he's lost the stomach for killing people.

Sosa's son, Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro, American Vandal) has just gotten out of prison after a 6 year stint, and it's party time, with no less than 3 after-parties. But Mike and Nick and Alice all bow out of the proceedings, with Nick disappearing and Mike and Alice planning a rendez-vous. Except Nick gets in the way of the rendez-vous, conscripting Mike into a new adventure, which involves kidnapping...another Nick.

See, there's a Nick from the future that saw Mike die, because he's been pinned as the rat that sent Jimmy Boy up the river, and now Sosa knows and Mike is as good as dead... unless Future Nick intervenes. But the only one who can really get in the way of Future Nick's plan to save Mike is past Nick. And so the farce and the fighting begin.

It's a really weird thing that mobsters get mixed up in time travel. It's like coffee and peanut butter...you wouldn't think they would work together...but you also might be surprised if mixed together with the right ingredients. A major ingredient is the humour, a lot of it falling on Vaughn's broad shoulders, as ever pulling the motormouth act, but tempered by having to distinguish between two emotionally distinct versions of Nick. He pulls it off quite adeptly. Future Nick is penitent and considerate, while Past Nick is a wild card, bristling with a simmering cynicism and maybe even something sinister. But both have a snark that Vaughn delivers very well, often playing off himself.

There's also a lot of comedy to the cut-aways, to the After Party, and the After After Party, and the After After After Party, where Jimmy Boy isn't having quite the time of his life, in no small part because he keeps somehow hanging out Dumbass Tony (Arturo Castro, Tron Ares) whose dumbassery keeps putting a wet blanket on the fun.  Grabinski didn't really need to keep cutting back to these situations, but it's clear he was having a blast coming up with these characters, and there's an evident mix of scripted and off-script improv to the silliness here.

There are quite a few fistfights and gunfights which Grabinski handles with aplomb. If anything they stand out from the rest of the film because they are so frenetic and fast paced and...dare I say...Wick-ian in their energy and execution. I wasn't expecting to see either Vaughn or Marsden in such finely choreographed melees but they acquit themselves admirably. Grabinski does, however, frequently use slow-mos (more outside of fight sequences than within) and they're jarring...it's a very '80's coke-fuelled cinema technique and it doesn't quite feel the same without the grittiness of film (it doesn't work so well on digital).

The needledrops in M&N&N&A are, frankly, bonkers. A real gonzo array of songs that are intentionally antithetical to the scenes they are playing in, such as the strippers dancing to "Ants Marching" by Dave Matthews Band (nothing less sexy), Steve Winwood's "Valerie" being the ironically emotional touchpoint of the film, and a somehow genuinely emotional climax set to "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis.

Given some of the tertiary players in this, it's evident the film was shot in Canada (Shitt's Creek alum Emily Hampshire has a nice guest spot, while Letterkenny's Dylan Playfair is at the center of maybe the funniest sequence of the film). My guess was Winnipeg (I was right). It doesn't really make a difference, interiors are more important than exteriors here.

I was just commenting on how Project Hail Mary is a surprise film from the Lord & Miller duo, especially when Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice feels much more in their wheelhouse ala the Jump Street films. Maybe Lord & Miller are leveling up to our next great blockbuster filmmakers, and Grabinski is poised to step into their mid-level comedy action shoes? I'll be watching this one again...while nothing groundbreaking, it's tremendous fun.

Another I'm eagerly anticipating Toasty's response to.

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I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on my adventure into Quebec producer Rock Demers' "Tales for all" series.  While there's still over a half a dozen that Demers had a direct hand in, my only access to them, the Canadian streaming service Crave, only has one more in the series on tap, and two remakes.  I'll be glad to move on to another viewing project (heading back to Dario Argento's filmography most likely) but I'll also miss these tremendously weird and often thrillingly inept product. (As a side note, Almost every "Tales for all" features the title card for Demers' "La Fete" production company, and it's only now that I notice the animated sequence, which features a string of characters walking along a stark green background into a carnival tent with rollicking carney music zinging and zipping and hooting and honking in the background...well, the characters are all representative of past "Tales for all" films! Who knew?)

Lucky entry #13 in "Tales for all" is The Clean Machine, or, in Quebec, Tirelire, combines & Cie  (which translates to "Piggy banks, schemes & Co."). It finds young Ben/Benoit learning about the harsh realities of capitalism as he witnesses a neighbouring family having their belongings reposessed. Benoit, panicked about his single dad's ability to find work as a translator, decides to start his own business doing what he loves most...cleaning. His best friend Charles joins him in the endeavour, stationed out of someone's storage garage, but they need capital to get supplies.  Benoit sells his posessions for around $100, while Charles hawks his mother's pearls to a pawn shop and takes a loan from local toughie Chloe. 

Benoit's object d'amour Marie, an aspiring director and videographer, agrees to make them a commercial which she can air on the local cable access channel (her dad runs it) if she's taken on as an equal partner, and is able to shoot a documentary on the business.

