Equals is a Touching, Artfully Directed Love Story

In cool blues and greys, Drake Doremus's new film encourages you to, "Find Your Equal."

The tagline for Director Drake Doremus's new movie Equals challenges viewers to, "Find Your Equal." The script, written by Doremus and Nathan Parker (Moon) tells the tale of a future 'utopia' where physical contact and intimacy are forbidden. It stars Nicholas Hoult as Silas and Kristen Stewart as Nia, graphic designers affected by Switched On Syndrome (S.O.S.).

Nathan Parker knows a thing or two about writing stories set in cold, futuristic environments where the protagonists struggle with alienation and isolation. He co-wrote the script for 2009's Moon with Dunan Jones; another futuristic movie about a lonely miner extracting natural resources from the lunar surface.

Equals colour palette is all cool blues and greys. Meant to reflect the emotional distance and isolation enforced by this future world's Collective. From the background given it would seem that humanity nearly destroyed itself some years earlier. Survivors pegged human emotions as one of the prime culprits and sought to genetically eliminate them.

Silas and Nia work in the same office creating graphics and spoken word descriptions, respectively, for television programming. Silas works in the company's Speculative Non-Fiction department. In this world Silas, Nia and their co-workers wake up alone, take the subway to work alone - eyes focused on giant monitors - and spend most of their work days essentially alone tapping on enormous touchscreens.

Sustained eye contact is avoided and physical contact forbidden. As we learn in a public service announcement less than 10 minutes into the movie, some members of the Collective suffer from S.O.S. which is divided into 4 stages. Essentially their emotions are taking hold.

Equals is pointed social commentary that sticks it to corporate mandated conformity and a smartphone obsessed world.

After several lingering glances and much mutual pouty-lipped staring, Silas and Nia fall in love with each other. Silas has been diagnosed with Stage 1 S.O.S. and is soon ostracized by co-workers who give him his own mug and seat themselves far away at lunch. Just in case S.O.S. is contagious.

Nia is a Hider, someone who knows she has the condition and does not want to be diagnosed and labelled.

When Silas and Nia share the screen, the movie's colour palette warms up so they appear as actual flesh and blood humans to us. The contrast between people who can love and those who are loveless is obvious.

In one memorable scene Silas and his boss Leonard (David Selby) exchange words late at night after everyone else has gone home. Leonard is worried that Silas is developing a crush on Nia. As they talk Leonard's half of the screen remains icy blue and grey while Silas's outline is illuminated with colours that remind me of sunrise.

I love Equals because it affirms the power of touch, and of intimacy as being key to growing and fulfilling our potential. There are comparisons to be made between Equals and Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

First proposed in 1943, Maslow's Hierarchy is often represented graphically by a pyramid. According to the theory, human beings must have their deficiency or 'd needs' met before they can progress further. The most basic needs Maslow listed are: Physiological, Safety, and Love/Belonging.

Love and Belonging are about an individual's ability to be accepted as part of a group. If we don't fulfill our needs at this level, we risk being felled by depression and anxiety. Interestingly, in Equals there is overlap in the symptoms of anxiety & depression and the Collective's so-called Switched On Syndrome.

Our smart, attractive protagonists soon realize the Collective is trying (and failing) to suppress basic human needs.

At one point in the film, members of the Collective gather in a large atrium to view a spaceship launch on yet another giant screen. As children Collective members are told the answers to humanity's problems lie in the stars.

They might.

Or they may be just a kiss away to quote the Rolling Stones Gimme' Shelter.

The Imitation Game Reveals Broken Genius Who Cracked 'Unbreakable' Code

Alan Turing spat on social convention, pissed off colleagues and superiors alike, and masked his homosexuality in wartime Britain. Yet it was his team that solved an 'unbreakable' Nazi code and helped the Allied Forces win.

Ain't There One Damn Song That Can Make Me Break Down and Cry?

So sang David Bowie with a lovely feminine lilt in the title track for his 1975 album Young Americans. The lyric was before its time - suggesting a cynical society hardened to emotion and human suffering. Every so often a piece of popular culture, be it a movie or song, manages to pierce that hard carapace so the audience breaks down and bawls all over the theater floor.

