By Anne Brodie
What does the moment of peak human performance feel like? Apple TV+’ six-part, short doc series The Greatness Code helps us understand in conversations with some of the world’s greatest athletes, LeBron James, Tom Brady, Alex Morgan, Usain Bolt, Shaun White, Katie Ledecky and Kelly Slater. They talk about their memories of out-performing themselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2I3Yd27dGw From feeling “absolutely nothing” to the world suddenly slowing, or standing still, to not caring and letting go. Slater says he suffered a breakdown moments before he went on to his moment of greatness. Morgan noticed a palpable team rhythm. They describe these profound moments and step into the realms of philosophy, spirituality, and psychology, familiar territory for filmmaker Gotham Chopra, the son of Deepak Chopra. This all-new film form is powerful, and its cutting-edge animation helps describe the indescribable. Watch my interview with Chopra here
Mick Jagger plays the role he plays best in Giuseppe Capotondi’s neo-noir The Burnt Orange Heresy – that is, Mick Jagger. He’s an art collector who is very much like the stage star, who invites a down on his luck art critic (Claes Bang) and his American girlfriend (Elizabeth Debicki) to his Lake Como estate. He will sell them the priceless works of the artist (Donald Sutherland) who lives in a cabin on the property. He’s a recluse whose reputation has only improved by his absence. The collector asks the critic to “interview” the recluse and steal and photograph his latest unseen works. The girlfriend is the moral antidote to the critic and the collector, apparently due to her rural Midwest upbringing. The film has its moments; Debicki is the main take away and it’s fun watching Jagger in decadent, grand mode. Magnificent views, art, and fun twists work, but the lesson is clear. Life is not about things. Based on Charles Willeford’s 1971 novel. In theatres in Toronto (Yonge-Dundas & Winston Churchill), Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver.
Ciro Guerra’s adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s Nobel Prize-winning book Waiting for the Barbarians is an all-star take on political absolutism run amok. Johnny Depp is Colonel Joll; he and his troops patrol desert territories outside an unnamed city to control the “barbarians”. His appearance is as stylised as a swastika. His hussar-esque uniform, rigid posture, and expression proclaim decadent sadism. “Pain is truth”. Joll judges respected local Magistrate (Mark Rylance) to be too soft on wrongdoers, and strips him of everything; his property, authority, dignity, and humanity, jails and tortures him for years. The Magistrate retains his soul and lives long enough to see change. Robert Pattinson shows up for a split second as Joll’s right-hand man, pretty and evil. Mongolian model turned actor Gana Bayarsaikhan is outstanding as a political prisoner whose grace defeats Joll’s decrees. The amazing Rylance captures and holds the screen as the soft-spoken voice of reason, forbearance, and resilience.
Of all the wonderful adaptations of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved novel The Secret Garden, the latest, starring Dixie Egerickx, Colin Firth and Julie Walters is the trippiest. A dour stately English manor, where young Mary is sent to live following the death of her parents in India, feels frozen in depression. Her uncle’s wife has died, and he can’t open his heart to her, and she longs for parental love. One afternoon, a stray dog takes her to a hidden hole in the garden wall and inside they discover a garden forest of beauty, light, and hope; it helps heal Mary’s heart. Her bedridden cousin has been told he’s sick so often that he believes it, so Mary forces him to get up and come to the secret garden. He comes to life. A servant’s son joins them in their open-air clubhouse and life is sweet. Uncle and the acid-tongued housekeeper are determined to seal the children in their own world of pain, but Mary won’t have it. The visuals will give you goosebumps, the story’s heartwarming, and there are DOGS! Feeling down? Stream this!
Liam Neeson and his son Micheál by the late Natasha Richardson co-star as father and son mourning the death of their wife/mother in Made in Italy. Let that sit. Watching them butt heads, search their souls, and love one another is tough. They are playing the pain that we are internalising and it tends to overshadow the film. Actor James D’arcy wrote and directs the film in London and Tuscany, Italy and the story goes something like this – Jack the son needs money to buy his estranged wife out of their shared gallery, so father Robert offers to sell his late wife’s centuries-old villa in wine country. They’ll split the difference. Good plan till they see the run down, derelict place strangled by vines. The roof is caving in, like their hopes for a sale, so they decide to restore it. Chaos ensues – it seems neither has held a hammer. An ex-pat real estate agent (Lindsay Duncan) has an obnoxious buyer waiting, but both Jack and Robert have an eye for a local restaurant owner and might stay. It’s strangely raw considering the real-life backstory, but there’s food, wine, and glorious Tuscan scenery to distract. In select theaters, digital and cable VOD
Amy Seimetz explores the idea of psychological contagion in a weird little chiller She Dies Tomorrow starring Kate Lyn Sheil as Amy, and Jane Adams as Jane with cameos by Michelle Rodriguez and Josh Lucas. Amy’s depressed and unable to function because she’s seized with the idea that she’s going to die tomorrow. She’s in full panic mode but decides to be useful in death and provide skin for a jacket. It is not clear why Amy’s dying tomorrow or why anyone would want such a jacket. Her friends are alarmed and keep watch. Sister Jane tries to reason but then she becomes convinced that she is going to die tomorrow. Jane goes to a dinner party in PJs and tells the guests, and then the host is convinced that she will die tomorrow. Jane’s doctor (Lucas) can’t cope because he’s going to die tomorrow. It’s a reasonable concept because people can adopt crowd behaviours and ideas as a kind of mental infection. There’s no letup. The plague is spreading. As grim as it sounds, the film’s radically great.
