One festival, TIFF, is over for the year, the other, VIFF, has three more days to go and I’m not finished with it yet either. I write about a few more of the good ones that I saw, those you still have a chance to see there or should watch out for if you’re not close. I missed writing about one of my top favorites, The President’s Cake, a rare international appearance by an Iraqi film but I’ll get to it when it comes back.

Meanwhile we have these:

Tron: Ares: 3 stars

Nouvelle Vague: 4

John Candy: I Like Me: 4

Foreigner: 3 ½

A Welcome Distraction: 3

TRON: ARES: The visual imagery is again dazzling, like in the 1982 original and the 2010 sequel, and yes the lightcycle is back. But the story hasn’t improved much. It was dull back then and, in a move to deepen it, is crowded and muddled today. And at the same time, rather simple. Remember back then a computer programmer was sucked into a video game and had to learn how to live in there. That odd idea became quite common with films like The Matrix and this film turns it around. A program from inside comes out into our world. An allegory for the increasing hold digital technology has on us? Perhaps. The film does address the power of A-I, and the fears over what it will mean going ahead. Not smartly enough though. It’s mostly an adventure story.

Courtesy of Disney

The program, called Ares, looks human in the form of Jared Leto who conducts himself without histrionics on his mission. He’s trying to protect the digital world, called The Grid, while two corporations here battle it out to push A-I. One company, the original Encom, now headed by Eve Kim (Greta Lee) is promoting the good possibilities in the technology. A breakaway, headed by Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) wants to develop an army of super-soldiers, every obedient, never questioning and, if killed, easily replaced. That’s also known as “expendable,” an idea that Ares doesn’t like at all. It cheapens his existence he believes. He seems to be developing feelings much like human beings. Interesting concepts are at play here but underdeveloped as written by Jesse Wigutow and directed by Joachim Rønning an action pro from Norway. The story devolves into a race to find the one thing the technology needs, the “permanence code.” Without it these soldiers disintegrate after 29 minutes. The film looks better than it communicates. (In theaters) 3 out of 5

ROOFMAN: Here’s a feel-good movie based on an almost unbelievable but apparently true story and starring a couple of actors good at conveying warm hearts: Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst. He plays an army veteran in North Carolina who, while touting his intelligence as his superpower, turns to crime. He breaks into McDonald’s restaurants at night through the roof and surprisingly finds cash to steal. He gets caught and then uses his wits to escape from prison and gets back to his ways. He secretly takes up residence in a Toys R Us store where he lives on M+M’s chocolates and steals video games which he sells. This was back in 2004 and went on for months, which is also unbelievable.

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Meanwhile he becomes enamored with an employee there (Kirsten Dunst). Manipulates the in-store computer system to get her a better work schedule (over the mean-spirited manager played by Peter Dinklage) and contrives to meet her outside the store when he contributes to a toy drive at her church. He attends events there like an upstanding citizen, even meeting and impressing the pastor (Ben Mendelsohn). He also endears himself to Dunst’s character when he brings toys to her two daughters. He explains that he cannot say what he does for a living except that he’s a government employee bound by secrecy rules. It’s a treat to watch him use his wits to spin this deception, not quite as much a treat to see that all the others buy the tale so easily. Or that, except for a couple of phone calls, he has no contact with his own wife and kids. Also you’re waiting for the inevitable. How long can he keep it up? Will he be found out? Director and co-writer Derek Cianfrance keeps things moving at ease and shows Tatum’s character as ever a nice guy. (In theaters) 3 ½ out of 5

And from the Vancouver International Film Festival …

CASE 137: This is the best film I’ve seen at VIFF this year. It’s been called riveting and that’s exactly right. It’s also extremely contemporary raising issues like police over-reaction, bureaucratic inaction and eroding confidence in both institutions. One character says some of it directly asking asks why people have come to hate the police so much. This film from France raises all those questions in the aftermath of a demonstration against the policies of Pres. Emmanuel Macron. That’s also contemporary, for sure, and the story seems to be at least partially based on true events.

Courtesy of VIFF

A police internal affairs officer (played steadily and effectively by Léa Drucker) has to investigate after a young man in the demonstration is badly injured with a gunshot. Did the police do it and if so who among them? A shady small extra police force was seen in security videos but no one will admit being part. Two are then identified but admit nothing. Léa’s character sees a black woman seemingly taking extra interest at the site but gets no co-operation from her because as she says Algerians like her don’t get fair treatment in police matters. Dogged police work does turn up evidence from the woman and the two officers are confronted with it. That produces a bafflegab of evasion and denial and, what’s worse, bureaucratic impediment that even calls the investigator’s own motives into question. The film is terse and lean, directed by Dominik Moll, an expert at procedurals. Like they say: riveting. (4 ½ out of 5)

NOUVELLE VAGUE: Here’s a treat for cinephiles and a love letter to the art form itself from Richard Linklater. He’s from Texas and known for films like Dazed and Confused, School of Rock and Boyhood but here looks at the revolution in modern cinema, the so-called new wave, that came out of France. Story telling, editing, depiction of society all changed with it. Linklater celebrates it–and shows his familiarity with it–by telling of the creation of a seminal work, Breathless in 1960. That’s when Jean-Luc Godard decided to quit writing about film in Cahiers du Cinéma and move on to making one himself. Along the way we encounter a whole crowd of French filmmakers from François Truffaut to Jean-Pierre Melville, Claude Chabrol, Agnes Varda and others. It’s like an overview of French cinema.

