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Sample: Title; rating (out of 4); principal setting; year of release; international co-producer (if any); cast; description; scriptwriter; director; content warning; running time.
WICKED MINDS
* * 1/2 setting: USA.
(2002) (/U.S.) Angie Everhart, Andrew Walker, Winston
Rekert, Amy Slaon, Frank Schorpion, Ellen David, Conrad Pla, Bobo Vian.....Young
American man (Walker) returns home to his wealthy, domineering father (Rekert)
and falls into an affair with his father's new -- and younger -- wife (Everhart);
eventually, murder results. Nothing much that's fresh here, but it succeeds
as a reasonably entertaining noirish suspense-drama, with nice performances
from Rekert and American import Everhart. Though the twists and double-crosses
in the second half largely undermine the character and human drama aspects
of the first half. sc: Turi Meyer, Al Septien. dir: Jason Hreno. - sexual
content.- 92 min.
WIDOW ON THE HILL
*
* * setting: USA.
(2005) Natasha Henstridge, James Brolin, Jewel Staite,
Gabriel Hogan, Jeff Roop, Roman Podhora, Melinda Deines, Michele Duquet.....Southern-style
melodrama about an opportunistic young woman (Henstridge) who marries a
widowed, older, wealthy, Virginian ranch owner (American actor Brolin)
-- told in flashbacks after his mysteriouss death. "True Crime" TV movie
is, if taken on its own as a movie, an enjoyable enough pot-boiler -- lurid
enough to be melodramatic fun, restrained enough to not slide (too often)
into camp, getting a big boost from its dignified, pleasant cast (Staite
is particularly good as the black sheep adult daughter who is suspicious
of her new stepmom). But, as often happens, it's more problematic if you
consider its "roots" in a true case (names have been changed and time compressed),
where real human tragedy is turned into a night's entertainment, and where
the movie has a clear agenda -- skewing the story to make it all black
and white. There's even an elitist subtext, as Henstridge is the sinister
"white trash" invading the hallowed demesne of the old money blue bloods.
sc: Stephen Harrigan (based, in part, on a Vanity Fair article by Michael
Shnayerson). dir: Peter Svatek. - sexual content.- app. 90 min.
THE WIDOW OF SAINT-PIERRE see La veuve de Saint-Pierre
THE WIDOWMAKER *
* setting: other
(1990) (/U.K.) Annanelle Apsion, Alun Armstrong, David
Morrissey, Kenneth Welsh, Eileen Nicholas.....After her husband goes
on a killing spree, a British woman (Apsion) starts to unravel under the
pressure of guilt-by-association and her attempts to understand the man
she thought she knew. Interesting premise for a film, with the to-be-expected
British professionalism, but ultimately it's muddled at times and never
quite makes a story out of its idea. Canuck Welsh has a small, albeit crucial,
role. sc: Jeremy Brock. dir: John Madden. - brief female nudity, sexual
content.- 108 min.
The Wild Geese, a novel by Martha Ostenso,
was turned into the TV movie After
the Harvest.
WILD CARD (TV Series) see Zoe Busiek: Wild Card
WILBY WONDERFUL
* 1/2 setting: CDN.
(2004) Paul Gross, Sandra Oh, Rebecca Jenkins, James
Allodi, Ellen Page, Callum Keith Rennie, Maury Chaykin, Daniel MacIvor,
Kathryn MacLellan .....Story of various characters and relationships
in a small island town. Melancholy comedy-drama boasts a good cast and
some nice, well-realized scenes, and Jenkins briefly flashes alluring abs...but
the whole is, unfortunately, slow moving and rather tedious. The various
plot threads are often simplistic and repetitive, and the movie suffers
from a central contradiction (on one hand, it's sort of about idyllic small
town life...on the other hand, a plot thread involves the townsfolk's intolerance
and homophobia). For a movie all about the characters and their angsts...you
can come away with little feel for the characters beyond their defining
angst. Someone needs to explain to writer/director MacIvor that musical
interludes are no substitute for story and characterization. Ultimately,
it seems like it's an attempt to do a mainstream movie...that keeps getting
dragged down by its Art House roots. Despite a lot of strong, individual
aspects, it's ultimately a bad movie...in the way only a movie that comes
close to being good can be bad. sc./dir: Daniel MacIvor. 99 min.