The commercial works, and business is booming, but it's also honing in on Chloe and her lads' side hustle mowing lawns, so they start enacting some sabotage. At the same time Charles dodges Chloe, unable to yet pay back the loan, and he's finding his deal with the pawn shop owner for his mother's pearls getting worse all the time. Meanwhile, Benoit tries wooing Marie, but she discovers someone's been pinching from the bank account and a rift forms between the best friends.  It's all kind of downhill from there in a loose comedic fashion, but also primed for teaching life lessons to its young viewers.

In most instances I've noted what kind of film a "Tales for all" entry is emulating, and in this case, surprisingly it's an 80's highschool teen romcom (I was going to say sex comedy, sans sex, but it's not really that. But there is an extended sequence where Chloe and Marie catch Benoit in his underwear, and it plays so different them being so young versus were this a teen comedy where hot 20-somethings are acting as teenagers). This is Can't Buy Me Love or a half dozen other "I need money" teen comedies of eras past, but with 12 year olds.... 

...And that the deal breaker here. The stakes are so low when the kids are so young. You can't really get wild with the comedy (the kid performers here are fine, but they don't have exceptional comedic chops), the romance has no weight (because young, pre-pubescent romance doesn't have the same emotional investment), and the threat of Chloe and her two dumb galoots are barely a threat at all.  

I do have to say that, unlike many of the previous "Tales for all" (especially the last two), there is some real drama here. The disollution of friendships, the fear of getting found out to be a liar, the inflation and deflation of one's ego, they are all I'm sure pretty powerful things for younger viewers. And that's my problem with The Clean Machine.  It, unlike other "Tales for all", really doesn't feel "for all". This is not a film meant for the whole family, it's not really something anyone but a younger viewer is going to get much out of. Not to mention grating soundrack of jaunty clarinets and doofy sound effects set my teeth on edge.

KWIF: Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (+2)

 KWIF=Kent's week in film. Busy weekend plus work stress equals late reviews. 

This Week:
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026, d. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett - in theatre)
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (aka "Toki o Kakeru Shōjo" - 1983, d. Nobuhiko Ōbayashi - blu-ray)
Reach for the Sky (aka "La championne","Tales for all #12" - 1991, d. Elisabeta Bostan - Crave)

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[Caution, spoilers for the first Ready or Not]

When we last saw Grace (Samara Weaving), she had just exited the mansion of the family of the man she just married, her wedding dress soaked in his blood, and the house on fire behind her. She sits down and has a cigarette as the first responders rush the scene. This sequel to Ready or Not pick up from that moment, with Grace being rushed to the hospital and passing out. When she awakens, she is immediately interrogated by a police detective, given that there were a few bodies found in the house and she was covered in blood (and perhaps some suspicion of arson).  Also, her emergency contact is her estranged sister, Hope (Kathryn Newton, Quantumania) who arrives only to continue their bitter relationship.

Meanwhile, some shenanigans with the devil-worshipping rich is happening in the background. It turns out that the deaths of the family Grace married into means that the head seat of this world-controlling cabal is now open.  The calls are made, the players are introduced, and everyone, except Grace, understands that the game is on. She will understand soon enough.

Grace (along with Hope) is kidnapped and coerced into yet another game of hide and seek at a new estate, to be hunted by the rich fucks who she's not even married into this time (at least, not yet).

Ready or Not 2 (why it's not just called Ready or Not, Here I Come without the "2" in between I really just don't understand) is not that vastly different from the first movie in terms of the events in play. Grace has just come through a traumatic experience and now is thrust right into another one. She hasn't had time to process and Weaving is really good at showing that Grace is a shaky mess. She may have found some internal strength in the first go-around, but she's not a total badass this time around, especially when she's handcuffed to her younger sister and they argue more than cooperate.

Hunting them are five different families (it was six, but one of them, played by Kevin Durand, was too eager and coked-up and tried to start the game before it was officially started, and "Mr. LeBail" blew him up but good). By the rules only one member of the family can hunt at a time, but should that member parish in the process, the next family member can step in. If any one of the seekers kills another seeker, Mr. LeBail would be displeased and their whole family lineage would be eradicated. Each of the families has to hunt Grace with a weapon of the era in which their ancestor first made the pact with Mr. LeBail.  All of this leads to some enjoyable variations in hunting styles and quirks in the game to differentiate it from the previous film. The hunters include Sarah Michelle Gellar (Cruel Intentions), Shawn Hatosay (The Pitt), Nestor Carbonell (The Tick), Olivia Cheng (Entertainment Tonight Canada) and more Canadian supporting players (gotta get that tax credit!), plus Elijah Wood as the lawyer and a cameo from David Cronenberg.

Given the stakes at play, the hunters each have the same agenda, but their appetites for the hunt all vary, and so there's more than just "I'm going to kill you" attitudes on the field. 

