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Unusual, impressionistic documentary explores colonization through an intimate lens

A powerful fusion of the personal and political, this documentary looks at Indigenous issues across the circumpolar North, embodied through the life and work of Inuk activist and human rights lawyer Aaju Peter.

Screening at the Dave Barber Cinematheque as part of the Human Rights Through Film program sponsored by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the doc (in English, Inuktitut, Danish and Kalaallisut, with English subtitles) is intimate, affecting and illuminating.

Directed by Danish filmmaker Lin Alluna, Twice Colonized is — according to the opening credits — “lived by” Peter. Attempting to break down the conventional (and often colonialist) relationship of observer and observed, this is an unusual documentary. Peter has collaborated closely as a writer and producer on the project, and at one key point, the film crew enters into her personal story.

Some viewers might remember the now 63-year-old Peter from 2016’s Angry Inuk (which Twice Colonized producer Althea Arnaaquq-Baril also worked on). She’s still angry here, with good reason.

The truth hurts

Honesty is not necessarily the best policy in this dramatic comedy from indie writer-director Nicole Holofcener (Walking and Talking, Please Give). But lies turn out to be tricky, too.

A sharply insightful, emotionally generous ensemble piece, You Hurt My Feelings looks at the big fallout of a small untruth.

Beth (played by Seinfeld’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who has paired before with Holofcener in Enough Said) and Don (The Crown’s Tobias Menzies) are a well-off New York couple with a (semi) grown son. During a happy celebration of their wedding anniversary, Beth tells Don, “We’re very lucky,” a phrase that almost always turns out to be a portent of disaster — at least in the movies.

Sure enough, some chance words send them into a crisis, which Holofcener and her top-notch cast approach in relatable, human, often very funny ways.

Like an old married throuple

Sean Garrity, Jonas Chernick and Emily Hampshire have been doing it together for a long time.

Making romantic comedies, that is.

In 2012, the trio collaborated on the award-winning My Awkward Sexual Adventure, scripted by Chernick, an ex-Winnipegger, and directed by Garrity, who still calls the city home. That film centred on a sad-sack accountant (Chernick) who attempts to revive his sagging relationship with the guidance of an exotic dancer, played by Hampshire in a role that preceded her breakout as Stevie Budd on CBC’s Schitt’s Creek.

That film was a modest hit, and led producers to ask Garrity and Chernick to squeeze out another. Quickly, Chernick, who has starred in six of Garrity’s nine feature films, started writing a script that became The End of Sex, in theatres now.

Couple’s sex story a pleasure-filled rom-com romp

There comes a point in almost every marriage where the couple must confront the fact that it’s, uh, been awhile.

For Emma (Emily Hampshire) and Josh (Jonas Chernick), that point comes when they send their young daughters to camp and find themselves with a kid-free week in The End of Sex, the latest comedy from Winnipeg director Sean Garrity.

Right from the moment Emma suggests they could “make some sex” and Josh literally has to wipe the dust from a pack of condoms that has been languishing under the sink, we know exactly how this is going to go down (which Josh does, bless him).

As they attempt to get it on, the camera pans over the detritus of the married-with-kids life: the toys littering their suburban floor, the abandoned IKEA project, the toothbrushes in the ducky holder, the recycling collection schedule neatly tacked up on the fridge.

Why? The awkward, urgent question about sexual assault

For Danielle Sturk, the #MeToo movement provided new vocabulary for familiar experiences.

The power and devastating glory of a Toronto family tale

This quiet, potent drama starts with the metallic buzz of wires on a hydro tower. Older brother Francis (Aaron Pierre of The Underground Railroad), cool and charismatic, is explaining the risk-reward ratio of climbing up. Sure, you could die trying, but the view is something else, he explains. Michael (Lamar Johnson, whose credits include The Hate U Give and The Last of Us) is a cautious, contained, wary kid, but he can’t help but follow his big brother.

Speaking volumes on bilingual big screen

The pandemic chill has lifted for Freeze Frame, a bilingual local film festival screening kid-friendly flicks from around the world.

The town with no Towne

Yellow triangles, lime green rhombuses, red rectangles and sharp black lines criss-cross the dark blue carpet on the floor of Towne Cinema 8, the first standalone multiplex to open in Winnipeg and the latest to close its doors forever.

Can James Cameron’s striking ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ pull off a box-office smash?