THE WILD DOGS *
* 1/2 setting: other/CDN.
(2003) Thom Fitzgerald, David Hayman, Visinel Burcea,
Rachel Blanchard, Alberta Watson, Nelu Vioreu, Simona Popescu, Marcel Catalin
Ungureanu, Geraint Wyn Davies.....Story of various characters in Bucharest,
from fringe dwelling, deformed beggars to a high living Canadian diplomat's
family, focusing on a mild mannered pornographer(!) (Fitzgerald) who arrives
in the city looking for models, but unprepared for the city's seediness
and poverty. Bleak but well- intentioned drama is atmospheric, but a little
formless, as if writer/director Fitzgerald sort of had a story...and sort
of shot things on the spur of the moment. Uneven at first, ironically with
the Romanian-spoken scenes better than the awkwardly written English-language
scenes, but gets better and threads -- literal and symbolic -- do come
together toward the end. Doesn't fully realize its own ideas (it's well
into the movie before you realize the street people are Gypsies and the
movie's not just about poverty, but bigotry; or that the maid is the dog
catcher's wife; and child pornography is treated as though it's more a
moral issue, which the protagonist struggles with before rebelling against,
rather than something most people would say is pretty black & white
to begin with!). And how accurate, and fair, a depiction this is of Romania
is for others to judge. Some nice performances from the Romanian as well
as Canadian actors, and nice to see Blanchard doing a Canadian movie a
few years after moving to Hollywood, though Davies has just a bit part
as the protagonist's boss. sc./dir: Thom Fitzgerald. - partial female and
male nudity, sexual content.- 100 min.
THE WILD GUYS *
* * setting: B.C/USA.
(2004) Kenneth Welsh, Hrothgar Mathews, Jackson Davies,
Lochlyn Munro, Brent Stait, Ellie Harvie, Camille Mitchell, Stacy Grant.....Four
mis-matched guys go off into the B.C. woods for some fishing and some "Man
Movement"-style sharing and bonding (though some are only doing it reluctantly,
hoping to climb the corporate ladder)...only to get lost and misadventures
ensue. Comedy starts out like a moderately amusing old TV movie -- you
know, funny, but not that funny -- benefiting from a solid cast
(particularly Welsh)...but actually grows on you, getting better as it
goes, and veers a little into some touching drama. Ironically, it's a movie
that is both spoofing the whole "touchy-feely" "male bonding" cult...and
also buys into it, too. The result...is a likeable, generally good-natured
effort. sc: Jackson Davies, Rex Bromfield (from the play by Andrew Wreggitt,
Rebecca Shaw). dir: William F. Gereghty. 91 min.
WILD HORSE HANK *
* 1/2 setting: USA.
(1978) Linda Blair, Michael Wincott, Al Waxman, Richard
Crenna, Barbara Gordon, Stephen E. Miller.....Young woman (Blair) decides
to save a herd of wild horses from being turned into dog food by herding
them 150 miles across the U.S. to sanctuary. Manipulative but O.K. drama
has a good cast, though Blair's rather uninspired. And for a film that's
all about saving animals, it seems to treat its horses pretty harshly.
sc: James Lee Barrett (from the novel The Wild Horse Killers by
Mel Ellis). dir: Eric Till. 94 min.
The Wild Horse Killers, a novel by Mel Ellis, was turned into the movie Wild Horse Hank.
THE WILD PONY
* * 1/2 setting: USA.