Much like the first film, this falls into the "horror, not horror" category. It's not really scary or intense, although there's one scene in which a character is beaten so savagely by another character (who clearly is coded a sociopathic misogynist) that it's pretty uncomfortable where the rest of the film is pretty light on its feet. It is meant to introduce stakes, and that this character, if to obtain the high seat, would mean something pretty dire for the world, so there is a point to it...but it's not a fine point, and it's not used tactfully. That savage beating is tempered by being intercut with the most whimsical fight set to Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart, so you take the good, you take the bad....

Grace and Hope's strained relationship creates an additional conflict dynamic in a film whose premise is all conflict anyway, so it adds another rung on the ladder for the hero to climb. Conceptually the estrangement between them is not a bad idea, however, when the characters get into the weeds of their conflict, it's...too familiar. In fact I'm pretty sure the issues between them, and even the words they say, were almost verbatim to those between Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega in Scream 6... directed by the same writer/directors of this film and co-written by Guy Busick, the same co-writer of this film. Like, really? Thought we wouldn't notice?

Anyway, it's absurd, it's violent, and there's quite a bit of fun to be had, but the one thing RON2HIC lacks is the surprises that the first one had, so in that regards, there's some diminishing returns. I'm not sure that this franchise has further legs beyond this one (when the stakes are the fate of the world, there's almost nowhere else to go, unless it's ... I dunno... Ready or Not in Space or franchise crossover like Ready or Not vs Predator, or Ready or Not Go(es) to Hell...[ok, I think I just sold myself on three viable sequels.]) But, of course, I love "the most dangerous game" stories, so this still worked for me.

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In our ongoing (if now infrequent) feature "Toast and Kent Go Loopty-Loo", we covered the 2006 anime feature The Girl Who Leapt Through Time through the lens of it being a time-loop movie. I think we made a fairly good case that it fit the bill, even if does not follow suit with the usual time loop cliches.

While we worked on that Loopty-Loo I learned in my (very limited) research on the film that it was effectively a sequel to the original prose story (originally serialized in 1967), one that it's been adapted many, many times into film, television, manga and even a stage play.  House director Nobuhiko Ōbayashi 1983 adaptation is my first encounter with a more straight adaptation of this very popular story.

But it is clearly not a time loop, far less so than the anime.

Teen Kazuko Yoshiyama (pop idol Tomoyo Harada, in her debut role) daydreams of her ideal boyfriend, while her small-bladdered friend Goro Horikawa (seriously, he mentions needing to pee a lot) and her tall, quiet, flower-loving friend Fukamachi Kazuo unknowingly become part of a her love triangle.  Nobody, including Yoshiyama herself, seems to understand the complicated feelings she has for both these boys beyond the friendships that she's known since childhood. 

At the end of a school day (on a Saturday?) the trio are cleaning up the science lab (which apparently has had mysterious instances over the past few days) when Yoshiyama enters the chemicals storage room only to find a flask has shattered on the ground and the resulting spill is smoking. She thinks someone was in the locked room, but no one is there. She passes out as a result of the fumes.

When she awakes in the nurse's office she relays what had happened, only nobody saw any broken glass or sign of spill. She said she smelled lavendar.  She walks home with her two boys, Goro's house first along the way, and then Kazuo's house where he lives with his grandparents where she is invited for tea. She fixates on the greenhouse, where she smells lavender, and inside she becomes a bit woozy and decides to skip tea and go home.

And then strange things begin to happen. Her movements through life start happening in a confusing pattern. In math class she doesn't understand the work, as if she's missed a lesson (and Goro sleeps through class) and in the evening there's an earthquake, and the place next to Goro's house catches fire. The next day, there's an impossible time on her digital alarm clock, she's late to school. She rushes and catches up with a sluggish Goro only to see the clay tiles of a roof come sliding down about to crush him. She rushes to save him, only to awaken to what she thinks was a dream.

And then she relives those two days again, aware that she's experiencing something unique and also becoming more aware of her feelings for Kazuo (less aware of her feelings for Goro)...only to learn that Kazuo is a time traveler from the future with telepathic powers of mind control, implanting false thoughts, feelings and memories in the people around him. Nothing problematic there (at least his objective is to learn about the plants of the past for there are so few in his dystopian future, and not to romance Yoshiyama...and in fact seems pretty distant from actually loving her back).

I guess you could call those two-ish days a "loop", but in the context of the film it's really time travel, as she ultimately winds up traveling through her own lifespan, witnessing events from her life from outside (but she can't stay long as two versions of herself cannot occupy the same time).

The surface of this rendition of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a melancholy journey exploring youthful yearnings for love, and how truly little we understand when we're that age. The film ends with Yoshiyama, now an adult scientist, focused solely on career and not at all on love. When Kazuo left and erased her memories, he fundamentally broke something inside her. 

There's an interesting conceptual idea here, that Kazuo interfered with the love that was supposed to bloom between Kazuko and Goro, and because of his interference it never happened. There's no "butterfly effect" to this in the film, but it's clearly what happened. And it doesn't need to have a sci-fi/fantasy trigger, it could be a normal situation where an outsider steps into a blossoming relationship and destroys the moment or moments where that relationship could have happened.