After seeing The Imitation Game I'll have to include it in the short list of films that have made yours truly shed a tear. Probably because I identify on some level with the protagonist, Alan Turing, a British mathematician who constructed, with his team, a machine to crack the Nazi Enigma code, thereby allowing a steady stream of military intelligence, troop movements, and fleet locations to make it into Allied hands during the Second World War.

Turing was a mathematician by training, a child prodigy, and the man whose ideas presaged the modern computer as you and I know it. He was also socially awkward, not given to displays of human warmth, and someone who carried the memory of a boarding school crush killed by tuberculosis.

The Imitation Game's structure has the story jumping from early 1950s' England when Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) was arrested for having sex with a rent boy back to his wartime work at Bletchly Park, and even further back to his boarding school days. Each time period contains a key element of Turing's story - 1950s' England where his sexuality is revealed before the man is punished inhumanly by Her Majesty's Government, wartime to show his most significant career achievement, and Turing's schoolboy days to show us what makes this broken genius the man he becomes.

And broken he is. We get the picture early on - he can't maintain eye contact, has no sense of humour, and uses cold logic as the basis for all his decisions. Needless to say this doesn't endear Turing to the team of code breakers he's assigned to work with by Commander Denniston (Charles Dance). The team includes Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), Stewart Menzies (Mark Strong), and John Cairncross (Allen Leech).

The bonding between Turing and Cross is meaningful as she is the only woman on the team and he is, presumably, the only fag.  He encourages her to develop her talents as a mathematician in spite of the era's conservative views that a woman's place was in the home. In return she stands by his side when he reveals his homosexuality - unconditionally accepting a fellow Outsider and supporting him when he needs her most.

As Alan Turing, Benedict Cumberbatch does a convincing job as the loner genius who is racing against time to make his 100,000 pound (British currency) code breaking machine 'Christopher' succeed at the job it's supposed to do. Namely, run coding variations faster than human beings can. Every day at the stroke of midnight the Nazis change their encryption protocols, forcing the slaving code breakers to begin at square one.

Why name the machine Christopher? Turns out the machine's namesake is an old school buddy of Turing's - his only friend from early childhood if the narrative is to be believed. Christopher Morcom and Alan Turing found common ground in math. According to the biography The Imitation Game is based on, he was Turing's first love. Long since dead, Christopher is now a footnote in a life of incredible achievement that was matched measure for measure by suffering.

Alan Turing: The Enigma, written by Andrew Hodges, is widely considered the definitive account of the man's life and is the movie's primary source material. Glad Day Bookshop was initially the book's North American distributor. Glad Day founder Jearld Moldenhauer and Hodges became close personal friends during the book's research and writing. They spent time together in Toronto, London, Boston, Syracuse, and New York.

If you visit the 'Writers, Composers, and Academics' gallery on Jearld's website you will find a picture of Hodges on the gallery's first page.

Now go and do yourself a favour if you love smartly told, true stories. The Imitation Game is well worth your time. Maybe you, too, will find there are still a few works of art that can slip under our thick skins to make us break down and cry.

"Take Your Hands Off My Lobby Boy!" The Grand Budapest Hotel Delights with Eccentric Characters

Hotel Lobby Boy Zero (Tony Revolori), Madame D (Tilda Swinton), and the Grand Budapest's gentleman Concierge, M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), ride the hotel's Elevator.

Few things about Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) are as captivating as the main character, M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), Concierge of the titular hotel. He runs the place with precision, attention to detail, and a gentleman's touch. Indeed, M. Gustave's gentlemanly manner and old school way of treating others with the utmost respect and kindness is what wins you over within The Grand Budapest Hotel's first half hour. 

Of course this wouldn't be a Wes Anderson movie if that were all there was to M. Gustave's character — and it isn't. The serious professional gentleman is complimented by the dandy who sleeps with many of the hotel's wealthy, elderly female guests (and possibly a few of the men — Gustave's sexuality is a running joke throughout). As he says to the villainous son of one such guest, "I go to bed with all my friends." Then M. Gustave gets his lights punched out. 

