Wednesday, April 3, 2024
Suze      Canada
Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:30 pm

Directors: Linsey Stewart, Dane Clark
Cast: Michaela Watkins, Aaron Ashmore, Sara Waisglass, Charlie Gillespiens, Aaron As
Running time: 93 minutes
Language: English 

Awards: Calgary International Film Festival: Best Canadian Narrative Feature

“This is a breezy, enormously amiable film.”—Debanjan Dhar, High on Films

“Suze” is an enjoyable comedy-drama that deals with an unlikely inter-generational friendship. Stage and screen actress and improv comic Michaela Watkins plays an empty-nest single mother who loses one parental responsibility only to be saddled with another. It is a combination comedy of manners and a personal growth story, as touching as it is genuinely amusing.

Single mother Susan (Michaela Watkins) aka ‘Suze’, divorced from her unfaithful husband, is bracing herself to send her daughter, Brooke (Sara Waisglass), off to university. Susan is finding the idea of her only child growing up and leaving home difficult, despite her offspring’s indifference. 

One day, Suze’s brooding is interrupted by the appearance of Brooke’s former boyfriend, Gage (Charlie Gillespie), who is heartbroken over being summarily dumped by Brooke.

Gage is as hilarious as he is annoying, full of youthful energy and awkwardness, lacking any kind of filter, and given to the worst of adolescent speech mannerisms. Susan takes pity on his obvious distress and reluctantly befriends him. 

Things take a turn when Gage is injured and his macho father finds an excuse to leave Gage with Susan while he recuperates.

Much of the humour comes from the interaction between the mature, sensible Susan and young Gage, who is erratic, emotional, and full of uninformed enthusiasm. 

The two leads have wonderful chemistry, bouncing off each other in a lively and funny first act. Their relationship evolves during Gage’s extended recuperation. Susan takes a more maternal attitude toward him, trying to offer help and encouragement.

Not only does Susan manage to direct Gage away from the negative direction his life has taken, but Gage also helps Susan come to some realizations about her life, her daughter, and herself that mercifully avoids mawkish sentimentality.

In finding both the humour and the dramatic potential in personal and generational differences, “Suze” recreates the buddy movie in a new and surprisingly successful way.

Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Perfect Days  Japan
Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:45 pm

Director: Wim Wenders 
Principal Cast: Kôji Yakusho, Min Tanaka, Tokio Emoto, Aoi Yamada, Sayuri Ishikawa, Arisa Nakano, Yumi Aso, Tomokazu Miura
Running Time: 124 minutes
Language: English, Japanese with English subtitles

Awards: Cannes Film Festival: Best Actor (Kôji Yakusho); Prize of the Ecumenical Jury: Wim Wenders; Asia Pacific Screen Awards: Best Film; Montclair Film Festival: Junior Jury, Wim Wenders; 24 other nominations

“The director has crafted a film of deceptive simplicity, observing the tiny details of a routine existence with such clarity, soulfulness and empathy that they build a cumulative emotional power almost without you noticing.”—David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

After several years away from the silver screen, Wim Wenders is back with “Perfect Days,” a poignant character study and emotionally charged journey into the soul of Tokyo. Radiating charm and embracing all his best work, this unique mix of fiction and ordinary life finds an unusual, poetic angle to guide us: the architectural marvels of some of Tokyo’s public toilets. 

Kôji Yakusho, in one of his best performances to date, plays Hirayama, a cleaner of these toilets. (He is named after the protagonist of Yasujiro Ozu’s last film, “An Autumn Afternoon” — a quiet tribute to the great master of Japanese cinema, an auteur beloved by Wenders.) 

Hirayama lives alone in a small house full of plants, his days going by according to quiet rhythms that never seem to change. His is a neighbourhood of tiny cafés frequented.
by the same people, of bookshops that sell works by Patricia Highsmith or young, contemporary Japanese writers. 

Hirayama speaks very little and has a great passion for music, books, and the trees he loves to photograph. He drives to work in his minivan, fully equipped with his cleaning gear, while The Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, or Lou Reed ring in ageless, husky hums from a tape player. 

As if in search of a new cinema on the road, Wenders follows his protagonist and instead discovers new places of the heart. Through Yakusho/Hirayama, Wenders captures the poetry of the everyday with intimacy and stunning simplicity.