(1983) Marilyn Lightstone, Art Hindle, Josh Byrne,
Kelsey McLeod, Paul Jolicoeur (Coeur).....Around the turn-of-the-century,
a struggling widowed mother (Lightstone) proposes a marriage-of-convenience
to the farmer (Hindle) who accidently killed her husband; while her son
dreams of owning a wild horse. O.K. family drama has a lot of the potential,
including for humour, drained out of it by its rather plodding, overly
mannered execution -- a hallmark of Sullivan's later work. Lightstone never
really becomes likeable, which is also a problem. sc: Eda Lishman, Kevin
Sullivan (from the novel The Year of the Black Pony by Walt Morey).
dir: Kevin Sullivan. 87 min.
"A Wilderness Station", a short story by Alice Munro, became the movie Edge of Madness
WIN, AGAIN *
* 1/2 setting: Nfld.
(1999) Gordon Pinsent, Gabrielle Rose, Michael Riley,
Leah Pinsent, Eric Peterson, Lawrence Dane, Joan Orenstein.....Exonerated
after 14 years on the run, a fugitive (Pinsent) returns to his home town
hoping to make some sort of connection with his ex-wife (Rose) and estranged,
bitter son (Riley). Made-for-CBC TV comedy-drama boasts good performances,
and clever, literate dialogue, but falters a bit in the plot department.
At times, the film seems like a collection of characters uttering self-analytical
monologues more than a well-realized story, despite the cleverly off-beat
premise. Enjoyable, but also a tad unstatisfying with an awkward ending.
Received the Gemini for Best Script. sc: Gordon Pinsent. dir: Eric Till.
90 min.
|
(1996-2001) * * 1/2 Shirley Douglas ("May Bailey"), Dylan Provencher ("Hub Bailey"), Tyrone Savage ("Henry 'Fat" Bailey"), Cynthia Belliveau ("Honey Bailey") (-2nd), Laura Bruneau ("Honey Bailey") (4th-), Kathryn Greenwood ("Grace Bailey"), James Carroll ("Max Sutton"), Ron Lea ("Del Sutton"), many others.....Family drama set in a medium sized Ontario town during the Depression, focusing on an extended family. Douglas plays the aged, stern matriarch, owner of the local factory, Belliveau her widowed daughter-in-law, struggling to make ends meet as she raised her two sons (Savage and Provencher) before re-marrying to Carroll, then disappearing for a season before returning, now played by Bruneau. Greenwood plays the good-natured sister-in-law. Lea cropped up as "Max's" brother, etc. This TV series from Sullivan Entertainment (they of The Road to Avonlea) delivers a program of similar quality that will generally appeal to those who liked that earlier series, while not necessarily winning converts with its kind of broad, mannered presentation. The series started out fairly grim, but became lighter in tone as it went along, mixing humour with the drama. It was loosely inspired by the novel Never Sleep Three in a Bed by Max Braithwaite. Subsequently there was a TV movie in 2001 -- A Wind at My Back Christmas. Hour long episodes shown, sometimes erratically, on the CBC. |
A WIND FROM WYOMING see Le vent du Wyoming
THE WINDOW see La fenetre
THE WINDSOR PROTOCOL a.k.a. Jack
Higgins' the Windsor Protocol
|
(2002-2003) * * * Rod Beattie.....Unusual sitcom, adapted from the hugely successful series of one man shows starring Beattie and written and created by Dan Needles; the premise is that a big city stockbroker, Walt Wingfield, decides to chuck the rat race and buy a farm, and the various plays chronicle his misadventures with farm life and his eccentric friends and neighbours as he relates them in letters to the local newspaper. The series is a literal adaptation of the plays -- each play is serialized over three or four episodes (though since the plays themselves are episodic, many of the episodes can seem relatively self-contained even as they feature continuing threads). As well, it remains a one man show, with Beattie playing all the parts, often just changing his hat to denote a new persona while addressing the camera -- and he's uncannily good at times (listening to an audio recording of the plays, you wouldn't realize it was just one actor!) Amusing series is liable to put off some viewers -- what? a one man show as weekly TV? Rustic humour about farm life? -- which'll be too bad. Because it's a likeable, smart, enterprise, with Needles' drily funny scenes, tinged by occasional seriousness, that manage to have fun with all the characters, while not really making fun of them. And, as noted, Beattie is exceptional. However, because the series just adapts the existing plays, fans of the plays might be disappointed as they've seen it all before. Worth checking out and trying for a couple of episodes to see if you can get on its wavelength. The Wingfield plays have become something of a modern bit of Canadiana and the first play was also committed to film as Letter from Wingfield farm, and most of the plays have also been recorded as audio productions. Half-hour episodes on the CBC. |
Winners, a novel by Mary-Ellen Lang Collura, became the CBC TV movie Spirit Rider
WINTER GAMES see Apres ski
WINTER LILY
* * setting: USA.