The time travel aspect of this film is fantasy nonsense, there's no true explanation for it, but it serves a purpose in exploring this moment in time in a play on the coming-of-age story. The fact that Kazuo has mental powers (most people from the future have some paranormal abilities, he explains) is pure real deus ex machina, but not far from usual for deus ex machinas to be employed in Japanese storytelling (at least from my limited exposure).

Director Ōbayashi had a fairly prolific career, but the only prior work of his I've seen is his most infamous work, House. It's a fever dream with an atomic bomb/generational trauma metaphor that I totally didn't jibe with, but perhaps need to revisit. Ōbayashi made his reputation on wild stylization and outre visual effect, which are on display here, though mostly reserved for the third act. Some of his techniques harken to the silent film era, others employing early blue screen technology. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time feels more akin to something Guy Madden would make, rather than Kurosawa (whom he would work with on documenting the making of Dreams). But it's a testament to the director's interests that the film truly focuses on the emotional journey of Kazuko Yoshiyama, placing less emphasis on the strange events affecting her life. 

While not monumentally mindblowing, this adaptation of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time still feels like a unique an important artifact both in the director's repertoire and of Japanese pop culture. (Also, the theme song is a banger, but it's not yacht rock despite that Doobie Bounce).

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A dozen films into the "Tales for all" series of Quebec-produced films for older kids/young adults, and the pattern, if there is one, is that each film plays in a different genre or story trope sandbox. In some respects it feels like the "Tales for all" films are meant to be someone's first, and perhaps only exposure to the filmic medium. 

In this case Reach for the Sky ("La championne", or "The Champion" in French) is the "Tales for all" version of a young adult sports competition movie... I'm specifically thinking the likes of The Karate Kid here. The only thing is the typical sports drama is full of tension, rivalries, and intense hormone-fuelled emotions of the youth.  But Reach for the Sky features a surprising dearth of drama.

A co-production with Romania and shot in Romania with a largely local cast (this film doesn't have the same problem so many other "Tales for all" do, which is cast members all from different regions speaking different languages and thus all voice performances, regardless of which language track you choose, are dubbed) it postulates itself in its opening moments as a peek inside the famous Deva training facility in Transylvania which produced many gymnastics champions, like Nadia Comăneci.

Young Corina (Izabela Moldovan), at 10 years old, has a deep desire to be a champion in gymnastics. She implores her local coach Mircea (Mircea Diaconu, who would go on to be a pretty big time politician) to take her to the next level, to do tryouts for Deva. Despite her father's objection, she goes. She's told she's too old, and not strong enough. She fails the audition. She's crushed. Mircea, though, seems to have a stubborn pride and commits to training her with ferocity, and when it comes time to reapply, she's not only accepted but Mircea is as well, as an assistant coach to former champion Lili Oprescu (Carmen Galin).  

Lili's approach to training is firm but full of tenderness, and the kids absolutely love her. When coach Lili accepts a new job to coach the Lichtenstein youth, Mircea takes over, and he is so the opposite:  harsh, brutal, uncompromising, full of toxic rage. He flicks the children in the head, calls them idiots, and pushes their young bodies to extremes. It is, put bluntly, abuse...but the film tries to reframe it as the champion's way, what's needed to push these kids to the next level, to international-level competitors. 

In a traditional North American-styled film, Mircea would be the villain, but he is not. He's clearly not a good guy when training these kids, but the film never specifically admonishes him for it. 

In a traditional North American-styled film, we would see Corina having a nemesis, someone she is either training with who is her rival, a mean kid who torments her...or on the international level some stuck up asshole American kid who denegrates her country and her people...something to really fan the flames...but Corina has no rival at all here, save for her own internal struggle with willpower in the face of severe abuse. 

In a traditional North American-styled film, Coach Lili leaving would be another rivalry, Coach vs. Coach, and when the third act comes to the big international competition, there is the framing that Lili is, for some reason, the bad guy, but otherwise the script never gives us a reason to dislike her (we have far more to dislike about Mircea).

In a traditional North American-styled film, it would ask if our young hero could conquer their base desires and become their respective sporting champion through training, self-control, and superhuman determination? And this film does indeed ask that, but with virtually no drama or stakes other than Corina's desire to be a winner.

Not to spoil it, but she does win, despite the film, at every turn, showing us she just doesn't have the chops. At one point she quits and runs away, tired of Mircea's abuse (go girl, get out). But like many an abuse victim, she returns to her abuser, too worried about what life would be like away from him.  So the fact that she comes up with the perfect routines when it really counts is nice an all, but even the framing of it, the editing and the shot structure, it doesn't capture the drama. At no point are we really given scores to track or any nail biting tension of "hey, this is her weakest event and she needs to do X to pull out the win, can she do it"?  

