Wings of Desire

Release date: 17 May 1987 (Cannes Film Festival, France)

Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander) are angels who spend their days roaming Berlin before the fall of the Wall eavesdropping on the conversations of ordinary folk. While slow to start and void of plot as traditionally understood, patience is rewarded in viewing what is really a combination of poetry and stream of consciousness brought to film by director Wim Wenders. Wings of Desire is deep on umpteen levels and full of messages that still ring true today: who are you? why are you here? is love worth it? When Damiel falls in love with the beautiful trapeze artist Marion (Solveig Dommatin) and opts to fall from grace, we have an answer as sure as the truths espoused by Peter Falk (playing himself). This is a beautiful film and an artsy film, sure; but in the end isn't it better you be challenged to see yourself differently upon leaving a movie theatre?

My rating 9 out of 10.

The Red Violin

Release date: 10 September 1998 (Toronto International Film Festival)

This Canadian film, directed by the brilliant François Girard, traces the life of a violin crafted in 1681 Italy, that has come to auction in present day Montreal. Filmed in flashbacks amid the violin's history in an Austrian monastery, the hands of gypsies, the hands of a crazed English violinist, and the Chinese cultural revolution, we learn of its fabled roots in the death of its maker's wife, the beautiful Anna Bussotti, whose blood gives the violin both its magical powers, fame, and name. The film is anchored by Samuel L. Jackson, who plays Charles Morritz, the expert brought in to confirm the violin's authenticity. The Red Violin is an adventure, and a mystery, and a journey on so many levels and is a film best described as rich. It is rare in film today in that it is intelligent. Well worth a rent if you're looking for 2 hours of utter immersion in the ethereal power of love and music.

My rating 9 out of 10.

The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveras

Release date: 13 July 2005 (Philippine Independent Film Festival, Manila)

This is a Philippine film directed by first-time director, Auraeus Solito. It weaves the story of a ladyboy named Maxi (a very good Nathan Lopez) with his family's life of petty crime in Manila. Maxi shares his home with Paca, his dad (played by Soliman Cruz) and his two older brothers, the always moody Boy (Neil Ryan Sese) and always manic Bogs (Ping Medina). Maxi is mother to the older men who spend their day placing bets and stealing then selling cell phones. When a new cop on the block Victor (VR Valentin) arrives to rescue Maxi from a thrashing, the stories collide. Maxi, who everyone accepts as a girl in boy's clothing, is instantly infatuated. However, Victor is a cop and when Boy ends up killing a student, Maxi is faced with having to support his family or his 'love'; with some mellow-dramatic - if tragic - consequences. The Blossoming of Maximo is filmed in a gritty, in-the-moment style that works despite the occasional problems director Solito has with lighting, and flow, and while the story is here and there (I suspect more a problem with the subtitles then the acting), it is oddly refreshing to see a gay lad portrayed with such honesty.

My rating 7 out of 10.

Shutter Island

Release date: 13 February 2010 (Berlin International Film Festival)

Martin Scorsese directs this wonderful psycho-thriller based on Dennis Lehane’s novel that stars a gaggle of superstar actors including Leonardo DiCaprio (US Marshall Teddy Daniels), Max von Sydow (Dr. Jeremiah Naehring), Ben Kingsley (Dr. John Cawley), Michelle Williams (Dolores Chanal), Jackie Earl Haley (George Noyce) and Mark Ruffalo (Chuck Aule). It’s 1954 Boston and off the coast lays fictional Shutter Island, home to the worse of the worst of the criminally insane. There an is-he-good-or-is-he-not Dr. Cawley works with the inmates trying to ground them in the reality of their crimes. We’re given to believe that Marshall Daniels is brought to the island to investigate the disappearance of an inmate. What evolves however is a descent into the madness murder can birth, told in flashbacks and hallucinations. While sold as a horror, this film is actually a brilliant psycho-thriller that is captivating from beginning to end. It’s worth getting stranded on this island; ideally watching this film in the dark and late at night.

