1981

Comedy
Original title: Mille neuf cent quatre-vingt-un
In French with English subtitles

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Jean-Carl Boucher: 11-year old Ricardo Trogi
Claudio Colangelo: his father Benito
Sandrine Bisson: his mother Claudette
Marjolaine Lemieux: his schoolteacher Aline
Élizabeth Adam: another student, Anne Tremblay
Narration by Ricardo Trogi

REVIEW
An amusing autobiographical film focusing on Ricardo’s adaptation to his new environment when his parents move to St.-Foy, Quebec. Played out pretty much in low key it has a certain nostalgia about it for anyone who was ever been in a similar situation.

Although there is one extended scene when they become more serious, for the most part it bounces along from one episode to another.

CLASSIFICATION
for brief sexuality.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
• While talking finance with Ricardo, Benito says that the mortgage rate has jumped to 5%. These events took place during the titular year when mortgage rates were in the mid-teens reaching a high of 18%.
• Claudette tells Ricardo as punishment he is not allowed to watch the television program The Bionic Woman. Some threat as the last episode on tv was 3 years earlier when NBC discontinued broadcasting the series.
• Ricardo says he needs 10 cents for a soda. That was the price in 1968 but by 1981 a can of pop cost 35 cents.
• Nadia, Ricardo’s sister, in response to a question says in French ““he always ignores me” but the translation in the subtitle is way off with “he’s always mean like that”.
• On the back door is a decal of a security alarm company that was not even in business back then.

THE COVE

Documentary

F.Y.I.
Ric O’Barry: the man who trained the dolphins seen on the 60’s television series Flipper

Louie Psihoyos: Executive Director of the Oceanic Preservation Society, a non-profit organization founded in 2005

Mandy-Rae Cruickshank: a world renowned female athlete holding numerous world records for freediving

Kirk Krack: her husband, a professional freediving educator, trainer and coach

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was set up under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling on 2nd December 1946. The purpose of the Convention is to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry. Each year, usually in May or June, the Annual Meeting of the Commission is held, either by invitation in any member country or in the U.K.

REVIEW
Primarily intent on divulging the secret activities that take place annually in Taiji, Japan this documentary also serves as a clear warning of the consequences. As a secondary consideration, the producers bring to light the underhanded activities taking place behind the scenes of the IWC.

At times difficult to watch, it is nevertheless of some importance that these facts be known.

CLASSIFICATION
for disturbing content.

IN THE LOOP

Comedy

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Tom Hollander: Simon Foster, British Minister of International Development
Peter Capaldi: his boss Malcolm Tucker, British Director of Communications
Chris Addison: Foster’s assistant Toby Wright
Mimi Kennedy: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Karen Clark
Anna Chlumsky: her aide Liza
and others no doubt

REVIEW
Promoted as a satirical look at the power struggle among nations, the one essential requirement of satire is that the audience be familiar enough with the real thing to see the irony of it. Unfortunately I am not that well acquainted with the British top echelon to appreciate the sarcasm, the insults, the nasty comments and crass behaviour. In other words “I’m not in the loop”.

As a consequence it comes across as a stilted refection of reality instead of being funny. Not making it any easier is having to listen to the foul-mouthed Tucker and his pervasive use of the f-word and other expletives.

I left after half an hour.

CLASSIFICATION
for language.

P.S.
When I entered the theatre it was completely empty and except for me, stayed that way: never a good sign.

SPY(IES)

Drama
Mostly in French with English subtitles
Original title: Espion(s)

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Guillaume Canet: Vincent, airport luggage inspector
Hippolyte Girardot: Inspector Simon Faure with DST, the French counterintelligence agency
Stephen Rea: Mr. Palmer with MI5, the British secret service
Vincent Regan: Peter Burton, pharmaceuticals executive
Géraldine Pailhas: his wife Claire
Archie Panjabi: MI5 operative Anna
Alexander Siddig: Malik, Burton’s business associate

REVIEW
Although it sets our to be a international thriller, it is anything but. Instead the emphasis is on the romantic aspect but even that comes across as flat, dull and boring.

Without proper training nor any experience in espionage we are expected to believe that Vincent somehow knows how to pull off the things he does: in a word, unbelievable.

As for the action, forget it. Apart from two unexpected moments when something approaching action does take place they are marred by the most amateurish CGI I’ve seen since that technology first made its appearance.

Strewn about are inexplicable encounters Vincent has with several people that serve only to confuse the whole mess.

CLASSIFICATION
for some sexuality and violence.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
• There is a typo in the subtitles: it should read “…kid’s HIV” but is written “…kid his HIV”.
• When Anna shows several photographs to Claire, between cuts one of them winds up outside the folder although no one touched it.