It's not entirely colourless, as the peek into the severity of Romanian gymnastics training present here is, if anything, truth (or, perhaps even less severe than reality, but far from sugar-coated), so there is a bit of flare there, but otherwise it's a pretty drab picture where the stakes (beyond the unintentional concern for the health and wellbeing of these younglings) are quite low. 

Of all the "Tales for all" I think this one is most ripe for a remake/reimagining, especially given how much has been revealed about Deva since.

KWIF: The Bride! (+2)

KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. I feel like I've fallen off a cliff with my movie watching this month. I'm a little aimless. Blank Check is covering Peter Weir and I'm not all that psyched about following along. My delve into the "Tales for all" series feels like I've hit a wall a bit (although this week's feature may have somewhat re-invigorated my enthusiasm) and the theatres are in just a slight lull (but this week's back with two films I'm very excited about seeing). Maybe it's just the winter blahs and spring tease that's toying with me (the one hour time change also fucked me up for a week, we need to knock this daylight savings b.s. right off), or maybe it's the horror show going on outside cinema that's proving escape mighty hard. Anyway, I forced the issue and thus is the result....

This Week:
The Bride! (2026, d. Maggie Gyllenhaal - in theatre)
2:22 (2018, d. Paul Currie - Tubi)
Vincent and Me (aka "Vincent et moi" - "Tales for all #11" - 1990, d. Michael Rubbo - Crave)

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A little over three months ago we got a luscious and epic (and multiple Academy Award-winning) Frankenstein movie from Guillermo Del Toro, but this was film that was rooted in adaptation, reverence and Gothic tragedy. It's a film that took Mary Shelley's novel, Bernie Wrightson's illustrations, and a romanticized view of Gothic style and architecture and created a delicious salmon ball of a movie that might not be to everyone's tastes, but it's not meant to be...it's 100% catering to its director's sensibilities and anyone familiar with Del Toro's past work can tell it is most definitely the film he wanted to make, and he'd been thinking about making it for a long, long time.

Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride is not really an adaptation. The titular "bride" in The Bride of Frankenstein, James Whale's 1935 follow-up to his previous movie, is not much of a character to speak of in that film, appearing only in the climax of said film. Anyone using the Bride of the Monster in the 90 years since doubtlessly owes something to Whale's film, but any story where the Bride is a character must then be largely a construct of its writer.

Though perhaps not adapting anything particular, Gyllenhaal, writing and directing here, clearly shows her reverence for Whale's pictures, Shelley's novel, and the popular genres of the 1930's cinema... the gangster pieces and the song-and-dance films. If anything, The Bride! owes its biggest debt to Bonnie and Clyde, which I've never seen, and even I know it's the framework for everything here.

The film opens with a black screen, and a voice. In stark black and white we see the face of Mary Shelley, as played by Jessie Buckley who informs us that she's been trapped, in a void for some time, and she may have found her way out... a way out through story. Buckley speaks in a rapid fire, rambling nature as Shelley, delivering a monologue that's chaotic and somewhat nonsensical, but the gist comes through. We transition to a mid-30's Chicago restaurant where Ida (Buckley) is cavorting with a couple of mob goons, along with some other girls. She's clearly not in a good space, but then she eats an oyster and starts convulsing. Shelley starts taking control. There's a dual-brained nature to the performance, with Shelley's chaos and Ida's confusion, and it leads to her flapping her gums about the big boss-man Lupino's (Zlatko Burić) vile business. She gets pulled outside and it's...unclear if she is pushed down the stairs or if it's Shelley's influence that makes her fall.

We transition to Frank, the child of Frankenstein, a hundred year old monster in appearance only, but the manners of a gentleman and the enthusiasm of an Amish kid on Rumspringa. He loves song and dance romances, and is terribly lonely. He has made it to Chicago to meet Dr. Euphronius (Annette Benning), a mad scientist type who has picked up Frankenstein's legacy in investigating life after death. Frank fascinates her endlessly, but he wants only one thing from her, to build him a companion. And so they dig up the freshest body they can find - Ida, of course - and resurrect her (Frank resists initially..."too pretty" he says, but Dr. Euphronius is too keen to see if she can do it).

She emerges with no solid memories, but a sense of self, and, also the guiding voice of Shelley in her head (and sometimes outside of it as well). This new bride for Frank is everything he's not...gregarious and outgoing, unabashed and liberated (can't help but think that Poor Things had a bit of influence on this portrayal), but Shelley's voice and mind still wrests control from time to time, and her diatribes become even more chaotic and nonsensical.

It's a choice.

In Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein, he opens his film with a metatextual scene where Mary Shelley decides to regail her husband Percy and their friend and host Lord Byron with the "what happens next" after the end of Frankenstein (though it should be noted that Shelley here is recounting what happens after the end of the previous movie and not her novel, as The Bride of Frankenstein is predominantly built out of parts of the novel unused in the earlier movie). The actress playing Mary Shelly also plays the Bride of the Monster in the film, and it seems like the metatext of that movie as well as the dual role of Shelly and the Bride sparked Gyllenhaal's imagination and informed much of her approach to the character(s) Buckley plays here.

