Bohemian Rhapsody and Coldplay Dreams    Bohemian Rhapsody     ( UK/US https://www.foxmovies.com/movies/bohemian-rhapsody )           This ode to the British rock band and their legendary lead singer Freddie Mercury had a production as troubled as its star subject, with director Bryan Singer being replaced by Dexter Fletcher (who’s at the helm of Rocketman , a forthcoming biopic on Elton John).   Only Singer gets credited however. Many reviews have been less than kind.   Still, what’s best is how Rami Malek (Mr. Robot) throws himself into the role of the mercurial Mercury, actually born Farrokh Bulsara in 1946 in Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania). Of Indian Parsi descent, he was in his late teens before immigrating to the UK with his conservative Zoroastrian parents. With extra teeth and an exotic look, Mercury went from working as a baggage handler to the top of the charts. The movie glides over that unusual backstory, incl...

Netflix Highlights: Babylon Berlin, Outlaw King    Babylon Berlin             Netflix has some truly amazing content.   Let me highly recommend this German dramatic series set in 1929 that is the most expensive non-English language series ever made. There is a great deal more information about it available online through the official website https://www.babylon-berlin.com/en/overview-babylon/ and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_Berlin . Despite a very busy volunteer schedule I’ve managed to view all 16 episodes of the first two seasons. The third is currently in production.             Two central characters are Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch), a police detective transferred from Cologne assigned to a vice squad, and Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries), a hostess in a nightclub and stereotypist who goes to work for him.   Gereon is a First World War veteran who needs ...

Two More Toronto film festival selections reach theatres: Beautiful Boy    (U.S.) Timothée Chalamet turned heads and earned an Oscar nomination in last year’s Call Me By Your Name .   With his classical features and mass of wavy curls, the screen loves Chalamet, who excels again, this time in a real-life role, as Nic Sheff, a talented young man in the throes of drug addictions.     Also excellent is Steve Carell as the father, journalist David Sheff, who stands by Nic through a series of rehabs and relapses culminating in a near-fatal overdose.   Nic has younger siblings from his father’s second marriage. He spends some time with his concerned mother Vicki (Amy Ryan) in another city. Nothing seems to work and the increasing strains on all concerned are palpable.   Helmed by Belgian Felix van Groeningen (best known for The Broken Circle Breakdown ), the screenplay draws on the revealing memoirs published by both father and son in 2008: David’s Be...

Three More TIFF Films and Three Other Recent Releases White Boy Rick     (U.S.) This is multiplex fare that didn’t really merit the fillip of festival exposure.   Nonetheless, based on a true story, it is aggressively directed by European Yann Demange and benefits from good performances.   The “Rick” in question (played by Ritchie Merritt) is the teenage son of shady gun-dealing dad Richard Sr. (Matthew McConaughey) when he is recruited as a drug-busting informant by several FBI agents.   The grim scene is the industrial wasteland of 1980s Detroit in which Rick’s own sister Dawn (Bel Powley) is a junkie. Rick gets used, in over his head, trapped and thrown to the wolves.   In 1987 at age 17 he received an absurdly long 30-year prison sentence for selling cocaine. (The real Rick was paroled in 2017 and the movie ends with a voice recording from him.)   It’s all rather sleazy and another sad lesson of the casualties from the failed “war on drugs”...

Jean Vanier and Summer in theForest           On October 26 the National Gallery hosted a very special event—the Ottawa premiere of director Randall Wright’s moving and insightful documentary Summer in the Forest , a UK/France/Palestine co-production that profiles renowned Canadian-born Catholic humanist Jean Vanier ( http://www.jean-vanier.org/en ) and the work of his “l’Arche” communities for people with disabilities, a movement of acceptance and loving joyful hope that has spread around the world. (More information on the film and availability at: http://www.summerintheforest.com/ .) Introductory remarks by Senator Jim Munson, a longtime advocate for people with disabilities, were followed by a video message from Vanier himself, who turned 90 last month.   For decades he has lived simply in the original l’Arche community at Trosly-Breuil adjoining a forested area in northwestern France. As he expressed his message: “We live in a world where pe...

Notes from TIFF 2018 Ides of October I arrived for the 43 rd Toronto International Film Festival mid-way, much later than usual due to heavy demands organizing the 29 th One World Film Festival.   It was a Tuesday, the 17 th anniversary of 9/11, another Tuesday.   Nearing the TIFF headquarters Bell Lightbox, a group of activists were handing out pamphlets advocating Catalonia’s struggle for independence from Spain because September 11 is also “La Diada”, Catalonia’s National Day.   Not the best coincidence perhaps.   I finally started writing these notes on October 8 (Canadian Thanksgiving Day), a week to the day after the anniversary of Catalonia’s controversial “illegal” independence referendum in which 90% of Catalans voted “yes” but based on a turnout well below 50%.   As populists everywhere claim to speak for “the people” fed up with the status quo, who are “the people”?   It seems what “the people” want is often far from clear. Back to...