Madame D (Tilda Swinton) is one such guest receiving the friends with benefits treatment. The movie's plot pivots on her untimely death from poisoning. To Gustave she bequeaths Boy with Apple, a priceless painting, and perhaps a great deal more. Her evil son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) won't part with the painting willingly and decides to frame M. Gustave for his mother's murder.

What follows is a madcap adventure that sees M. Gustave go to prison. His escape is aided by Gustave's friend and loyal Lobby Boy Zero Mustafa. Then it's a race for both their lives from Jopling (Willem Dafoe), Dmitri's sinister henchman. All of this action is recalled by a much older Zero (F. Murray Abraham) in a now drab and Communist-esque Grand Budapest that is barely a shadow of its 1930s glory days. 

This is another key to The Grand Budapest Hotel's charm. The narrative is a story within a story, within yet another story. The effect is like taking apart a Matryoshka Nesting Doll - and it makes for a very satisfying viewing experience. Given that the bulk of this story takes place in the 1930s inside the fictional Republic of Zubrowka, there's a lot going on outside Anderson's colour filled and action packed frames.

Namely the Nazis taking power and spreading their sinister tentacles outside of Germany's borders. They occasionally do enter the story in the form of 'ZZ' troops who at one point take over the Grand Budapest in what you can only assume is an occupation. Of course Madame D's villain son is in league with these thugs. In one of the film's best action sequences there is a shootout inside the hotel which is temporarily stopped by Henckels (Edward Norton), a policeman demanding to know who is shooting at whom, and why. 

As in all of Wes Anderson's films any atmospheric darkness is lightened by the characters - eccentrics, misfits, curious explorers, and in the case of M. Gustave a hilarious, lovable protagonist who steals every scene he's in. (Such as on a train - when ZZ troops attempt to arrest Zero, M. Gustave declares with naive decency: "You can't arrest him simply because he's a bloody immigrant.")

In the movie's best punchline M. Gustave delivers a pastry from Mendl's, the Grand Budapest's bakery, to his fellow inmates. To divide the sugary confection into prisoner sized portions he asks, "who's got the throat slitter?" It's a credit to Anderson that he manages to turn something so dark into a 'ha ha' moment. He does so beautifully. 

If you're short of quality movies to watch this holiday season make sure to add The Grand Budapest Hotel to your list. The physical comedy, wordplay, characters, and unique setting stamp this as a Wes Anderson movie — one of his best so far. Like The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) and Moonrise Kingdom (2012) he creates a warm and loving family dynamic within a crew of misfit characters. These characters stay in your mind long after the credits have rolled. It's this warm, humanist vision that makes Anderson a great director, and his movies treasures that anyone who loves well-told stories should watch.

Kaboom A Joyful Mess of Colours, Sex, and Intersecting Plotlines

A couple weekends ago I went to the Bell Lightbox to see Kaboom! Gregg Araki's (The Doom Generation, Mysterious Skin) new film.

The 51-year-old Araki hasn't lost his touch for making movies that ring true to disaffected youth (and adults). Kaboom's striking colours, both in the scenery and clothing, and Ginsu Knife sharp dialogue make this movie worth flagging in your to download / to buy list.

What makes Kaboom! great is the sex positive message reinforced throughout the plot's many hairpin twists and turns. In a time where people fear for their jobs, and worries about global warming and food shortages have never been more real, a joyful sex comedy / thriller is just what the doctor ordered. Kaboom! conveys the joys of youth while acknowledging the complicated, unknown territory that lies beyond.

Smith (Thomas Dekker) , the protagonist, is a horny college student who beds both men and women with enviable frequency. He's also on the edge of his nineteenth birthday. In Smith's dreams a black door with the number 19 in neon blue lettering features prominently - the unknown territory beyond adolescence.

Smith's best gal pal Stella (Haley Bennett) is a sarcastic force to be reckoned with. She gets to deliver one liners that have all the subtlety of a pointed stiletto, but are they ever funny. Of Smith's promiscuity: "You meet some guy on a nude beach and after five minutes you're downloading his hard drive in the back of a van. You're a slut."

