A Pretty Good Friday, All Things Considered

Bh_j6t6CUAEbgNYIt’s a holiday weekend, and even though we all know Furious Seven is going to make a billion jillion dollars, eight other pictures are opening against it. May the gods have mercy on their souls.

Cast No Shadow: Christian Sparkes’ East Coast coming-of-age story is one of the week’s two Canadian features to be undermined by miscasting and an undercooked script. Coincidence? Absolutely!

Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me: James Keach’s documentary about the legendary singer’s last tour, which followed Campbell’s revelation of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, is a hair on the mawkish side (as Glenn points out) … but when it works, it works.

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter: With this mournful study of a depressed young woman clutching at salvation through hope and cinema, the Zellner brothers deliver a slightly more true story than the Coens did with Fargo — although, like Fargo, it’s ultimately a complete fiction. See the movie, you’ll understand.

Furious SevenVROOM vroom rmm rrmmm rrrrrrmmm rrrrrrrrmmmmm RRRRRMMMM RMMMMM RRRRRRRRRRMMMM RRRRRRRRMMMMM. (Because it doesn’t matter what I say.)

Last Knights: A fantasy-tinged medieval action movie with Clive Owen and Aksel Hennie should be fun, right? Well, hold on there a minute.

Ned Rifle: Hal Hartley wraps up the trilogy he began with 1997’s Henry Fool — and in so doing, brings himself back to his deadpan, minimalist roots. This is a good thing.

Pretend We’re Kissing: Matt Sadowski’s Toronto “non rom com” is week’s other Canadian release brought down by casting and script problems. (And also the fact that it exists in the context of The F Word, which is just better on every level.)

While We’re Young: Noah Baumbach finds the midpoint between The Squid and the Whale and Frances Ha in this snappy, spiky tale of a middle-aged couple who befriend their hipster counterparts. It’s good.

Woman in Gold: Helen Mirren and Tatiana Maslany play the older and younger versions of Maria Altmann, an Austrian woman who sued the Belvedere Museum to retrieve the eponymous Klimt painting, which was stolen from her family during the Holocaust.  It’s not getting the strongest reviews, but Susan thought it was okay.

So, yeah, there are options. But we all know what everyone’s going to see. Oh, unless you want to catch Tron in 70mm. That’s also an option.

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