VIFF

At the heart is Godard’s efforts–struggles at times–to make his film. Guillaume Marbeck plays him; Aubry Dullin is his star Jean-Paul Belmondo and Zoey Deutch is Jean Seberg. Casting her was controversial because she was brought from the US and by-passed French actors. She came with stories of working with Otto Preminger though which fit the great admiration among these French cinema types for American directors. Linklater repays it and gives us a fairly detailed outline of the rise of Goddard, the difficulties he encountered as a first-time, untested director, not only with the casting but finding the money and the support he needed . He had charisma, though. That comes through, amply. As does Linklater’s love for moves. Don’t miss this one. It opened VIFF, has one more screening there and opens wide in theaters at the end of the month. 4 out of 5

JOHN CANDY: I LIKE ME: Here’s a moving portrait of one of these best comedians ever to come out of Canada. It’s moving because behind the jokes, there was insecurity. Some of it was about his chubby size; most of it was because he lost his dad at a very early age. He was only five. The loss weighed heavily on him according to various people in this documentary, which despite that is bright and breezy, possibly in a way he would approve. He died in his sleep in 1994 and Colin Hanks (yes, Tom’s son), as director, and Ryan Reynolds, as producer, remind us how special he was. There are friends, associates and his own children talking to that point.

As seen in the film, a Polaroid photo from the John Candy estate

And there are many clips from his movies like Splash, Uncle Buck and Planes Trains and Automobiles, which has a special place in my movie memories. It was the last film I watched with my father who responded deeply to the emotional feelings Candy evoked in the film. That showed all that’s needed that he was a very good actor inside that comic exterior. There are also clips from his early TV work in SCTV where we see terrific comics like Joe Flaherty, Martin Short, Gilda Radner and Andrea Martin. It’s very nostalgic. There are fond statements from Steve Martin and Dan Akroyd (who called him a “grand man” at the funeral) and another friend who called him “a force.” Through it all Candy comes off as kind, very nice guy, unable to leave behind any of the negative traits that Bill Murray, facetiously at the start of the film, says bio pics like this need. It played at both VIFF and TIFF (which it opened) and now starts streaming on Prime Video. 4 out of 5

FOREIGNER: Here’s a blunt and evocative depiction of one immigrant concern. Maybe the chief one. How to fit in. It’s fiction but with a great deal of personal insight from the writer/director Ava Maria Safai, an immigrant herself, and therefore authentic. Her film has Yasamin, originally from Iran, working hard to learn English through a lot of TV watching (much to the criticism of her father) and coming into the sphere of a real queen bee and her two minions at school. The bee played with smiling witchiness by Chloë Macleod in a real standout performance. This is Mean Girls turned up a notch.

Courtesy of VIFF

Rose Dehgan as Yasamin is more sincere but just as effective. She wants to connect with the trio, whose leader is named Rachel, like the character in a favorite show she watches. So, of course she’s attracted and believes in the advice she gets from her. To really fit in, dye your hair blonde, she’s told. Her grandma warns against it; says it will unleash a demon named Zar. To Yasamin that’s old country stuff and she goes right ahead. The film uses horror movie tropes to show what happened then, luckily not too much of them. That would overpower the valid concern of this film: the need to stay yourself, recognize your worth and choose your influences wisely. It makes those points very well. (At Viff, Saturday afternoon) 3 ½ out of 5

A WELCOME DISTRACTION: Here’s an eccentric, whimsical but also on-point reflection of one segment of life in Vancouver. For some it’s free-spirited; for others its cultish. Both traits are present in this story of a young man (Simon Farrell) who is feeling low because of a tragedy, possibly a breakup in a relationship. He goes out on a hike to relax and meets a woman (Madison Isolina) who feels that he’s lost. He says he isn’t lost; he’s looking for a spot he was at once before and a tree that had meaning for him. Pretty spacey, she realizes, and invites him to a party. And so progresses a strange dreamlike tale.

Courtesy of VIFF

The party turns out to be a gathering of believers in some sort of mystical program. And a research project. The members study the earth with listening devices. They’re like a family and there’s a shared belief that the universe brought them all together. He was invited, obviously as a recruit, but to what? The main leader (Adriana Marchand) addresses the group to say this is all about re-birth and re-invention and they’ll all move south to Arizona. She scolds him for doubting. “The work we do here,” she says “is all about obliterating yourself.” He, who had a tough family history and bought drugs for “some sharpening up” has trouble buying all this. He also notices some cracks in the supposedly unified group. It’s an intriguing film written and directed by Brian Daniel Johnson and probably quite accurate about clannish groups like this. (At VIFF, after the world premiere yesterday it is showing again Sunday afternoon) 3 out of 5