TORONTO - With a striking blend of visual effects and state-of-the-art motion capture technology, "Avatar: The Way of Water" is billed as a movie-theatre experience unlike any other in the last few years, but it's by far James Cameron's biggest risk yet, industry analysts say.

Disney's second film in a projected five-part saga opens across North America this weekend to massive expectations. Can it draw enough audiences to make up for its budget, reported to be more than $250 million? And will the sequel eventually rival the $2.9-billion total gross of the original film, released in 2009?

Whether the Ontario-born filmmaker, who now lives in New Zealand, can pull off another theatrical success story depends on several factors, observers say: how the film's use of underwater performance capture and 3D technology will translate to profits under the current theatrical model, whether it's going to become a must-see sensation, and if it can buck the media trend that's beginning to prioritize streaming in a pandemic age.

"'Avatar: the Way of Water' is poised for a 'Titanic'-sized debut," said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior Comscore media analyst, referring to the filmmaker's 1997 movie that brought in about $28 million in its first weekend and went on to make $2.2 billion in ticket sales.

AP Breakthrough Entertainer: Danielle Deadwyler goes all in

NEW YORK (AP) — Just the idea of playing Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, was enough to make Danielle Deadwyler pause to consider the toll such a role might take.

“You go: What’s going to happen to me?” Deadwyler says. “What are the steps that you need to take to make sure you can do this to the best of your ability and come out on the other side where you still got all your ABCs and your chemical dynamics together?”

Playing Till-Mobley meant immersing herself in one of the ugliest chapters of American history, when the 14-year-old Till was lynched in 1955 Mississippi. Just the scene Deadwyler would audition with — when Mamie first sees her son’s brutalized corpse — was wrenching. On Deadwyler’s shoulders would lie the responsibility of history, of honoring Till-Mobley and of reflecting a grief known to generations of Black mothers. Deadwyler gathered her resolve.

“I wanted to be the person to bear the weight,” Deadwyler says.

Angelina Jolie leaves role as UN refugee agency envoy

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Angelina Jolie and the United Nations' refugee agency are parting ways after more than two decades.

In a joint statement issued Friday, the U.S. actor and the agency announced she was “moving on” from her role as the agency's special envoy “to engage on a broader set of humanitarian and human rights issues.”

“I will continue to do everything in my power in the years to come to support refugees and other displaced people,” Jolie was quoted as saying in the statement, adding that she felt it was time “to work differently” by directly engaging with refugees and local organizations.

Jolie first started working with the U.N. refugee agency in 2001 and was appointed its special envoy in 2012. The release described the multi-hyphenate as “carrying out more than 60 field missions to bear witness to stories of suffering as well as hope and resilience."

AP Breakthrough Entertainer: Daryl McCormack’s grand year

LONDON (AP) — Daryl McCormack is the zen master.

It’s not a new acting role or a level of spiritual enlightenment, it’s a nickname he got on set for being extremely laidback.

The Irish actor is having a busy and rewarding year with ensemble appearances on TV in brutal period drama “Peaky Blinders” and dark comedy thriller “Bad Sisters,” plus a star-making performance as the title character in the film “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.”

McCormack portrays a sex worker hired by Emma Thompson’s frustrated widow character and the movie got them a best joint lead performance nomination at the British Independent Film Awards. This led to his first ceremony experience. He took his mom.

Eddie Murphy to receive Cecil B. DeMille award at Globes

NEW YORK (AP) — Eddie Murphy will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 80th Golden Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced Wednesday.

The honorary award for the comedian and actor adds to a broadcast that's taking shape after two years of scandal and backlash tarnished the Globes. After taking the previous Globes off the air, NBC will telecast the ceremony Tuesday, Jan. 10, with comedian Jerrod Carmichael hosting.

On a one-year deal with NBC, the Globes are attempting to make a comeback after a Los Angeles Times investigation in early 2021 found that the press association then had no Black members and enumerated a long history of ethical indiscretions. Many stars and studios said they would boycott the show, and NBC canceled the 2022 broadcast.

The films “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once" led in nominations to the Globes announced Monday. “Abbott Elementary” topped TV nominees.

Q&A: Roger Deakins on cinema’s past and future

NEW YORK (AP) — The first photograph Roger Deakins ever took, in 1969 Bournemouth, England, shows a man and a woman quietly eating lunch on a bench outside a ladies room. A sign reads: “Keep it to yourself.”

Deakins has taken countless images since that first snap. He's photographed “Fargo,” “Kundun" and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” He's shot “No Country for Old Men," “The Man Who Wasn't There” and “Skyfall.” He's been nominated for 15 Oscars and won two. He's been knighted.

