Happy Canada Day, everybody! Even those of you who don’t live here. After the last few months, we are a goddamn shining star in the firmament and you can come here if you don’t like it where you are. We have Timbits and health care for everyone. We are Canada.
Also, would you look at all the movies opening? It’s like there’s a holiday or something!
The BFG: Steven Spielberg tackles Roald Dahl, and comes up a little short. But it’s a terrific proof-of-concept should someone ever want to remake The Incredible Shrinking Man.
Buddymoon: Actual pals David Giuntoli, Flula Borg and Alex Simmons crafted this comedy about a guy (Borg) trying to help his friend (Giuntoli) mend his broken heart with a nature hike, It’s probably funnier if you know them personally. [My review should be online later today.]
The Daughter: Susan hated, hated, hated Simon Stone’s adaptation of Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, despite a cast that includes Sam Neill, Paul Schneider and Geoffrey Rush. Bummer.
The Legend of Tarzan: Alexander Skarsgard gets extra-extra-fit to play the Lord of the Apes in David Yates’ moderately revisionist tentpole picture. (Revisionist mainly in that John Greystoke swings through the jungle wearing pants.) Rad is underwhelmed.
Our Kind of Traitor: The John Le Carre machine cranks out another Euro-cool thriller in which a good person gets yanked into a world of cynicism and betrayal. Stellan Skarsgard (yep, Tarzan’s dad) is pretty great, through.
The Purge: Election Year: Rad finds some interesting subtext rattling around in James DeMonaco’s third attempt to sell a really goofy premise.
Swiss Army Man: Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe make beautiful music together in this genuinely daring drama from Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan.
Weiner: The artist formerly known as Carlos Danger is a fascinating case study in ego and id, and Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s cameras are there to drink him in. Susan loved this at Hot Docs; if you missed it then, catch up to it now.
Well, that’s me done for the weekend. I have a whole Blu-ray library to reshelve …