(1998) Dorothee Berryman, Danny Gilmore, J.P. Bergeron
(a.k.a. Jean-Pierre Bergeron), Kimberly Laferriere, Chris McCabe, Philip
LeMaistre.....Drifter (Gilmore) arrives at an isolated New Hampshire
inn during the winter off season, and suspects there's something strange
about the inn keeper (Berryman) who cares for a sickly daughter...who he
never sees or hears. Rural gothic suspense film starts out O.K. but is
awfully slow-moving. All the characters act a bit odd (which may or may
not be intentional) meaning it's hard to get involved, and too many questions
that seem to be raised are never satisfactorily answered by the end. It
pretends it's set in New England, despite a cast who all speak with light
French-Canadian accents! sc: Ryosuke Moike, Roshell Bissett. dir: Roshell
Bissett. - violence; brief female nudity.- 85 min.
WINTER STORIES see Histoires d'hiver
A WINTER TAN *
* setting: other
(1987) Jackie Burroughs, Erando Gonzales, Javier Torres.....True
story of Maryse Holder (Burroughs), vacationing in Mexico, and her narcissistic
and self-destructive pursuit of sex and, perhaps, love. Essentially a one-note
premise that tries to be a character study, but we never know why she is
what she is. Burroughs won the Best Actress Genie. sc: Jackie Burroughs
(from the book Give Sorrow Words by Maryse Holder). dir: Louise
Clark, Jackie Burroughs, John Frizzell, John Walker, Aerlyn Weissman. -
partial female nudity, sexual content.- 92 min.
WISECRACKS
* * 1/2
(1991).....Documentary about the life of the female
stand-up comic featuring interviews covering everything from sexism to
the art itself as well as routines from a host of comics including Ellen
DeGeneres, Paula Poundstone, Sandra Shamas, Whoopi Goldberg, Phyllis Diller
and
many others from Canada, the U.S. and England. Sometimes incisive, sometimes
not, sometimes funny, sometimes not, but interesting. Produced by the NFB.
dir: Gail Singer. 97 min.
WISHMASTER III: Beyond the Gates
of Hell * 1/2
(2001) (/U.K.) Jason Connery, A.J. Cook, Tobias Mehler,
Louisette Geiss, Aaron Smolinski, Daniella Evangelista, Emmanuelle Vaugier,
John Novak.....University student (Cook) accidentally invokes an evil
Djinn who wants to grant her three wishes, at the end of which, he can
unleash his evil brethren on the world; while trying to coerce her into
making wishes, he also grants the wishes of various others...which he twists
to result in the wisher's grisly demise. Horror flick is slick enough with
decent performances...but kind of dull and dumb, despite a stab at fashioning
a character arc for the heroine. It's also kind of exhausting, with characters
seeming to spend most of the film wandering endlessly back and forth on
campus, just looking for each other. The basic concept is watching how
the various wishes are twisted, but the movie more often than not fumbles
that: nor is there the pay-off of the heroine coming up with some clever
wish in the climax (as there was, apparently, in the first film). Still,
it's nice to see a Canadian (Cook, also star of Ripper)
starring: Canadian-made horror/slasher flicks used to involve importing
Americans like Jamie Lee Curtis. Follow-up to a couple of U.S. movies,
though the story is completely independent of them. Followed by another
Canadian-made sequel. sc: Alexander Wright. dir: Chris
Angel. - extreme violence, partial female nudity.- 92 min.
