Weekly round-up

The return of Scrooge, whimsical
exoticism, advertising adulation, alien
abduction and Irish beauty

SMALL TOWN SEXUAL POLITICS: Absurdistan

by MATTHEW HAYS,
MALCOLM FRASER,
MARK SLUTSKY and
CHRISTOPHER SYKES

Disney’s A Christmas Carol
The biggest thing to humbug over in Robert Zemeckis’s 3-D animated version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is that Disney felt the need to go ahead and throw their own name in front of the ageless holiday fable. How very Scrooge-like, indeed.

Tasteless self-promotion aside, the technical specs on the latest take on Uncle Ebenezer is certainly something to be proud of. Those who caught Zemeckis’s last foray into 3-D digital animation—2004’s Polar Express—will note how far the technology has progressed in the past five years. Granted, when Disney’s big bucks are behind a project, they’re going to make sure it’s as visually engaging as possible, but the textures and intricate facial detailing of Scrooge and co. will have animation buffs oohing and ahhing throughout.

The big debate is how accessible Jim Carrey’s Scrooge will be for the little tykes in the audience. Zemeckis has decided to take an incredibly dark approach to Christmas’s most famous antagonist, and there are numerous action-packed scenes looking into Xmas present and Xmas past that are flat out scary even for older moviegoers.

Yet Dickens’ cautionary tale was meant to scare the bejesus out of the reader and put them on the straight and narrow just as Scrooge was. And Zemeckis does a wonderful job portraying the 180-degree turn that has Ebeneezer morphing from yuletide sinner to saint. It’s nowhere near as good as the 1951 live-action version staring Alastair Sim, but it’s not a piece of cinematic coal in your stocking either. (CS)

Absurdistan
In a desert village “somewhere between Europe and Asia,” a teenage couple’s plan to consummate their relationship is complicated by the sudden drying up of the local water supply, and the village women’s decision to go on a sex strike until the layabout men fix the problem.

The hijinks that ensue can be classified in that special subgenre of international cinema, best defined by an adjective that may fill your heart with either delight or dread: whimsical. You know, the type of film that’s feather-light but with a few touches of “naughty” humour that might make your grandma titter, and would generally be considered nauseatingly cute if it were a Western film, but gets around this by being suffused with exoticism.

Director Veit Helmer’s filmmaking style involves placing the subjects in the middle of the frame and letting the camera roll until scene’s end—which here evokes less post-Wes Anderson stylization and more the beginnings of cinema, when it hadn’t occurred to anyone to shoot a scene otherwise. This evocation of silent film is matched by incredibly broad performances. Aside from the young lovers, compellingly played by Kristyna Malérová and Maximillian Mauff, the film’s characters are just caricatures, suffering from a puerile sexual politics in which the men are all lazy, lustful and stupid.

A couple of scenes between Malérová and Mauff are inspired and memorable; they could be cut out and made into an enjoyably cute 10-minute film. Your enjoyment of the rest depends entirely on your tolerance for whimsy. (MF)

Art & Copy
The multi-billion dollar-industry that is the advertising business gets a long, luscious blow-job in this tedious tribute directed by Doug Pray (Surfwise, Hype!). Art & Copy leaps all over the map, with interview subjects ranging from the Mad Men-era legend George Lois to “Just Do It” creators Wieden+Kennedy to… a guy who puts up billboards in California. Randomly organized, the film intersperses famous advertising campaign success stories with unnecessarily poetic interludes where factoids about advertising appear on the screen juxtaposed with images of billboards going up.

Anecdote after anecdote is strung along with barely any connective or thematic tissue besides “successful advertising.” While there are some interesting stories here, and some colourful, if truly narcissistic characters (like Lois, who’s been accused of taking way too much credit for his and his partners’ work), the film’s complete disinterest in presenting any kind of critical perspective whatsoever is dismaying—and it makes for boring viewing, like an endless clip reel at an industry trade show.

Perhaps the worst, though, is the adulatory treatment of Hal Riney’s “Morning in America” ad campaign for Ronald Reagan, which, yes, was successful—in that it re-elected Ronald Reagan. Congratulations, asshole. Forgive me if I don’t applaud that particular marketing triumph. (MS)

The Fourth Kind
The makers of this egregiously exploitative alien abduction flick—Olatunde Osunsanmi by way of Universal—would have you believe the “documentary material” used in The Fourth Kind is “very real and highly disturbing”. Milla Jovovich, who portrays the entirely fictional Dr. Abigail Tyler, even goes so far as to deliver a verbal disclaimer into the camera (“Really, I swear! It’s true!!!” *cough* “Now where’s my cheque?”) explaining that the “documentary” footage uncovered will be split-screened along with re-enactments to provide proof of the numerous abductions in Nome, Alaska.

Unfortunately for Osunsanmi and Universal, it takes all of 180 seconds for the uncontrollable are-you-serious? laughter to strike once the film begins rolling. The “real” Dr. Tyler—gaunt and seemingly disturbed—is shown in an interview with Osunsanmi, eager to tell her story. That her story involves interactions with levitating bodies speaking ancient Sumerian and patients murdering their families to escape the baddies from up above (all split-screened, remember) is one thing. That the acting throughout the footage is grade-school-level is quite another.

While anyone should question the mental state of post-pubescent viewers buying into Universal’s shameless attempts at creating pandemonium through their marketing schemes, the real test of sanity will be dealing with those who get caught up in the hype. For poops and giggles, I went online after the press screening to see how badly the film was getting flamed. Instead I found page after page of people who desperately want to believe in The Fourth Kind’s authenticity. That’s far scarier than the movie ever gets. (CS)

Love & Savagery
Montreal director John Smith (The Boys of St. Vincent) has again collaborated with writer Des Walsh for his latest film, Love & Savagery. Set in 1969, the story has one young poet/geologist (played by Allan Hawco) heading to Ireland to study the unique landscape. There he finds a fine lass (Sarah Greene) in a small village and falls head over heels in love. Alas, the lass has obligations, to family and to God. It seems she’s been earmarked for life as a nun, so she has to set aside her obvious lust, love and passion for the poet/geologist. His tender love for her knows no bounds—he has serious trouble taking no for an answer. But the locals, ever wary of outsiders, do not take kindly to the poet/geologist and his otherworldly ways. Hawco even gets beaten up as a result of his attempts to score.

Smith’s film operates most successfully as a small-town Irish travelogue. There’s no two ways about it, it’s a stunning country, the landscape is majestic and the stormy ocean on the rocks, incredible. As a romance though, Love & Savagery lacks the inspirational passion it’s clearly supposed to muster. Rather than make me long for a sweet romance, this film inspired me to go online to see if there were any seat sales on flights to Ireland and how many frequent flyer points I have. (MH)

ALL FILMS OPEN
THIS FRIDAY, NOV. 6

SINISTER SUMERIANS, SWEET SCENERY, SHAMELESS SHILLS AND A SENSATIONAL SCROOGE: The Fourth Kind, Love & Savagery, Art & Copy and Disney’s A Christmas Carol