During Kaboom! Stella gets involved with Lorelei (Roxane Mesquida) who may or may not have supernatural powers, Smith lusts after 'straight' (but well-groomed, buff and hairless) room mate Thor (Chris Zylka) and discovers a worldwide conspiracy run by animal mask wearing men that may just spell the end of the world. Deep breath.

Does this all make sense so far? No? Well, that's okay. Just sit back, suspend your disbelief (and don't stop suspending), and enjoy.

Black Swan - The Exquisite, Tortured Nina Sears

"Our new Swan Queen, the exquisite Nina Sears!"

With these words Thomas (Vincent Cassel) the director of a fictional New York ballet company, introduces his new star to New York society. Nina (Natalie Portman) is a fragile soul. With a quiet, meek manner and desire to please that knows few boundaries, Nina is her own worst enemy.

Black Swan, the latest offering from director Darren Aronofsky, continues to plumb the darkness of the human mind. Nina's casting as the lead in Thomas's 'stripped down and visceral' staging of Swan Lake precipitates emotional turmoil in Nina that threatens to overwhelm her.

At every turn Nina finds herself boxed in. From her home life in a drab Manhattan apartment with her overprotective mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) once a ballerina herself, now living out her fantasies of success through her daughter, to Lily, Nina's rival and polar opposite in the company.

Lily (Mila Kunis), a free spirit from San Francisco, is praised by Thomas for her easy sensuality. "She's not faking it," Thomas says to Nina during practice as they watch Lily's fluid movements. A demanding man or colossal asshole, take your pick, Thomas seems to think the company is his private preserve in which to hunt for choice women. The professional and personal are blurred as Thomas makes clear to Nina that in return for her rise to prominence he expects sexual favours.

But none of these adversaries come close to her most formidable enemy — herself. As Black Swan progresses the 'white' Nina encounters her 'black' twin with increasing frequency. From passing glances on Manhattan streets to the subway, the dark Nina makes herself known.

While Nina's doppelganger menaces her, the demands of the Swan Queen role loom. Thomas knows she has the technical perfection, fragility and grace needed to play the White Swan, but repeatedly questions and denigrates her for a perceived inability to play the Black Swan. In perhaps the most perceptive line in the film Thomas tells her, "the only person standing in your way is you."

Everyone in Nina's professional life — from Thomas to Lily to the other members of the company fail to see just how thorough a job Nina does unleashing the Black Swan within. Pushing herself to achieve perfection Nina is hounded by her mirror image. Black Swan's creepiest moments are the shots of Nina alone with her mirror self (selves?)

The monster within unleashed, Nina moves toward the outer limits of sanity. Her doppelganger begins to change as well. It's Nina one moment and Lily the next; laughing at her, undermining her, waiting in the wings to steal Nina's role.

Black Swan is well worth the ticket price if you enjoy psychological thrillers. Aronofsky's use of mirrors and black & white contrasts give the movie a distinct stylistic flair. Natalie Portman is certainly the strongest performer here, with Vincent Cassel close behind. Both should be Oscar contenders when award season comes around.

The Social Network - Nothing Particularly 'Social' About Zuckerberg

I watched The Social Network today, David Fincher's new film about Facebook founder and CEO wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) This film deserves all of the praise and then some that it's been receiving from critics at The New York Times, The Globe and Mail and a slew of other media outlets.

Worth mentioning even before I venture into the plot's details is the sharpness of the writing. From Aaron Sorkin's pen to the mouths of Fincher's talented cast, the dialogue in The Social Network is so intelligent, so sarcastic, so cutting that it nearly pops off the screen. Jesse Eisenberg's deadpan delivery and frequent glowering stare as he cuts down both friend and foe is worth the ticket price on its own.

The Social Network is based on Ben Mezrich's book, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal. The movie's structure jumps back and forth in time, from the events of Facebook's founding to a tense deposition in a boardroom where two parties suing Zuckerberg go for the jugular. You see, after Facebook was founded Zuckerberg was sued by former best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and the upper class Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer in a dual role) Saverin was betrayed and the Winklevoss twins had their idea for a social networking site stolen by Zuckerberg, or so they claimed.