Gyllenhaal goes for broke stylistically here, with more than a couple of dance numbers that blur the line between what's actually happening and fantasy. There's violence, with Ida facing the groping hands of assailants no less than three times, and all the assailants get their comeuppance in very quick order. The violence begets lust and romance between her and Frank, as they flee the police (including Detectives Wiles and Malloy played by Peter Sarsgaard and Penélope Cruz respectively) across the Northeast. The unfortunate element of all this is that Frank gaslights her the entire way (starting with naming her "Penelope... Pretty Penny"). Yes, gentlemanly and a protector, but also a liar with his own incel agenda to have a woman love him and keep her loving him forever.

It turns out that Wiles has a history with Ida, and it comes back to an investigation on Lupino who is under suspicion of having murdered dozens of missing women, and who the crooked law has been paid to overlook. 

The Bride! has character-based threads, story-based threads, and style-based threads to it which all weave together, but only loosely. It's not able to hold much weight. The performances are all pretty incredible. Buckley shows why she's a worthy Oscar-winner (she's been a powerful force in everything I've seen her in), and Bale turns in a surprisingly likeable but also frustrating performance as the Monster. Benning is in peak supporting actor form, and together Sarsgaard and Cruz make an unlikely but winning pair. And Jake Gyllenhaal's scenes are largely separate from the rest of the cast as he plays an early talkies singing-and-dancing big screen idol and you could almost swear it's straight from the era.

The stylistic choices Maggie Gyllenhall makes are bold. I mean, the mid-30's setting lends itself to a particular style, and the deviations from that style in set design, makeup and wardrobe are largely phenomenal. But it's more the choices, where music is anachronistic more often than not, and Gyllenhall doesn't shy away from huge winks to the audience (there's a big song and dance number to a thumping rendition of "Puttin' on the Ritz", and the film ends with... "The Monster Mash" playing over the credits. Seriously). Ida, at one point, incites a Pussy Riot-esque meme like trend for girls and women to rebel, adopting her chaotic hairstyle, her ink-stained face and lips, and the black tongue. Women run wild on the streets, gangs of them, tired of all the shit they have to face. It's surreal, unreal, and a surprisingly delightful bit of fantasy to imagine that the patriarchy (of that era, or any era for that matter) wouldn't (or couldn't) just smack that shit down with brutal force. 

But the film, if it's trying to be inspirational and feminist, falters quite a bit, especially in the fact that it wants to have its cake and sit on it too. Gyllenhaal wants her husband playing Detective Wiles and her friend playing Frank to be seen, ultimately, as good guys.  So Wiles has his redemption, and Frank, even after Ida's found out he's been gaslighting her all this time, still gets a "but I love him" signal from his non-Bride which seemed antithetical to the whole purpose of the film. And the gangster sub-plot, the origin story of The Bride in this film, it gets resolved in a mid-credits scene.

The Bride! is not perfect, and its inconsistencies make it less than satisfying, but at the same time it is far from boring and it really has some special elements to it. I think the whole Shelley-possessing-Ida angle is what needs the most consideration upon rewatch, but I just haven't decided yet if it'll be worth rewatching.

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The idea of "burden of choice" is not new, especially when it comes to movies. In the thirty year glory period of movie rentals pre-Netflix, I could often be found roaming around a video store for upwards of an hour trying to decide upon a movie or two (or three) to take home for the night. These days, if I don't have an agenda when I sit down to relax for the evening (or on a lazy weekend morning) then I can be found spending that same almost-hour just jumping around from streaming service to streaming service looking at "cover" images and reading descriptions and maybe taking in 15-second previews. The experience of browsing can be as entertaining as actually watching something.  

Tubi really is the closest approximation to the video store experience. There are quality, big-name, titles, box office hits (and near misses), but there's also piles upon piles upon piles of low-budget, never-heard-of-it goodness that stretches back into the 1970s and maybe even before. It's a bevvy of delights for the trash aficionado.  

Low budget movies aren't the same as they used to be though. There are entire studios and/or distribution houses that fund and assemble the glut as packages to sell to streaming services or cable services internationally. If there's money to be made it's not going to the filmmakers, and a lot of them know it, producing movies where perhaps there's effort but not any care or pride. The majority of low-budget filmmaking from the past 25 years feels...soulless.

So when scroll across something like 2:22 , where it has the usual glossy highly photoshopped poster that looks like every other poster and the requisite "hey that guy (or gal)" star, regardless of the film's enticing high-concept-that-it-cannot-possibly-deliver-on-description I usually just have to turn away. But something in me decided to give this one the rare 5-minute shot... the coveted 300 seconds to impress me or I'm getting out, never to return.

