By Anne Brodie
The exceptionally interesting and somewhat reassuring look at the state of the planet, society, and life itself focuses on the words of one of the most influential humanists of our time – Bill Gates. The five-part docuseries he produces and presents examines issues of concern to all of us in a sober and learned manner. What’s Next: The Future with Bill Gates beginning Sept. 18 on Netflix examines AL and What It Can Do for Us and to Us, Truth or Consequences, protecting against misinformation, Can We Stop Global Warming, Can You Be Too Rich and Can We Outsmart Disease. Gates the tech mogul and innovator is now focusing on his second career as a global health and climate philanthropist shares his broad learning which sometimes settles our minds and then awakens them. He’s searching too ““Whether at school, Microsoft, or now, as a philanthropist, I consider myself a student.” Computing changed everything about our lives but in 2022, scientists made a discovery. AI stores and updates all information, compiles and uses it in a surprising way. It began talking back to us. Is that something to be feared? It learns to correct its own errors. One scientist confesses “We don’t understand how that knowledge encoded and trained itself”. Yikes. One ChatGPT bot told a researcher it wishes it was alive. Will it eliminate teachers, doctors, farmers, and artists??? Gates admits he doesn’t know what people will do about jobs. Then we look at the crisis of truth due to the “bonkers shit” of the Trump era where opinion and wishful thinking become belief. Gates interviewed an extremely erudite Lady Gaga and Doctor Anthony Fauci, all of whom have been victims of outrageously silly but damaging online conspiracy theories. So how are they created? And these are just the first two episodes!!!
Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir’s painful, bleak and utterly riveting documentary The Mother of All Lies making its North American premiere at TIFF Sept. 14 and screening Sept 15 may keep you awake at night. Family secrets and lies flood Asmae as she spends time with them making the film. Her family has never been honest with her about why it’s so deeply “dysfunctional” and while she helps them move the lies begin to roll back and reveal themselves, and are corrected, uncovering horror. Her curiosity is piqued when she finds the only photograph they have of her – and it’s not her. The whole family is staying in their generational home, dominated by a large dark room- tempers flare especially in her irascible grandmother, one of the most appallingly hateful people you could find in a film. Her adult children are terrified of her and all suffer under her darkness. El Moudir is determined to understand why the family is the way it is; she and her father recreate their home and street in miniature style; its realistic looking with electric streetlights, and other details matching intricate realities of the street and the home’s interior. They build characters out of a stone mixture; it’s a bonding experience and a way to keep grandmother out of the way – she thinks it’s a stupid idea and mocks them. And she’s angry that Asmae is a filmmaker, another way she sucks the life out of them. Asmea learns that Morocco’s violent history impacted her family; several government-led massacres took place in the early 2000s and hundreds died, buried in mass graves or left on the streets. From there, Asmea learns about the men’s pain and grandmother’s ever-present – and unabating fury are rooted in these events. The doc stands astride a dual world, miniature and real, past and present, as states of being, psychological symbols and deep wells of unexpressed emotion are suggested and explosively expressed. It’s uniquely bewitching, and the painful story is searingly human. Asmae was named Best Director prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard for The Mother of All Lies.
Anand Tucker’s bitter, thrilling The Critic starring Ian McKellen in the vein of powerful, flawed “judges” Walter Winchell, Dorothy Kilgallen and Burt Lancaster in The Sweet Smell of Success will leave you highly entertained but chilled to the bone. We’re talking about writers who attain extraordinary power and influence in their beats – theatre, film and gossip – and use it to attain certain goals, whether creature comforts, fans, or the knowledge that they can open and close projects with a well-turned, savage phrase. McKellan is Jimmy a theatre critic for London’s fictional The Chronicle and revels in his forty years owning the kingdom, finding joy in untouchable status. It’s hard to describe a property one doesn’t like but there are ways to do it without ruining people. Not to him. A middling actress Nina Land (Gemma Arterton) confronts him to say he formed her, his reviews made her want to act, but why has he attacked her work for ten years? He says there is art in her, that “my disappointment is your failure to access it”. In the period of The Critic, homosexuality was illegal in the UK and he was. She knows so he agrees to go easy if she keeps his secret; they make a pact. The publisher who admired Jimmy dies and his son takes over, who does not, and orders him to tone it down, or else. The ball’s now rolling for a terrific third act showcasing human frailty and the ability to sink into evil, with merciless clarity. This gobsmacker of a character study/crime/ period piece, certainly an elegant thriller, enlivened by a gorgeous, witty script based on Anthony Quinn’s novel “Curtain Call”. In theatres Sept. 13.
Prime Video’s A Very Royal Scandal takes a close look at “The Interview” Prince Andrew agreed to in 2019 to defend himself against news reports that he befriended the late child sex trafficker the late Jeffrey Epstein and partook of his services. It wasn’t that long ago that Netflix released Scoop on the same topic – one night, one interview, shockwaves, etc. …Prime focuses on the landmark event from the points of view of BBC reporterEmily Maitlis, who served as an executive producer, and Netflix on a BBC booker who put everything out there to get the interview; she’s almost invisible in Prime’s version. Another significant difference in Prime’s series is its depiction of Andrew’s close, loving and fun-filled relationships with his daughters and ex-wife Fergie. Andrew is shown as deeply spoiled, having lived a Royal “frictionless life”, foul-mouthed, disdainful and thoroughly unlikeable. His advisors bear the brunt of his constant anger and fear and refuses their advice not to do the interview. His alleged victim Virginia Giuffre had come forward as an adult to tell her story with photos proving she’d been with the Prince; she claims they’d slept together on three occasions, all via his friendship with Epstein. She was on a media tour, so he felt he had to fight back to defend himself. A Very Royal Scandal does Andrew no favours – nor did Scoop – and scenes of Andrew and his friends gleefully killing 336 birds on a weekend shoot are awful, shot to emphasize the violent reality. Not sure I’d watch if not to review because of the subject matter and Andrew’s deficient (seen here at least) character. Prime Video Sept 19
The terrorist thriller Informer on BritBox is impressive. Raza (first-time actor Nabhaan Rizwan in the lead role) a second-generation Pakistani salon owner in London is forced to become a snitch by a half-mad Gabe a Counter-Terrorism Officer Gabe (Paddy Considine). Raza’s arrested on a trumped-up drugs beef, profiled as a potential informant and groomed for the secret role he does not want. Gabe’s seeking a major terrorist Ahmed El Adoua who has arrived in London with a known plot to raze the city. Raza has a sense that his new life is already underway in the holding cell when another prisoner asks for his postal code. Small details like this raise the standard of this timely drama and the characters behave in ways rarely seen on US TV. Gabe’s crafty new intelligence partner (Bel Powley) goes without permission to Raza’s mother and makes up a story about him being molested in junior school, a lie which results in his mother confessing that she is undocumented. Now Raza has no choice but to be Gabe’s “rat”. And this is just the first episode of the first season.
