Strength, Power, Sandworms

imagesOh, sure, everyone’s going to go see the new Marvel movie this weekend — and why not? It’s pretty great — but there’s plenty of other good stuff to see once you’ve caught that. Shall we do the tour?

Afflicted: I haven’t yet caught up to Derek Lee and Clif Prowse’s found-footage horror thingie — which may or may not be about vampires — but John was a big fan at TIFF.

Bethlehem: After several rescheduled release dates, Yuval Adler’s Israeli-Palestinian thriller — a mirror image of Hany Abu-Assad’s Omar — finally opens this weekend. It’s good. You should see it.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier: “What if we slotted Cap into a ’70s conspiracy thriller that was also a direct sequel to The Avengers?” Chris Evans continues to be great, the action stuff is terrific and there’s a delightful cameo appearance by … oh, you’ll see.

Cas & Dylan: Richard Dreyfuss and Tatiana Maslany do the odd-couple road-movie thing in Jason Priestley’s feature debut, which ain’t great but sure has its moments. (Also, Maslany’s comedy face in the first three minutes is priceless.)

The Great Flood: Decasia cinema-poet Bill Morrison makes an American disaster documentary like no other, setting archival footage against an elegaic Bill Frisell score. Strange, beautiful, nifty.

Jodorowsky’s DuneJohn was all over Frank Pavich’s delightful what-if documentary about the abandoned sci-fi project that might have changed the world (and sort of did) at TIFF last year. Basically, I agree with everything he says.

The Unknown Known: Errol Morris’ feature-length interview with unrepentant war criminal Donald Rumsfeld fails to fully satisfy, but that might be because no one can crack Rumsfeld’s veneer of self-satisfied smugness.  It’s a fascinating misfire, though.

And there we are. Now I’m off to see a Hot Docs title over which I have been salivating for the better part of a year. It better be good, is all I’m saying.

 

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