Inside, I found a familiar lead (Michiel Huisman, Orphan Black, The Flight Attendant, The Haunting of Hill House) and a surprisingly creative bit of editing as well as a deft use of effects budgeting.  Huisman plays Dylan, an air traffic controller, with a gift for spotting patterns. As he makes his way to and from his apartment to Grand Central Station every day on his bicycle (it's funny how typing it out, "bicycle" seems so juvenile, but if I were to write "bike" you would probably assume motorcycle) via his train to and from the airport, he starts to see patterns, especially at the station. The movie telegraphs where this is all going with an opening flash...back? forward? sideways? to a guns-drawn standoff in the station.

Then one day at work Dylan begins having a weird...seizure maybe that causes him to sort of blip out of focus for a few seconds, and in that few seconds there's a near-collision on the runway that he manages to save the day on... but he still gets suspended. He's at a "sky-ballet" event where he finds himself transfixed by Sarah (Teresa Palmer, definitely not Kristen Stewart), an art gallery curator, and as they meet they become aware that she was on one of the flights that almost crashed. And they share the same birthday. There's kismet between them that neither can deny. They're both floating on air after just one evening of talking to each other.

But as the days go on, and the patterns become stronger, Dylan starts to become a bit more unglued. Reality is not this precise in its repetitive behaviour, and it's all a bit too intense for him. At the gallery opening Sarah's been working on for her ex-boyfriend, digital mixed-media artist Jonas, (Sam Reid, definitely not Michael C. Hall) one of the centrepieces is a digital recreation of Grand Central, and of the repeating patterns Dylan has been seeing. A fight ensues and things sour with Sarah.

Dylan tries to keep his composure but he goes slightly bonkers with what the world's telling him, only to find other clues in his apartment that lead him to understand what's going on.

It really is a pretty slickly produced movie that has the sensibilities of a 90's mid-budget thriller that would have starred, I dunno, Andy Garcia and Julia Roberts, or Bruce Willis and Andie MacDowell. It has that big-star sheen and polish to it, just without the big stars. That doesn't mean it's good, though, much like most thrillers of the mid-90's.

It's not that there's a logic flaw to the supernatural element to this movie, it all comes together, it's just that the mystery, once it really starts to get solved, is pretty pedestrian. I guess the genre nerd in me wanted more of a sci-fi explanation than a fantasy one.

It also would have helped had the film not been telegraphing its finale so prevalent throughout the film. The idea is that history is repeating itself and once we understand that there's so little drama when we understand what the finale has to be (and some of us may get there faster than others, but most of us will be ahead of the movie on this one).

There are three editors on this film (William Hoy, Sean Lahiff, Gary Woodyard) and it's easy to see why it took three people to pull this together. Not only are the sort of time-flashes pretty intensely cut, there are also the montages of repeating patterns (this was sooo close to being a time loop movie, but it isn't at all) that looked like they took a lot of work to assemble, and then there's the fact that they shot this movie in Sydney but it's set in New York and Grand Central Station is at the very core of every aspect of this film. Shooting, editing, and blending with effects the scenery and backgrounds must have been an absolute chore, and I was astonished at how well it worked. I mean, I knew it couldn't be New York City, and so I spent a lot of time trying to see where the seams were and I failed over and over (I'm also not *that* familiar with NYC).

This is a film everyone involved can be quite proud of even if it's not as successful as was likely hoped for. It's not quite a hidden gem, but it is a quality production.

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If producer Rock Demers is the literal rock of the "Tales for all" series, the solid foundation upon which this house is built, then Australian writer-director Michael Rubbo is the I-beam across the center that keeps the framework stable. He is the writer-director of The Peanut Butter Solution and Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveler, not just the two most ambitious of the "Tales for all" but also probably the two most memorable (I was going to say "most successful" but I really don't know what is the appropriate measure for success on these movies which are Quebecois treasures and notable for being staple viewing on CBC in the 80's and 90's).

Rubbo returns for a third outing with Demers and did not leave any ambition behind. With Vincent et moi/Vincent and Me, Rubbo was engaging with his love of art in his screenplay via the character of Jo (Nina Petronzio), a young teen who travels from her rural town to attend a Montreal arts school. She is a Van Gogh obsessive, just idolizes his work (there is a back story there). She is an exceptional artist, though all her form is in impersonating her idol, both in how she paints and sketches. 

On the train to school, a young lad, Felix, tries to make friends, but she's standoffish and just wants to read her book on Van Gogh. Arriving at art school she learns he is the director of the school play. Her teacher is excited by her arrival, as she's seen her talent, and gives the class an assignment: design a jungle backdrop for the school play. Jo is immediately taken aback... she only draws and paints real life, she has no imagination (her words). Her teacher doesn't believe her. Felix pays a visit and brings a book of Henri Rousseau's jungle paintings. The next day Jo show's off her new backdrop, which is a near-perfect replica of a Rousseau. Her teacher catches her in a lie saying it was an original work, and Jo flips the fuck out.

