YEAR OF THE CARNIVORE: 3 STARS

“Year of the Carnivore” is musician-turned-VJ-turned-radio host-turned actor-turned-director Sook-Yin Lee's first feature film behind the camera. As befitting someone who has spent her entire career restlessly exploring the various facets of creative life, Lee has made a movie about a search for identity.

Sammy (a beautifully cast Cristin Milioti) is a twenty-one year old grocery store detective. By day she tracks down shop lifters, by night she pines for the affections of Eugene (Mark Rendall) a musician with commitment issues. Following a failed bit of bump and grind with Eugene, Sammy goes on a mission to become sexually experienced—she’s been celibate so long a friend jokes she’s be “revirginated”— sleeping with guys—some willing, some not—to overcome a crippling tickle problem. On her journey to “unleash her inner femme” she meets a mother with post partum depression, a wise but randy older woman and an avocado thief with some helpful words of encouragement.  

Call it “Sex and the Canadian City” but instead of Carrie’s couture we have high indie style—carefully mussed hair and shapeless clothes—and bicycles instead of limos. It’s a look at young, naïve people, behaving like young, naïve people, which could have been trite, but Lee, who also wrote the script, infuses the characters with so much heart that despite the movie’s taste for quirky humor and situations—in this world there are shoplifters everywhere and many people have sex in public—Sammy’s search for meaning in her life is heartfelt and compelling.

Milioti leads the strong cast in a performance that radiates vulnerability and humor. She’s physically frail but Milioti allows the character’s inner strength to shine through as it becomes clear to her that she must embrace who she is as well as who she isn’t. Her journey to her comfort zone (and Eugene’s arms) is a trip worth taking.  

YOUTH IN REVOLT: 3 ½ STARS

Youth in Revolt is the new Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It’s a film about the benefits of behaving badly and like the famous 1986 John Hughes movie it is headlined by an actor who brings charm and wit to the role of the rebel.  

Hoodie heartthrob Michael Cera plays fourteen-year-old Nick Twisp, a mild mannered collection of raging hormones and quirky personality traits. He loves Sinatra and foreign films. When his family relocates to a Christian trailer park he meets his dream girl, Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday), a similarly anachronistic teenager with a taste for anything French and a dream of being swept off her feet by a bad boy named Francois. When circumstance steps in to keep them apart he (with the help of an imaginary friend named Francois Dillinger) reverses his goody-two-shoes image and becomes a rebel with a cause—he wants to impress her.

Cera has a corner on the awkward by coming-of-age movie, and as Twisp he doesn’t do anything he didn’t do in Juno or Superbad, but he’s charming and easy to watch. His work takes on a different dimension, however, when he slips into alter ego mode. As the mustachioed Francois he’s a refugee from a Belmondo film, equipped with a cigarette, and too tight white trousers. It’s not often that an actor gets to show his range playing two characters in one film, but this is a step forward for Cera, who has been locked into the wisecracking virgin stereotype since he left the small screen’s Arrested Development, grew some peach fuzz and started chasing girls on the big screen. It’s not exactly his first adult part but it shows he can do something other than act like an awkward teen while delivering funny lines with pitch perfect timing.

The supporting cast, made up of reliable old pros like Jean Smart, M. Emmet Walsh, Fred Willard and Steve Buscemi, do good work, but the movie wouldn’t work if Sheeni wasn’t the kind of girl worth throwing your life away for, but in the excellently named Portia Doubleday Youth in Revolt finds a newcomer with charisma to burn.

Youth in Revolt is a funny, delightful movie but its main strengths are its actors—Cera who expands his range and Doubleday who debuts hers.

YEAR ONE: 2 ½ STARS

Lately we’ve seen lots of origin movies. Hugh Jackman starred in a blockbuster about the beginnings of his most famous character, Wolverine and Iron Man gave us the skinny on how Robert Downey Jr became a superhero. Now Jack Black and Michael Cera star in the mother of all origin movies. Year One is a Biblical satire that picks up where movies like The Life of Brian left off, bringing a modern sensibility to a story about the foundation of our civilization.   

Black and Cera play Zed and Oh, hunter-gatherers banished from their village in biblical times. Cut off from all they know the pair meander through Old Testament era Mesopotamia, get sold into slavery, narrowly avoid the first circumcision and bump into everyone from Cain and Abel (David Cross and Paul Rudd) to Abraham (Hank Azaria). Eventually they try and rescue their old village-mates in the city where “the sinners are winners,” the doomed Sodom.

Much of the humor in Year One comes from Black and Cera dressing like hunter gatherers but speaking like a modern day odd couple. For example, when village leader Marlak (Matthew Willig) knocks a bowl of strawberries from Oh’s hand, Cera replies, “Well there won't be any berries in the fruit salad now, so we all lose.” The anachronistic language is funny and the talented cast pulls it off, but I’m afraid there isn’t much more here than that.

Black and Cera bring their well defined comic personas—Black is the overconfident dumb guy, Cera the nerdy outsider—and both seem to have fun with their roles, but the ratio of laughs per minute isn’t as high as some other recent movies, most notably The Hangover. It’s a feel good movie, but not exactly a laugh-a-rama.