But if given the chance, he'd take that first black-and-white shot exactly the same way.

“I would take the same photograph now with the same situation, the same frame, the same lens,” Deakins says, chuckling. “I don’t think my eye has changed much at all.”

Sigourney Weaver, James Cameron float on in ‘Way of Water’

NEW YORK (AP) — To Sigourney Weaver, her friendship with James Cameron didn't really start on “Aliens,” the 1986 film Cameron directed her in. It started after.

“He was quite serious most of the time. He had a lot riding on that. England was all about Ridley Scott (the original’s director) doing the next one,” Weaver recalls. “It wasn’t until we got to the Venice Film Festival where ‘Aliens’ was part of some program. We were having dinner afterward and I’m listening to Jim and I went, ‘Wait a minute. You’re funny? Where was this person all through those difficult months?’”

That their first movie — as fruitful as the final product was — wasn't the smoothest experience may have been partly due to Cameron's unconventional courtship of Weaver. When she wavered on returning as Ripley in the sequel, Cameron approached Arnold Schwarzenegger's agent, who also represented Weaver, with the idea of Schwarzenegger taking over the film series. It was a way, once word filtered back to her, to coax Weaver into signing on. The gambit worked.

“The first few weeks on ‘Aliens’ was a bit rocky while we tested each other,” Cameron says. “After that, we’ve been fast friends forever.”

Xavier Dolan’s TV project ‘The Night Logan Woke Up’ heading to Sundance

TORONTO - Québécois director Xavier Dolan’s TV drama“The Night Logan Woke Up”is among the Canadian shorts and indie episodic projects heading to the Sundance Film Festival.

The French-language psychological thriller is about a family haunted by a dark secret decades after a traumatic event occurs in a small Quebec town.

The Canal+ project is adapted from a 2019 stage production from French-Canadian playwright Michel Marc Bouchard. Dolan stars in the series, alongside some of the actors from the play including Julie Le Breton, Magalie Lépine-Blondeau, and Éric Bruneau.

Sundance, which takes place in Park City, Utah, next month, also announced its lineup of shorts on Tuesday, after unveiling its film program last week. Canadian projects in the shorts program include “The Flying Sailor" from animation duo Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis.

Review: ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is a big screen blast

It is impossible to talk about “Avatar: The Way of Water” without sounding hyperbolic. But James Cameron’s sequel is a truly dazzling cinematic experience that will have you floating on a blockbuster high.

No matter if you’ve spent a second of your life in the past 13 years thinking about what’s happening on Pandora or how Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) are getting on, assuming you remember their characters’ names. “The Way of Water” will make awe-struck believers out of even “Avatar” agnostics like me, at least for three hours and 12 minutes. The film isn’t just visually compelling, either, it’s spiritually rich as well — a simple but penetrating story about family and the natural world that is galaxies better than the first.

About that run time: Three hours and 12 minutes sounds excessive, but there is something decidedly decadent about really committing that much time to a movie in a theater. When the filmmaker is purposeful with that time, as Cameron is and many others have been before him, it’s a uniquely rewarding experience. In other words, it’s not a big ask. And you’ll forget all about checking the time from the first shot of Pandora and Jake’s earnest exposition about what’s been going on in the past decade.

He and Neytiri have three kids now, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) and an adopted teenage daughter, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), and they’re happy living in the forest. “Happiness is simple,” he says. “Who ever thought that a jughead like me could crack the code?” So, of course, it can’t last. The humans are on the hunt for Jake, with a familiar antagonist leading the charge. And soon his family is on the run, taking up home in another part of Pandora, on the water with a new tribe led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) who reluctantly grant them refuge and try to teach them how to live on the water.

Toronto filmmaker Sarah Polley’s ‘Women Talking’ earns two Golden Globe nominations

Canadians Sarah Polley and James Cameron and the Toronto-set animated film "Turning Red" picked up Golden Globe nominations Monday, as the awards show attempts a comeback a year after facing criticism over a lack of diversity within its ranks.

Polley's "Women Talking," adapted from Manitoba author Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel earned the Toronto filmmaker her first Golden Globe nomination and a nod for best score for Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir.

The film centres on a group of women debating what actions to take in the aftermath of a series of sexual assaults in their remote Mennonite community. The cast includes Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley.

"Women Talking" will open in Toronto on Dec. 23 and expand to additional markets in January.