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Movie Mondays: Like a Runaway Train of Rep Cinema Listings
As a means of rounding up Toronto’s various cinematic goings-on each week, Movie Mondays compiles the best rep cinema and art house screenings, special presentations, lectures, and limited engagements.
Welcome, movie lovers, to 2011! We finally made it. Now it’s time to circle your calendars for all the major theatrical releases you’ve been salivating over. Sure, it’s just more of the same middling Hollywood backwash, from sequels (The Hangover 2) to remakes (the Toronto-shot do-over of The Thing), more comic book fare (Thor, Captain America) and, as definitive proof that the universe is a callous, unfeeling place, a Shrek spin-off (Puss in Boots). But there’s also some stuff to really get jazzed about. Like Tree of Life and Drive Angry 3D. And we’d be lying if we told you we weren’t polishing our power rings in anticipation of The Green Lantern.
Luckily, as the mean quality of major new releases approaches absolute garbage, the rep cinema’s around town are still here to fill in the gaps. Mostly. This week is actually kind of slow, with people recovering from New Year’s revelry and whatnot. There’s still some great stuff unspooling this week, though. Like runaway trains and docs about making art out of trash and crack-kooky Christian Bale.
Looking back at this year’s run of holiday prestige pictures, David O. Russell’s The Fighter seems to look better and better. The film has attracted a good deal of buzz for performances by Christian Bale, Melissa Leo, and Amy Adams. But what about star Mark Wahlberg? And heck, what about the movie itself?
While it’s true that Wahlberg doesn’t gobble up the scenery like a lot of the film’s supporting cast, and that The Fighter is a pretty straight-ahead sports flick, both of these things continue to impress over time. Wahlberg downplays it as spirited brawler Micky Ward, giving space for the film’s other performers to breathe. And Russell all but removes his more ostentatious flourishes as a director. The result is a generous, and at times masterful, sports movie that feels fresh frame after frame, despite the familiarity of the genre. If you haven’t already, catch The Fighter, running throughout the week at the Rainbow Market Square.
When it screened at Hot Docs last year, people raved about Lucy Walker’s Waste Land. For our part we, uh, missed it. Who’d have thought a documentary about garbage would be so interesting?
Well, it is. Waste Land follows Vik Muniz, a Brazilian artist and sculptor known for once reshaping a human skull to make it look like it had a clown nose affixed to it. The film shows Muniz working with garbage pickers at a landfill outside of Rio de Janeiro to create large-scale portraits for auction and exhibition. Waste Land is more than just a long-form PSA about recycling, or a look at a contemporary artist doing the kind of crazy crap contemporary artists make a living doing, though. The film also pays particular attention to those who make their livings sifting through and salvaging trash at one of the world’s biggest landfills, as well as Muniz’s efforts to better their living conditions. Waste Land screens at TIFF Bell Lightbox at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, January 3.
Is there anything more unstoppable than an unstoppable runaway train that cannot be stopped? According to Tony Scott’s recent Unstoppable: probably not! Scott returns to the runaway train genre, following last year’s braindead remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, albeit with considerably more favourable (though just as braindead) results.
Unstoppable casts Chris Pine as a greenhorn locomotive engineer working alongside a seasoned veteran played by Denzel Washington. This original odd couple’s interpersonal tension boils over when they find themselves tasked with stopping a runaway freight train loaded with explosive materials. A film like this could easily just run its course, but Scott maximizes the excitement and avoids potential derailments, making Unstoppable his best film since, let’s say, The Fan. All aboard this cinematic runaway train (see what we did there?), Friday, January 7 at 7 p.m. at the Revue.
Well here’s something new. This week the Toronto Underground cinema will host what the cinema’s website describes as a “multi-dimensional takeover” bound to transform the Underground into “an audio+visual playground.” We’re not even really sure what the means! Multi-dimensional? Does that mean this playground will exist in four dimensions? Like in Cube 2: Hypercube? Whatever it means, it sounds kind of interesting.
What we do know for sure is that starting at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 8, the Underground will be hosting local indie bands Hands & Teeth, Heartbeat Hotel, and The Ruby Spirit for three sets of music, with visual accompaniment. Sounds like a good time. And more proof that our friends at the Underground are trying to shake up our conception of our local rep cinemas.