My rating 8 out of 10.

Love in the Time of Cholera

Release date: 4 October 2007 (Festival do Rio, Brazil)

Mike Newell directs this adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s Nobel Prize wining novel of the same name that concerns itself - wholly - with one man’s 50-year fascination with one woman in turn of the century Columbia. When Florentino Ariza (Javier Bardem) meets the beautiful Fermina Daza (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), the daughter of a nasty mule trader, it is love at first sight. Thereupon ensues a lifetime of obsession that endures even after Ariza is spurned as Fermina marries the doctor Urbino (an excellent Benjamin Bratt). While the movie is dropjaw beautiful to watch, the richness of the novel is lost in its translation to film. Its other challenge is the unlikeableness of Bardem in his role which does put a damper on things when he finally does get to bed the aged yet still regal Fermina.

No where near a thousandth as good as the novel, gives this sojourn in a time of cholera my rating of 5 out of 10.

PT 109

Release date: 19 June 1963 (Hollywood, USA)

When President Kennedy was elected Hollywood was already working to mythologizing him, and PT109 was Warner Brother and director Leslie H. Martinson’s effort. Recounting in fanciful detail Kennedy’s captaining of the PT109 torpedo boat which ends up sunk by a Japanese destroyer, it has Cliff Robertson playing an ever-good Kennedy as he shepherds his survivors to a wee island in the Pacific. The crew survives the coral reef, finds food and shelter and is eventually rescued - with much thanks to an Aussie - so that Kennedy can head into Presidential fame. The film is overly long - even by 1963 standards - and could do with a ruthless editing. The acting is solid, if wooden, as Robertson, Robert Culp, Norman Fell and a very young Robert Blake all do their utmost to contribute to the awe that was (and continues to be) America’s fascination with the first family of rum-runners cum political dynasty. Released in June 1963, its poignancy was that much more pronounced when Kennedy was assassinated in November.

My rating 5 out of 10.

Transporter 3

Release date: 26 November 2008 (France)

The Transporter genre continues its proven formula with this better than-Transporter 2 outing that has our hero Frank Martin (Jason Statham) driving a frisky lass named Valentina (a dreadful Natalya Rudakova who is in dire need of acting basics) from Marseilles to Odessa. Valentina is the kidnapped daughter of a Ukranian Minister being blackmailed into signing off on a nasty shipment of toxic waste. The angle being used to get our hearts racing in this version is the fact both Frank and Valentina have funky bracelets cum bombs strapped to their wrists that will go off if they wander more than 30m from Frank’s uber cool Audi. Directed in full action mode by Olivier Megaton, Transporter 3 has an excellent bad guy in Johnson (Robert Knepper) and the refreshingly comic Inspector Tarconi (the always excellent François Berléand) to break the ice now and again. While no new ground is broke here, and the spur of the moment love affair between our driver and his package spoils a good chuck of the movie, Transporter 3 still has enough gas to keep you interested. Go Frank go!

My rating 7 out of 10.

One Week

Release date: 8 September 2008 (Toronto International Film Festival)

A film only a Canadian could love. It is built in a two solitudes vein with a man facing nature on a motorbike while battling the great big theme of mortality. One Week is a cross-Canada road trip starring Joshua Jackson (as Ben Taylor). Ben is advised he has terminal cancer and has but a couple years to live. To sort through the complex emotions birthed by such a diagnosis, he heads west - abandoning his fiancé and parents - in search of Mr. Grimm, a phantasmagorical something-or-other his father told stories of when he was a wee lad. On route, Ben faces the vastness that is Canada and reinforces the country’s largeness by visiting Canadian homages to size: the Big Nickel in Sudbury; the Giant Goose in Wawa; the Sleeping Giant in Thunder Bay; the largest teepee in Medicine Hat. Typically Canadian in every quirky way, this film directed by Michael McGowan is worth the trip and proves that it’s the journey not the destination that matters.

My rating 7 out of 10.