WISHMASTER IV: The Prophecy
Fulfilled * 1/2 setting: USA.
(2002) Michael Trucco, Tara Spencer-Nairn, Jason Thompson,
Victor Webster, Kimberly Huie, John Novak.....An evil Djinn wants to
grant three wishes to an unsuspecting woman (Spencer-Nairn), at the end
of which, prophecy dictates he can free his demonic brethren. Fourth Wishmaster
film (and the second Canadian one) boasts some nice
performances, and Spencer-Nairn even doffs her top a couple of times, but
the movie itself is just slow and repetitive, throwing in various disparate
story threads as if they had no idea how to get 90 minutes out of any of
them. And the basic concept, as the Djinn goes around trying to trick people
into making wishes (which he then uses to kill them) seems more like a
joke, except the actors play it straight. Has an interesting mid-story
twist, as the unsuspecting heroine makes her third wish...that the Djinn
is unsure how to fulfil. But overall, just slow and dull. Gory violence
is muted a bit (thankfully) by the cheapness of the effects. sc: John Benjamin
Martin. dir: Chris Angel. - extreme violence, partial female nudity, sexual
content.- 92 min.
WITCHBOARD: The Possession
* 1/2 setting: USA.
(1995) David Nerman, Locky Lambert, Cedric Smith,
Donna Sarrasin, Danette MacKay.....An unemployed stockbroker (Nerman)
becomes possessed via a ouija board by an evil spirit wanting to conceive
a child with his unsuspecting wife (Lambert). Schlocky horror flick has
decent actors and a nice look, and one mildly sexy scene, too bad it's
so slow and thin with a lot of mishandled scenes. And that most major of
faults: it ain't scary. Not so much a sequel to the U.S. "Witchboard" films,
as a variation on a theme. Smith has a pivotal but small part. sc: Kevin
S. Tenney, John Ezrine (story Ezrine). dir: Peter Svatek. - extreme violence,
partial female nudity, sexual content, brief male nudity.- 94 min.
WITHOUT MALICE *
* 1/2 setting: CDN./USA.
(2000) Craig Sheffer, Jennifer Beals, Corey Haim,
Gabrielle Anwar, Ian Black, Iain MacLean, Dan Macdonald, Blaine Hart.....Two
Americans -- a slightly shady plastic surgeon (Sheffer) and his guileless,
ex-con, soon-to-be brother-in-law (Haim) -- come to Canada to do some hunting...but
a death leads to attempts at a cover up. Not great but -- surprisingly
-- an agreeable little time killer, sort oof trying to be a refined suspense-drama
rather than the lurid thriller you might expect from a straight-to-video
quickie. And it even admits it's set (mainly) in Canada -- though why it's
winter in Canada, but not in Chicago, is a mystery. Beals, as a Park Ranger,
even puts on a Canadian accent -- all the more remarkable given that, with
a movie like this, she probably didn't have much prep time. Sheffer, Beals,
and Anwar (in a small, thankless part as Sheffer's fiancée) are
all Hollywood imports. sc: Peter Layton. dir: Rob King. 92 min.
THE WITNESS FILE *
* setting: USA.
(1998) (/U.S.) Yancy Butler, David Nerman, Barry Flatman,
Mathew Harbour, Alan Fawcett, Lynne Adams, Lisa Bronwyn Moore.....An
American ex-convict/disguise expert (Butler) is coerced by a District Attorney
(Flatman) into giving false evidence, but when she balks, he tries to kill
her to cover himself...and she decides to turn the tables. Made-for-cable
suspenser has a relatively off-beat premise, and benefits from (the underrated)
American actress Butler's performance, but even then the movie is only
passably entertaining...and really starts to drag in the last half hour.
One of the Tales of Intrigue. sc: Cameron Kent.
dir: Douglas Jackson. - violence.- 94 min.
The Wives of the Bath, a novel by Susan Swan,
served as the inspiration for the movie, Lost
and Delirious.
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