Your Weekend Film Round-Up: What To See (And What To Skip) In The Theatres

By Original-Cin Staff

Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma (Rating: A), a luminous black-and-white childhood memory film, leads our list for this week’s must-sees. Reviewer Liam Lacey praises Cuarón’s deft blend of memoir and historical snapshot and the sensual richness of the film; see it in the theatres before it comes to Netflix in a couple of weeks.

A scene from the TIFF-approved Canuck drama, Clara.

Also at the top of our can’t-be-missed list is Nothing Like a Dame (Rating: A), a documentary by Notting Hill director Roger Michell, in which we take tea at a country house with four friends, titled British thespians Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright and Eileen Atkins. Jim Slotek says the film “basically intrudes on a regular, wickedly funny get-together of four octogenarians…” and makes us very happy we crashed the party.

For subjects deserving of veneration, you can’t surpass Ben Ferencz, the 99-year-old former Nuremberg prosecutor and advocate for the creation of the International Criminal Court, who’s the subject of Barry Avrich’s documentary, Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz (Rating: B+) which, writes Jim Slotek, allows us to listen to “one of the most inspiring individuals of the past century,” accompanied by tremendous archival footage.

Jim also reviews one of our two Canadian films this week, a solidly written astronomy-themed love story, Clara (Rating: B), featuring Suits star Patrick J. Adams as scientist with a tragic past and Troian Bellisario, Adams’ real-life wife, playing his New Age-y assistant. Jim also talks to Clara’s 23-year-old writer/director Akash Sherman about how the film’s innovative idea for planet-hunting actually earned a mention in a science journal.

Tiger (Rating: C), which could be called “Rocky in a Turban” is a boxing/human rights drama written and co-starring the Canadian team of Prem Singh and Michael Pugliese. The script is loosely based on the story of real-life Sikh boxer Pardeep Singh Nagra, who successfully challenged Canadian amateur boxing ban on beards as a form of religious discrimination. Mickey Rourke co-stars a wise old ring hand who helps Nagra beat his demons and his opponents. The ring action is decent, writes Liam Lacey, but the courtroom and romantic scenes struggle to go the distance.

Finally, please check out our second podcast with moderator Gene Valaitis, in which Jim Slotek, Karen Gordon, Bonnie Laufer and Liam Lacey talk about these week’s movies, Oscars and one or two things movie audiences do that really bug us.

Have a great weekend.