Seen in February
Sex, drugs and dance clubs in Anora.
Now that the Celebrity Super Bowl, AKA, The Oscars is done, I'll address what we saw this month. Out of 11 films, 4 were actually seen in a theatre. Though when Sean Baker, 4-time winner for writer, director and editor of Anora took the stage and implored people to see movies in theatres, I may have blushed a little. Of the four Best Film nominees that we saw, we only experienced one in the theatre and rented the other three. Despite being Canadian, I think the trek outside in the deepest darkest days of winter proved our downfall. In warmer times, we're a bike hop away from all the screens, but in winter, that trudge outside is one dog team too many.

The Brutalist, in name and runtime.
The Brutalist
Great film, but not great enough to justify the runtime of over 3-1/2 hours (or maybe its commendations). It never had a chance of winning the Academy Award for editing. I will say the film looked fantastic and along with memorable performances, it had a very memorable score. László Toth (Adrien Brody) is a Hungarian Jew who escaped post-war Europe to go to America, where he would find menial labour jobs while waiting for his wife (Felicity Jones) and her niece to join him. Toth is also an accomplished architect but without connections, he depends on a cousin who has not only anglicized his name but married a Catholic and left his Jewish past behind him. Through a small contract to improve a personal library, Toth comes to the attention of a wealthy industrialist (Guy Pearce) who discovers his credentials and engages him in building his own major project. Thus begins the tortured relationship in which commerce literally screws the artist. The film, in many ways, feels like it is trying too hard to be an art film. There are so many avenues it follows that are unnecessary to the main theme, and, to be honest, it spends too many moments paying homage to other films that it becomes the bloated runtime it is now known for. There's also a lot of chatter from architects that talk about how much the film gets wrong from an architectural history point of view, which misses the point of the film. It's not about "Architecture/Architects", it's about filmmaking or more broadly when artists and commerce clash, which misses the point about architecture. So yes, I'm saying this is a film about an architect by a filmmaker, who misunderstands architecture being reviewed by architects who misunderstand filmmaking. It's like the ego of the two professions prevents them from realizing how wrong they both are. When we saw this in the theatre, there was a 15-minute intermission. It didn't need an intermission. It needed an intervention.
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