Since the movie is about Facebook's founding, it's only fitting the beating heart should be Zuckerberg himself. As played by Eisenberg he is all towering intellect and calculation. Behind his often blank-faced exterior (rarely do you see a smile play across this boy genius's face) is a mind that's constantly calculating and re-calculating. Not 'friendless' as some of the film's reviews have said, he is nonetheless nearly so. There's nothing in the character's personality that I could call emotional intelligence. There are rare moments of sympathy he displays for others, but these are outweighed by his mind's ledger of past slights and desire to avenge said.

Watching this film, I found it interesting to note that Zuckerberg is the least physical of all the movie's characters. While his Harvard classmates hook up and periodically pat each other affectionately, Zuckerberg remains aloof.

In one scene an enthusiastic Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) moves to embrace Zuckerberg after Facebook subscribers pass the one million mark. There is no reciprocation for Parker; the results are, well... awkward. Awkward could neatly describe all of this damaged genius's social interactions. For someone who created the most popular online social networking tool in the world, the irony is that Facebook's founder is socially inept.

But back to Sean Parker. He's the same Sean Parker who invented Napster. In The Social Network he seeks out Zuckerberg and proceeds to ingratiate himself, smelling an appealing new business venture. Timberlake really shines here — he's figured out why a flashy party boy like Parker could connect with an introverted nerd like Zuckerberg. The answer is charisma. Parker is a sparking live wire with his shows of material wealth, dazzling smile and high voltage presence. To Zuckerberg he presents a glamorous alternative to a life of coding, more coding and sleep, which is what Zuckerberg does in the movie when he's not struggling to interact with others.

The Social Network is certainly a movie for our time. Thirst for social status, lust for money, betrayal, and connection with other human beings (or lack thereof) are all deftly addressed here.

The only fault I can find with The Social Network is when one character claims, "The Internet's written in ink, Mark. It's not written in pencil." Actually the Internet is just a string of digital information. As a lasting record, the Internet comes nowhere near the permanency of ink, especially when all those zeroes and ones and Facebook 'friend' connections can vanish with the click of a button.

Inception - Movie of the Year ?

Inception is the movie you must see this summer. And not just once. I encourage multiple viewings, all in Imax if possible.

Christopher Nolan's newest cinematic dream is truly something special. It's a movie that rewards close attention to detail, and it certainly offers plenty of it. The two and a half hour running time flies by, so well-constructed is the plot, so flawlessly executed is the action and so engrossing are the characters you'll be introduced to.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's the basics: Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, an 'extractor' who steals people's deepest secrets from their dreams. It helps for Cobb that these secrets are stored in dream representations of the places you would most likely hide your valuables in waking life — a wallet, a combination safe. While this is one of the plot's more conventional devices, almost nothing else is.

Cobb is offered a job by a Mr. Saito (Ken Wantanabe) Instead of a robbery, Saito wants Cobb to perform a special job — Inception, hence the film's title. He would have Cobb and his specialized team implant an idea in Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) the son of corporate energy tycoon, and Saito's main competitor, Maurice Fischer (Pete Postlethwaite) who we glimpse briefly on his death bed in the 'real' world. Inception does an excellent job of posing questions. What's real ? What's a dream ? Who is telling the truth ? Who is lying to me ? And to Nolan's credit, he doesn't feel the need to answer any of these questions definitively.

To achieve Saito's desired end Cobb assembles his team. There's Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) his right hand man, Ariadne (Ellen Page), the architect of the dream worlds Fischer will be placed in, and Eames (Tom Hardy) expert thief and forger. There's also the chemist (Dileep Rao)

Robert Fischer has Dad Issues, which is not surprising given that the old man is about to die. Cobb and his team decide to use Fischer's complicated relationship with his father as a lever to plant the desired idea inside Robert's mind.

But Cobb has his own unresolved relationship issues and accompanying guilt complex. His dead wife Mal, the always capable Marion Cotillard (just chew on the possibilities of a character with a name like that) hunts Cobb in his dream worlds and frequently sabotages his best laid plans.