Part of the problem is the script. The thinly written story—it feels more like a series of skits than a whole—relies on the two leads to squeeze every last bit of charm from a script heavy with poo jokes, sex humor and all other forms of juvenilia, and for the most part they do, but Black’s mugging and Cera’s patented passiveness grow old by the time the credits roll.

Fortunately an all star list of cameos brightens things up a bit. Hank Azaria as Abraham brings the funny and Black’s Tenacious D sidekick Kyle Gass raises a smile as Zaftig the Eunuch. Both these supporting characters seem ripped out of another movie, a funnier movie. I left wondering what someone like Mel Brooks could have done with this material. I mean is there a more perfect Brooks character name than Zaftig the Eunuch?

Year One’s immature yuks should amuse fans of Jack Black and Michael Cera and it will offend some but leave most with only a faint smile.

YES MAN: 3 STARS

A quick glance at Jim Carrey’s IMDB listings for the last few years reveals under appreciated movies like Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, an ill conceived remake in the form of Fun with Dick and Jane and one out-and-out stinker, Number 23. It’s been a tough time to be a Jim Carrey fan. It seemed the stuff that made him famous, the trademarked rubber-faced antics and physical mayhem, were relics of his early career. But just when it appeared that asking Carrey to speak out of his bum again would be akin to suggesting Bob Dylan take a throat lozenge along comes Yes Man, a return to form from a man who began talking himself just a bit too seriously.

Carrey plays Carl Allen, a sad sack who still stings from his divorce three years ago. He lives alone, only leaves the house to go to work or to the video store and has almost worn out the “ignore” button on his cell phone keypad. A chance encounter with an old friend leads him to a “Yes is the New No!” self help seminar, lead by the charismatic Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp). He’s part Dale Carnegie part Earnest Angely. His message is simple; there’s too much negativity in the world, and if people just said “yes” more often things would get better. Carl takes the advice to heart and after a rough start soon finds that his life does improve when he answers yes to everything.

Like a singer who always wanted to act, Carrey has often tried to deny his gifts as the new Buster Keaton and play serious. Not satisfied with his enormous facility for physical humor he has sought out roles like the above mentioned Number 23 and The Majestic. Trouble is once you get famous for talking out of your bum it’s hard to turn back and be taken seriously. He’s a good light-dramatic actor but he is a stellar physical comedian and Yes Man finds a good mix between the two.

The love story—Zooey Deschanel is the totally charming love interest—and transformation from schlub to super charged Tony Robbins type give him a chance to act, while the script also affords nice opportunities for Carrey to indulge in some good old fashioned Dumb and Dumber style buffoonery.   

Yes Man is essentially Liar Liar with a more positive twist. In both films he plays a self absorbed man who finds his life—and the lives of those around him—gets better when he changes his attitude. Both are feel good movies and both feature Carrey’s unique brand of slapstick. Yes Man is more of a fable, with gentler humor than Liar Liar, but if you liked that 1997 film, you enjoy the new one. 

YOUNG PEOPLE DOING THINGS THEY USUALLY ONLY DO BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: 3 ½ STARS

Chances are good you’ve already heard about this movie. Under its real title, not the cutesy one I have to use here, it has stirred up a firestorm of controversy in Ottawa. Outraged by the title lawmakers in our capitol came up with the six-hundred page Bill C-10 a new bill that would give the federal Heritage Department the power to deny funding for films and TV shows it considers offensive. The resulting hullabaloo has provided the film with the kind of publicity that most Canadian films would kill for. Now the important question remains: Is the film as provocative and outrageous as its title?

The answer is, thankfully no, otherwise you’d be renting the movie from the adult’s only section of your local video store and not seeing it on the big screen at your local multiplex. Young People Doing the Nasty is a movie about sex and relationships which takes place primarily in beds and in a reclining position but Deep Throat this ain’t. Instead it is a sweet and funny look at how five sets of couples—best friends, roommates do it, exes, a married couple and young co-workers—interact with one another when they are at their most vulnerable—exposed literally and figuratively.

Broken into six segments from Foreplay to Afterglow and everything in between, the movie mostly avoids the clichés of the sex comedy genre [presenting instead, a smartly written look at the dynamics between unclothed men and women. So if our intrepid lawmakers in Ottawa set out to vote on Bill C-10 with an idea of protecting the chaste interests of all Canadians they may want to actually see the movie first. If they do they’ll realize it’s less about young people doing what comes naturally and more about young people talking about it in an entertaining and interesting way.

Instead of vilifying YPF for its provocative title Ottawa should be encouraging young Canadian filmmakers to make movies as attention grabbing as this one.

YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN: 3 ½ STARS

Six years after 9/11 Hollywood has struggled to make films that deal with the fallout from that tragic day and still connect with audiences. Earnest films like Grace is Gone and Stop Loss have played to empty seats, while action oriented movies like United 93 and The Kingdom garnered good critic response but apathy from ticket buyers.