THE QUEEN AND I

Documentary
In Farsi and French with English subtitles

F.Y.I.
Farah Diba was born on October 14, 1938 in Tabriz, Iran. She is the only daughter of Sohrab Diba an Iranian Army officer and a law graduate of the Sorbonne and the famed French military Academy of St. Cyr. Her mother, Mme. Farideh Diba, personally supervised her education, first at Tehran's Jeanne d'Arc and Razi schools, and later at the École d'Architecture in Paris, where she was studying up to the time of her marriage to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, which took place on December 20, 1959. In 1967, the Shah crowned Farah empress. Her best-selling autobiography, "An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah" has been translated into more than 50 languages.

Nahid Persson Sarvestani was born May 24, 1960 in Shiraz, Iran. She is an award-winning Iranian-Swedish filmaker and director. Her most famous documentary films are Prostitution Behind the Veil, My mother - A Persian Princess, The End of Exile, and The Last Days of Life.

REVIEW
Told more or less in chronological order, this documentary about the widow of the former Shah of Iran is hobbled by virtue of the fact the filmmaker did not have complete directorial control over the film. The Empress did.

So the questions asked of the Empress were tempered by the possibility she would once again put a stop to the entire proceedings, as she did when earlier opposition to the Shah surfaced. And the answers given were left pretty much intact even though the Empress sometimes was less than direct, giving inconsequential explanations. Some of this rambling should have been edited out in the interest of brevity as well as being irrelevant to the question asked.

Nahid did not dare offend the Empress or she would not have a film. Not the best way to producing a good independent documentary I would say.

CLASSIFICATION

THE TIMEKEEPER

Drama

F.Y.I.
With the discovery of gold in the Yellowknife region in the 1930’s, and the advance of mining and other resource exploration throughout the north, Hay River in the Northwest Territories became the transportation hub of Great Slave Lake. The all-weather Mackenzie Highway reached the lake in 1948, and shipping companies began to use Hay River as their base for supplying northern settlements along the Mackenzie River and the Arctic Coast.

In 1961 construction began on the Great Slave Lake Railway running north out of Edmonton, Alberta primarily to transport fuel used in the mines and throughout the Western Arctic communities. It was completed in 1964.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Craig Olejnik: Martin Bishop, timekeeper for a crew of railway workers
Stephen McHattie: Fisk, the gang foreman
Gary Farmer: Cook
Wayne Robson: Martin's bunk buddy Lomacki
Roy Dupuis: Scully, leader of the outcasts
Julian Richings: Grease, one of the outcasts
Vittorio Rossi: Jeeter, another one

REVIEW
The conflict between good and evil is centermost in this small scale film set in the far Canadian north. With a few unexpected turns, the outcome is never a sure thing.

CLASSIFICATION
for disturbing images, some violence.

TAKING WOODSTOCK

Comedy

F.Y.I.
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair (better known simply as Woodstock) was a music festival held from August 15 – 18, 1969 near the small hamlet of White Lake, about 40 miles southwest from the town of Woodstock, New York.

Thirty-two acts including Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Santana, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, Joe Cocker, Blood Sweat and Tears, Crosbie Stills and Nash and Jimi Hendrix performed over the course of the four days.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Imelda Staunton: Sonia, owner/operator of a motel in the Catskills Mountains
Demetri Martin: her son Elliot, president of the Bethel Chamber of Commerce
Henry Goodman: Sonia’s husband Jake Teichberg
Jonathan Groff: Michael Lang, an associate with Woodstock Ventures
Eugene Levy: dairy farmer Max Yasgur
Dan Fogler: Devon, leader of a theater troupe
Emile Hirsch: Billy, a Vietnam vet
Liev Schreiber: Vilma an ex-Marine turned bodyguard

REVIEW
Woodstock is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most pivotal moments in popular music. So the very mention of the word Woodstock brings to mind music. But the film fails miserably in this regard.

From the end credits I could pick out only 2 songs out of hundreds that were performed during the festival. I’m not suggesting the producers had to have re-enactments of the festival itself but the music could have been heard on a radio playing in the background or just included as part of the musical score. Failing to do so is a great disappointment. It’s like going to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and there is no Snow White.

However the film does offer something of the chaotic behind-the-scenes developments that resulted in this historical event. Although not an entirely accurate reflection of reality we get a good sense of what things were like back then: the free-love movement, protests (war, bras) and the use of drugs by most everyone.

Some of the acting stands above the rest, in particular both of Elliot’s parents and Vilma. There are frequent funny moments, the costuming and sets are top notch. But that is not enough to compensate for leaving out a huge part of what has become one of the 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll according to the magazine Rolling Stone.

CLASSIFICATION
for graphic nudity, some sexual content, drug use and language.