The fight to save ‘King Kong of cute’
Pandas
(out of 4) Documentary about China-U.S. efforts to save the giant panda from extinction. Directed by David Douglas and Drew Fellman. Opens Saturday at the Ontario Science Centre. 43 minutes. Cuteness alert! Pandas, the latest Imax documentary at the Ontario Science Centre, opens with shots of adorable baby giant panda bears snoozing together in a wooden crib and frolicking on an outdoor jungle gym that includes a slide.
Just what you’d expect them to do, since the B&W furballs are “the King Kong of cute,” as narrator Kristen Bell states.
They’re also the most endangered bear species on Earth, with fewer than 2,000 remaining in the wild in their native China, due to human destruction of their natural forest habitat. Efforts to increase that number is where the science kicks in for this absorbing film.
Directors David Douglas and Drew Fellman ( Born to be Wild, Island of Lemurs: Madagascar), take us to the Chengdu Panda Base, where researchers have a successful breeding program that has increased the planet’s panda population by 200. But breeding pandas in captivity seems a lot easier than returning them to the wild, where they can fall prey to predators ranging from wild pandas to human poachers.
Enter Bi Wen Lei, a Mongolian researcher, and Jake Owens, an American conservation biologist. The two scientists use techniques learned from Ben Kilham, a New Hampshire black-bear rescuer known as “Poppa Bear,” seen earlier in the film. The Imax camera follows the two scientists as they attempt to settle a female cub named Qian Qian into her new home in the mountainous wilds of Sichuan Province.
A lot more effort is required than just pointing the way to the wild bamboo. Qian Qian has to be eased into her new environment, and there’s no guarantee she’ll safely settle in. A GPS tracker follows her progress, and when it indicates a distress call, there’s a pulsepounding race to search for her.
There’s some good news: China is stepping up to preserve the animal that has become its national symbol by creating a huge new wilderness sanctuary for pandas that will be call Giant Panda National Park. Peter Howell
The Rider
K (out of 4) Starring Brady Jandreau, Tim Jandreau and Lilly Jandreau. Written and directed by Chloé Zhao. Opens Friday at TIFF Bell Lightbox. 103 minutes. 14A You can almost feel the wind and smell the dust of the South Dakota plains, so deeply is Chloé Zhao’s new film steeped in the reality of its environment.
The Chinese-American writer/director returns to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the scene of her auspicious 2015 debut, Songs My Brothers Taught
Me, which used real people to essentially play themselves in her potent brand of narrative truth-telling. Cinematographer Joshua James Richards captures the visual splendour.
The family name is changed but the circumstances are mostly factual in the story of Lakota Sioux cowboy Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau), whose world is riding and training horses but whose life is threatened. He has a steel plate in his skull and a gnarled set of fingers from a rodeo accident he may never fully recover from — and which may kill him if he stays in the saddle rather than submit to a dull, safe job.
Jandreau’s real father Tim plays Brady’s gambling dad and his sister Lilly is his on-thespectrum sister, all three performing like veteran actors rather than the rookies they are. PH
Kings
(out of 4) Starring Halle Berry, Daniel Craig. Written and directed by Deniz Gamze Erguven. Opens Friday at Cineplex Yonge-Dundas. 87 minutes. 14A There’s definitely a great film to be made about the infamous Rodney King case and the 1992 acquittal of four police officers for beating him that set parts of Los Angeles aflame.
Kings is definitely not it. Instead, it seems like a missed opportunity to dramatize the lives of real people caught up in the aftermath of the violence.
In the hands of writer/director Deniz Gamze Erguven, the film is borderline bizarre in its inability to hit the broad side of a barn door, thematically and tonally. Halle Berry stars as Millie, a working-class woman struggling to feed a household of children. Her next door neighbour is an angry white guy named Obie (Daniel Craig). Though Obie figures into Millie’s erotic dreams, the unlikely alliance they form once the chaos begins seems implausible.
A more interesting subplot involves a love triangle between son Jesse (Lamar Johnson, who is terrific), who falls for street girl Nicole (Rachel Hilson) who falls for bad boy William (Kaalan Walker).
Instead of having to say anything intelligently about race and police bias, the film comes across as a disappointing, confusing mess. Bruce DeMara
A Swingers Weekend
(out of 4) Starring Mia Kirshner, Erin Karpluk, Erin Agostino, Randal Edwards, Michael Xavier and Jonas Chernick. Directed by Jon E. Cohen. Opens Friday at the Carlton. 93 minutes. 14A There must be a sex-farce playbook, because A Swingers
Weekend certainly seems to be following one.
Jon E. Cohen’s lake-house legover comedy telegraphs all of its beats, beginning with the “surprise” of an unexpected third couple and rules that “it’s just about sex — no strings, no emotions” that of course will be immediately broken.
Realtor Lisa (Erin Karpluk) and energy-drink hustler Dan (Randal Edwards) are the proverbial happily-married-withkids couple looking to jazz up their lives. They’ve arranged to meet yoga instructor Skai (Erin Agostino) and her new fiance Teejay (Michael Xavier), a pal and co-worker of Dan’s, for some Ontario cottage-country horizontal manoeuvres.
Dan and Teejay neglected to inform their significant others that their sad-sack pal Geoffrey (Jonas Chernick), and his frustrated pop-singer wife Fiona (Mia Kirshner), are also joining the party.
The same-old ensues, with scant sex and even fewer laughs. It’s not the fault of the actors, but more to do with the formulaic script, which Cohen co-wrote with Nicola Sammeroff. PH
In the Fade (DVD)
(out of 4) Starring Diane Kruger, Numan Acar, Denis Moschitto, Johannes Krisch, Hanna Hilsdorf and Ulrich Brandhoff. Directed by Fatih Akin. Out May 1 on DVD. 106 minutes. 14A Diane Kruger took Best Actress at Cannes 2017 for her lead role in German auteur Fatih Akin’s latest drama In the Fade, a genre thriller giving agency to a mother’s rage.
Kruger seizes and holds every frame as Katja, a Hamburg woman out to avenge the terrorist bombing that destroyed her family. The travesty of justice which followed compounds her misery.
She and her Kurdish-German husband Nuri (Numan Acar), had reason to believe they’d settled into happy domesticity with their 6-year-old son Rocco (Rafael Santana).
The bombing, which Katja narrowly escapes, takes it all away in a brutal flash. The cops are quick to blame Nuri’s past. Perhaps this was an act of revenge by drug dealers or the Turkish mob? Or maybe Nuri was being “politically active” again? Other suspects emerge; so does Katja’s violent side.
The film is an unusually thoughtful take on the payback thriller, asking questions about grief and justice that resonate with these perilous times, all the more so in light of recent terrorist atrocities. Extras include cast/director interviews and making-of featurettes. PH