Where this movie really shines is in the characters interactions with each other and the sheer spectacle of the main set pieces, all three of them. Fischer is taken into three different dream worlds; the special effects will have you making like that 10-year-old who just saw Star Wars for the first time. You're going to be wowed. I certainly was. The effects Nolan and his team have created should be the definition of special effects.

But it's not just about the fancy CGI footwork, or Inception would fall flat on its (very pretty) face. As the special effects wow you, the layered storyline and characters, mainly DiCaprio's and Murphy's, with their obvious razor-sharp intelligence and emotional frailties, suck you in and make you care.

I will not give any more plot goodies away, suffice to say that one of the characters has a particularly good insight: "The stronger the issues, the more powerful the catharsis." And by the time the action comes to a climax on not one, but three levels and the viewer is rewarded with two such acts of catharsis, you too will know why Inception is the best movie of the summer, if not the year.

This movie is that rare creature that simultaneously stimulates your mind, pulls at your heart and astounds you with beautifully realized visuals. Inception is one dream you won't want to wake from.

Kick Ass Satirizes Violence, Society's Obsession with the Digital, Online World

I watched the latest Hollywood comic book adaptation Kick Ass today at the Scotiabank Theatre in downtown Toronto. It's more than deserving of the praise being heaped on it by mainstream media outlets. The Globe and Mail's Rick Groen gave it three stars, The Toronto Star's Peter Howell gave it four stars, and so on...

First, the 411 on Kick Ass's plot: Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is your typical high school geek (invisible to women, comic book fan - you know the shorthand) who decides to become a superhero. In case you don't already know, Lizewski's superhero moniker and the movie's title are one and the same. Going out to fight injustice without any training or proper weapons, well, flip the words of Lizewski's superhero name to find out what happens to him.

Lucky for Kick Ass a couple real superheros complete with the tragic past, weaponry and dogmatic mindset save his behind. They would be Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his gun-toting, knife throwing daughter who has yet to reach puberty. She's Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz). Hit Girl has generated plenty of publicity for Kick Ass because her prepubescent character curses like a sailor and kills with abandon. Kick Ass was filmed in Toronto; I mention this because the only beef I have with the movie is how poor a job the producers did of camouflaging Hogtown to make it a convincing double for NYC.

Kick Ass takes off when it satirizes the genre and, in the movie's climax, throws a horrific scene at the viewer that nearly made me cry. Kick Ass throws to the curb North America's obsession with the Internet and all things electronic. Lizewski isn't elevated to superhero status until a video of him getting beaten by three thugs in a diner parking lot goes viral on YouTube. When looking for something to do as his alter ego, Lizewski checks Kick Ass's e-mail account. And in a darkly funny scene, a stuffed teddy bear spy camera records the mass slaughter of the villain's thugs.

The villain's son (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is often left to clue in his less technologically apt father (a grim Mark Strong)

Many of the characters' 'real' experiences are filtered through the online mediums of e-mail and MySpace. I found this kind of curious since MySpace's popularity has declined with the ascent of Facebook. Maybe Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wouldn't cough up enough cash to advertise his 'baby doll.'


*** SPOILER ALERT ***

A warning to anyone interested in watching Kick Ass. When the violence isn't cartoonish, it's sadistic enough to make you recoil. The scene I mentioned earlier that nearly brought me to tears is worth noting. Big Daddy is burned to death while Hit Girl attempts a rescue. This scene, and a couple others, really brings home the reality of dying, of being in agony, of being tortured. In these moments Kick Ass becomes a potent anti-violence film and the viewer is left to despair at the idea that two wrongs (ex. killing a person who killed someone close to you) can ever make a right.

It's scenes like Big Daddy's death sequence that I'm sure played through Roger Ebert's head when he described Kick Ass in his review as, "morally reprehensible." And it is. Anyone watching this movie with their brain engaged will be amused at the satire of contemporary society and saddened by all the violence, cruelty and general stupidity on display. Kick Ass doesn't just skewer the juvenile fantasy of being a 'superhero', it bulldozes it. If you're like me, you will leave the theatre impressed by the quality of what you've just watched, but also despairing for society. For all the ideas Kick Ass satirizes, it never once misses the mark.