Considering the graveness of the subject matter it seems odd to report that in recent months a new genre of film has sprung up—the Post 9/11 Comedy. At the box office comedies have had a better run at tackling subjects like terrorism, racial profiling and how the war on terror has spiraled out of control.

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay and War Inc were both darkly funny films that took on very serious subjects and skewered them with humor while attracting audiences. Now it’s Adam Sandler’s turn. Teaming up with comedy guru Judd Apatow (The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up) Sandler has crafted a film about Israeli / Palestinian relations that is the silliest ode to tolerance to ever hit the big screen.

Sandler is Zohan, a hard partying Mossad counter terrorist agent—he’s like Rembrandt with a grenade his admirers say—who fakes his own death so he can leave the violence of his home country, move to America and follow his dream to become a hairstylist at the flagship Paul Mitchell Salon in Manhattan. Things don’t go quite as planned and when he instead ends up working with, and falling for Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui) a beautiful Palestinian woman    his outlook on life is changed forever. Now if only Dalia’s race baiting landlord and some enemies from back home would leave them alone they could live happily ever after.   

You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is above all else an extremely harebrained comedy. For every reasonably clever line about Israeli / Palestinian relations like, “They’ve been fighting for two thousand years, it can’t last much longer,” there are five scenes that make earlier Sandler movies like Happy Gilmour look like Molière.

Although the jokes are written on the approximate level of a Carry On movie—apparently crotch humor is the new toilet joke—Sandler’s goofy charm carries the film. It takes considerable chutzpah to carry off a scene where a simple hair salon shampoo morphs into an unsexy take-off from 9 ½ Weeks, but Sandler is so guileless and has so much audience goodwill that the scene plays to big laughs. 

One of the unexpected pleasures of You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is playing Spot the Cameo. The movie is packed with unexpected casting from the legendary 82-year-old comedian Shelley Berman (a candidate for the “I thought he was dead” file if there ever was one) to Star Trek’s George Takei having fun with his newly announced lifestyle choice to the prim and proper Mrs. Garrett from The Fact of Life, Charlotte Rae, as an elderly sex starved salon patron. Even musicians Dave Matthews and Mariah Carey pop up as a hillbilly racist-for-hire and pop diva respectively.

You Don’t Mess with the Zohan lags for a time in its middle section—the romance angle is as flavorless as Zohan’s ever present hummus without the garlic—but makes up for the dull spots with a mix of outrageous action sequences, bad one liners (“Are you bionic?” asks a bystander after witnessing one of Zohan’s incredible feats of strength. “No I only like the girls!” he says.) and a message of tolerance that would seem heavy-handed if it wasn’t so heartfelt.

YOUNG @ HEART: 3 ½ STARS

Young @ Heart begins with a rousing version of Should I Stay or Should I Go. It’s as loud and unruly as the original by The Clash but instead of four punks pounding out the tune here we have a choir whose average age is north of 80. And you thought The Rolling Stones were old.

While most grand parents pass the day playing Cribbage and doing crosswords these old timers are on the road, belting out an eclectic mix of tunes, everything from James Brown’s I Feel Good to Schizophrenia by alt rock pioneers Sonic Youth and, appropriately enough, Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees to sold out audiences across America and Europe. “We went from continent to continent,” says singer Fred Knittle, “and then I became incontinent.” 

Coming from their mouths the “put me in a wheelchair” line from I Wanna Be Sedated has a certain resonance not even the Ramones could bring to the song.

The opposite of a coming of age story-- whose members range from 73 to 92 years old—Young @ Heart is a crowd pleaser that really draws you into the lives of the chorus members. For many of them the opportunity to sing with the choir is medicinal. “It’s good for your lungs and your body,” says one ripened singer, “you forget all about the creaky bones.” “It keeps the brain alive,” says another, “and if you don’t use it, you lose it.” More importantly for some of them, ravaged by ill health, it lifts their spirits and is a source of renewed dignity.


The film, which could have easily erred on the cute side, (the novelty of seniors singing rock songs could outstay its welcome quickly), instead rings with real emotion as we get involved in the lives of the singers. We learn of one member who endured six bouts of chemo in four years and yet never missed a show; a testament to the rejuvenating power of giving these people something to look forward to which makes them feel useful.

The playful tone of the first half of the film—with scenes of the elders trying to figure out which side of a disc goes face up in the cd player, the shiny side or the printed side—shifts when several members of the choir undergo health issues. By the time of their big show death has touched the choir and in a heartbreaking climax Fred Knittle, an 80-year-old retiree suffering from congestive heart failure, sings a touching version of Coldplay’s Fix You for a fallen friend. As his baritone voice caresses lines like “When you lose something you can't replace, When you love someone, but it goes to waste, Could it be worse?” the words takes on a deeper hue born out of tragic experience. Later when a seventy-seven-year-old sings “All we've ever had is now,” courtesy of The Flaming Lips, it speaks to the fragility of human existence, but is also life affirming. These men and women are embracing the right now and bringing generations of experience to every word that comes out of their mouths. 

Young @ Heart is an uplifting documentary which is simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking as it deals with the consequences of age from those who refuse to act their age.