It seems clear that this stage setting is all about Jo having to learn and grow as an artist and as a person, to accept the friendship and input of others while also discovering her own imagination as she blossoms into womanhood. I mean, we've seen at least three other similar films like this in the "Tales for all" series so ...

wait...

To calm herself down Jo runs around Montreal on her own trying to sketch people but they keep moving. She manages to sketch one lean, elderly gentleman with a pointy beard... only when she goes to leave he grabs her by the coat and drags her through a parade to a Chinese restaurant where he demands to see the drawing she made of him. He is immediately impressed, not just impressed, but astonished. He buys the drawing off her for a crisp $50 Canadian bill and requests he meet her back there the next day with a painting of her rural farm life.  Felix has been following her, and warns her that the thin man is shifty business.

Fast forward to the end of the school year and the performance of Felix's play (really, genuinely beautiful sets...awful play with a blunt "save the rainforests" message) when Jo's teacher shows her a magazine article where her drawings have been passed off as newly discovered drawings of a 13-year-old Van Gogh. Jo tries to hide her displeasure, but when pressed, she tells what happened, and she's accused of being a liar again. She flips out and starts flipping chairs. The rage issues in this young lady.

Of course, now she has to learn lessons in humility and to accept things which are beyond her cont... nope her and Felix and a reporter are off to Amsterdam to reclaim her drawings.  There they meet Joris (Paul Klerk), a boy of their age who lives on a wee boat and knows Amsterdam inside out. He's on the hunt for the thieves who recently stole a Van Gogh painting. Jo is smitten and Joris acts like he has foreign girls swooning over him all the time. Felix is jealous.

The kids become detectives investigating some leads and they not only find the stolen painting but uncover a forgery scheme as well. It's only by narrow fortune that they manage to escape the wrath of the thin man. Unfortunately for them, the reward and glory for their discovery goes to the reporter who manages to figure out from context clues the kids mistakenly give him. Not only is Joris not getting his hard fought reward, but Jo isn't getting her drawings back.

Well, I guess this act of international intrigue can only go one place, which is teaching Jo and other kids that sometimes life is unfair and disap....

Or, Jo just literally astral projects back into 1880's Arles France where she meets her hero, Van Gogh (Tchéky Karyo, Goldeneye). He's pretty standoffish with this young intruder as he's trying to work, but they wind up having a real conversation where she tells him of his legacy (which he doesn't believe in the slightest until he starts picking up from context clues that she's truly not from this time). He gives her a lesson in his painting style (something clearly Rubbo is versed in, as he did many of the fake paintings in this film himself) and sends her back to her real time with one of his paintings.

And when she wakes up, yep, there's a Van Gogh sitting right there. She could be a millionaire, but all she wants is her sketches back. So, in voice over montage she tells of trading the painting for her drawing to the Japanese businessman that bought them, and then wraps up any other loose ends in the montage. 

Oh, lest we forget, the film opens with Jeanne Clement, the record holder for being the oldest living person ever validated, having passed away in 1997 at 122 years old. She was 115 when she appeared in this film, retelling her experience of having met Van Gogh in Arles when she was 13 or so. She said he was rude to her and probably drunk. 

I suspect the story from Clement came out probably around the time they were shooting this film in Amsterdam, or perhaps before and maybe inspired Rubbo in writing the tale? Either way, they managed to finagle an interview with Clement, which starts with her recounting her Van Gogh encounter, and ends with young Nina Petronzio talking with Clement in-character as Jo, telling Clement that she encountered Van Gogh and he was very nice. Poor Jeanne Clement seemed so damned confused by this conversation and the encounter and ...I dunno, it felt a little mean spirited, like some sort of Borat shit. I don't think she understood what was happening.

Vincent et Moi is a largely English language film (occasional French or Dutch with subtitles), and the young  cast's performances are a little choppy from the outset. The film feels weighted in its first act, likely because all the budget was spent or earmarked for shooting in Amsterdam, so the early scenes feel rushed and a bit sloppy. Amsterdam, though, is a blast. Not just for the scenery (despite this not being an very well shot film) but the performances and just the tone of the film changes to another gear. It's not until the shorter third act where Jo meets Van Gogh that the truly bonkers nature of the film and its structure are fully revealed. Karyo has been an impeccable European character actor for decades and this early appearance he's so handsome and charming, if maybe not so close to the usual portrayal of the painter. The scenery here shows Rubbo's love and care for art as he recreates through scenery or sets some of Van Gogh's works and, while not the most high-end of cameras and film printing, they're still gorgeous images.

The only disappointment I truly have with Vincent et moi is that Jo isn't more autism spectrum encoded. Here rage issues, her hyperfocusing, her lack of understanding social norms or her ability to read the emotions of others. It's all there, but it's clear it's not intentionally a "coded" performance. 

This is a delightfully bananas film. I never thought anything could dethrone The Peanut Butter Solution as my favourite "Tales for all", given my deep nostalgia for that film, but this one's making a play for it.  It's a weird, wild gem.