On a much lighter note, Canadian comedian Chelsea Peretti stars in the winning anti-romantic comedy romcom Spinster. As a wedding caterer, Gaby helps celebrate others’ love matches, but she’s unlikely to join the ranks. Her boyfriend sneaks out of their apartment with his things – on her 39th birthday! Desperation dates follow. Her father worries, but her brother takes advantage, forcing her to babysit her niece. They bond, and Gaby starts to open up. Fun situational humour, to wit – “Is the doctor single?’ “No, he’s married to me”. Everyone’s pressing her to find a man, but she finds she’s able to see clearly on her own, maybe that’s what she’s been missing, knowing who she is and what she really wants. Sweet, funny, and triumphant.
Acorn TV‘s The Other One a witty and warm look at cheating is as out there as it is fun! A man dies, and his family discovers he’s led a double life. He had a mistress and their child, Marilyn and Cat, and lived with his legal wife Tess and their daughter Cathy. The daughters were born at the same time, which means he’d been double-dealing for at least thirty years! Cathy and Tess are mortified in a weird mixture of mourning, horror, and class division but they’re also curious. Cathy and Cat take Colin’s ashes and dump them on a highway halfway between their houses, the funeral is a nightmare, but along the way, the girls begin to bond. Tess goes on a dating spree from hell and Marilyn ruins Cathy’s wedding dress then they start comparing notes. The writers have struck a rich vein for comedy gold. Stars Ellie White, Lauren Socha, Rebecca Front, and Siobhan Finneran as you’ve never seen her. August 10 on acorn.tv.
Stellan Skarsgård ponders the sum total of his 67 years, alone in his Norwegian cabin, on the eve of the Millenium. Hans Petter Morland’s Out Riding Horses paints the personal history of recent widow Trond as he tries to figure out why he is so broken. He was a child in the thirties who saw too much, a teen in the forties who spent precious time with his father in the mountains just before he abandoned his son and wife. He left Trond with a valuable lesson, while tearing out stinging nettles with his bare hands. “We decide when it hurts”. Trond’s life has been painful, but he reckons he’s lucky because he didn’t meet the fates of people he knew – the twin shot dead by his brother playing with a hunting rifle, their father crushed under a log jam, townsfolk murdered by Nazis, the helpless murdered wild animals. The film uses a dizzying array of flashforwards and flashbacks within the flashbacks to reflect his tortured mind, set to an intriguingly timeless score. Nature has a leading role as a friend and enemy. The film’s an adaptation of the bestselling novel by Norwegian author Per Petterson.
Samuel Gonzalez Jr.’s heartbreaking Battle Scars stars Kit Lang, Illya Konstantin, and Arturo Castro as three Bronx friends who grew up together in a relatively peaceful, happy world. As teens, the meekest of the three is drafted to fight in Vietnam and the others follow him, to “have his back”. One is killed in the jungle almost immediately, and then another. Michael comes home alone, bruised and traumatised and turns to drugs and living on the streets, his rewards for serving. He suffers from what we now know as PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, the sad story that continues today for those who fought wars in the field and continue to fight them in their minds. On Apple/iTunes, Amazon TVOD, Google Play, and VOD across cable providers.
Eric S. Vaughan’s five-part financial crime original docuseries The Con is a startling investigation into what caused the US crash of 2008. How did subprime loans and mortgages lead to ruin for trusting borrowers? Why didn’t the perpetrators realise that they were leading the US into financial freefall? The grim result of corruption and bad banking practices that Vaughan claims are still in play today. The series highlights the human toll as lifelong financially stable homeowners faced sudden eviction – the suicides, the breakdowns, the greedy lenders, and the methods they used. The seeds of predatory lending were planted long before, according to regulators, former officials, foreclosure victims, industry whistleblowers, and journalists including Jesse Eisinger, Dean Baker, William K. Black, Richard Bowen, and Martha Coakley. The remnants of 2008 are now exacerbated by the high rate of COVID in the US and its 40M on federal assistance. In virtual cinemas.