by MALCOLM FRASER, ANNE MARIE MARKO and CHLOE ROUBERT

Conversations With God

This bizarre film is part adaptation of the bestselling “nonfiction” book by Neale Donald Walsch and part biopic of the author. Played here by hard-working Canadian character actor Henry Czerny, Walsch finds himself alone and homeless after an accident kiboshes his career prospects. As he struggles to pull himself up from these harsh circumstances, he puts out some deep soul-searching questions to God, and is surprised to find the big guy actually answering. He transcribes the conversations that follow and soon finds himself a bestselling author and motivational speaker.

Maybe it’s just me, but I figure anyone who says they talk to God is either crazy or trying to sell you something. Walsch comes off as a bit of both, a deeply deluded and seriously flaky huckster who expertly spins religion-lite hokum into a get-rich-quick scheme.

The film, directed by Stephen Simon (noted for mid-decline Robin Williams flick What Dreams May Come), is a true oddity. With the visual flair of an infomercial and the pacing of the dialogue scenes from a porno, it drifts arbitrarily from one scene to another, achieving a loopy realism in its frequent focus on trivial and meandering conversations. As far as spiritual kitsch cinema goes, it’s nowhere near the dementia of the Left Behind series, but miles ahead of this summer’s New Age groaner Peaceful Warrior by virtue of its sheer unpredictability. For better or (more likely) for worse, Conversations is a film unlike any other. (MF)

Night of the Living Dead 3D

Apparently, you can’t keep a good zombie down because, brace yourself, they’re baaaack! This is but the latest remake of George Romero’s 1968 classic film that gave zombies a voice and broke ground for a genre of horror that many have since attempted, but few have managed to pull off successfully.

Unfortunately, Night of the Living Dead 3D is no exception. Though arguably well-intentioned, producer/director Jeff Broadstreet’s version brings nothing new to the table. Filmed in old-style 3D (the kind with glasses), the scariest thing in the film is the acting, although the script comes in at a close second.

The film opens with Barb (Brianna Brown) and her surly brother arriving at their aunt’s funeral to find no one, no thing, nowhere—except zombies galore. Left to fend for herself against the undead when Johnny abandons her to save his own life, Barb is rescued by Ben, a sexy stranger who brings her to a secluded farmhouse belonging to his paranoid pot-grower friends. The zombies—surprise, surprise—follow them and soon commence to make lunch out of Barb and her new stoner buds, before, of course, moving on to have the rest of humanity for dessert.

Although Broadstreet does his best to keep the original film’s celebrated campiness intact here, the problem is that the whole effort seems forced. So if the zombies don’t scare you, and they won’t, don’t expect to be humoured by the film’s studied B-movie sloppiness. A bad film just isn’t funny when done deliberately. (AMM)

Harsh Times

Christian Bale turns in another intense, disturbing performance in the directorial debut by David Ayer, screenwriter of Training Day and The Fast and the Furious. Bale plays Jim Davis, a hell-raising former soldier turned aspiring cop (presumably unrelated to the Garfield creator). While he waits to find out about his job application to the LAPD, Bale enjoys nothing more than driving around L.A., getting wasted at the wheel and opening the occasional can of whup-ass at the slightest provocation.

Accompanying him on these outings is his friend Mike (Freddy Rodriguez), who’s ostensibly trying to get himself a job under the watchful eye of his girlfriend Sylvia (Desperate Housewives’ Eva Longoria). Rodriguez’s half-hearted attempts to go straight are foiled by Bale’s prodigious appetite for trouble, and the film is a slow burn into trouble catching up with them.

Bale once again displays his actorly prowess, disappearing into the role and showing his willingness to go to whatever extremes the character demands. He plays Jim as a deeply complicated guy, tormented and twisted but highly charismatic. It’s a true guy flick: Any man who’s had a longtime friend who women tend to disapprove of will cringe in familiarity, as Rodriguez struggles to balance his girlfriend’s needs with Bale’s boneheaded, yet convincing, peer-pressure techniques. Though the film does eventually succumb to a conventional dramatic resolution, on the way it’s suspenseful, atmospheric and evocative of a particularly American kind of desperation. (MF)

Ils

As in their movies as in life, the French don’t like to be restricted to labels, especially the straightforward ones. Ils, however, accepts sans complex its horror genre and does a really good job embodying it. It’s the story of a French couple, teacher Clémentine (Olivia Bonamy) and novelist Lucas (Michaël Cohen), who have just moved into a gigantic and isolated house in the suburbs of Bucharest. They lead the blissful life of young expatriates till one unfortunate Friday night when “ils” besiege their home, hunt them through the woods and become a direct threat to their survival.

Using the ancestral fear of invasion as a narrative backdrop, the two directors, Xavier Palud and David Moreau, enhance the movie’s feeling of insecurity with classic movie tricks, like having an invisible but direct menace and intuitive acting with little dialogue.

Luckily for people like me, who feel a horror flick’s success is based on how well it takes for granted our inborn sense of survival, this movie’s aesthetic has a certain quality that gives the suspense an original dimension. The images have a grainy documentary style, reminiscent of the Blair Which Project, but with a greater structure and focus on the photography. The movie’s locations are amazing, from the claustrophobic post-Soviet sewage systems, to dark Romanian woods and desolate mansions. All in all, the emptiness of the backgrounds, the detailed imagery and the simplicity of the acting make it a better-than-average horror flick and definitely worth seeing. (CR)

Persona Non Grata

Have people really been wondering, “What does Oliver Stone have to say about this whole Middle East crisis?” Or did the infamous director get the idea that he was the man to get it all sorted out? Whatever the case, the result is this bizarre excursion to Israel and the Palestinian territories, shot in 2003.

Stone interviews Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu, and representatives from Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, and unsuccessfully tries to get a sit-down with Arafat. Over the course of these interviews, we learn that very different points of view exist not just between the Israelis and Palestinians, but within various factions thereof, that the issue is difficult and complicated, and that each side includes people who want to destroy the other side rather than negotiate peace with them. Some of this may be news to Stone, but anyone who’s even vaguely followed the subject in recent years has most likely come to these insights on their own.

Like Sidney Pollack’s recent doc Sketches of Frank Gehry, Stone’s latest is the work of a Hollywood director who’s just discovered the wonders of the digital camera, and somehow thinks this entitles him to shoot a film in the style of a high-school student. Liberating it may be, but shooting a talking-head interview in close-up with a shaky hand-held camera just looks crappy. Or perhaps Stone is trying to replicate the visual style of jihadi home videos. Whatever the case, his take on the situation adds nothing to our understanding. (MF)

All films open this Friday, Nov. 10

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