I took a busman’s holiday a few weeks ago and watched 10 films at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in three days.
The bonding trip that my brother and I have been doing annually had been interrupted for a few years because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Some of our relatives think we’re crazy to watch so many films in 72 hours, but we’re just crazy about movies, thanks to our late father.
TIFF had gone virtual for the last few years, and we were excited that it was returning to viewing in person.
Of course, we had to navigate the ArriveCAN app – which ends this weekend – to get into Canada. It was so easy to do that I was perplexed as to why so many Western New Yorkers have been protesting it and staying out of Canada.
I amusingly thought that, if draft age men in the pre-internet 1960s had to use ArriveCAN to avoid fighting in Vietnam, they would have learned how to do in 10 minutes.
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Which brings me to one of the movies that we were anticipating the most – “The Greatest American Beer Run Ever” co-written and directed by Peter Farrelly.
It premieres on Apple TV+ on Friday, one of several films we saw at TIFF being made for and by streaming services.
Peter and his brother Bobby (“Dumb and Dumber,” “There’s Something About Mary”) are known for outrageous comedies, so we knew what to expect.
Based on a true story, “Beer” stars Zac Efron as a patriotic New York City area 20-something Marine Corps veteran who gets the ridiculous idea to head to Vietnam in the 1960s voluntarily to deliver beer cans to raise the spirits of his neighbors fighting 8,700 miles away because they were drafted to do so.
Efron’s character, Chickie Donohue, oddly reminded me of Tom Cruise’s character, Ron Kovic, in Oliver Stone’s “Born on the Fourth of July.” Like Kovic, Chickie gets an education about how the American government can lie to its citizens about how successful wars are going, and they learn that patriotism can blind you to reality.
Based on the book by Joanna Molloy and Donohue, the film has a difficult balancing act of giving a serious antiwar message at the same time it tries to make viewers laugh about the absurdity of Chickie’s mission.
The balancing act can be done – notably in Robert Altman’s film “M*A*S*H,” set in Korea and made during the Vietnam War, which spawned the legendary TV comedy starring Alan Alda.
Efron is terrific playing a dumb guy who becomes even dumber, but the balance doesn’t work for me. His character’s idea of helping his neighbors is to put his life and their lives in jeopardy so he can fulfill a dumb bar room challenge of giving them beer that is available to them anyway.
Bill Murray is aboard as a patriotic bartender, and Russell Crowe plays a war correspondent who tries to show Chickie what war is all about.
The film is mildly amusing at times, and many in the crowd at a large Toronto theater laughed much more than I did. I would advise you to stay until the credits, when we see the real-life Chickie and his neighbors as they look today in a photograph.
Next up was “My Policeman,” which will be available on Prime Video on Nov. 4.
It has received a lot of attention because it stars Harry Styles, the solo artist formerly of the musical group One Direction, as a closeted gay cop. His character, Tom, is married to Marion. She is played by Emma Corrin, who was Princess Diana in “The Crown.” He also is involved with a man, Patrick (David Dawson).
British actor Linus Roache (“Law & Order”) plays the older Tom, Gina McKee the older Marion and Rupert Everett the older Patrick, who Marion takes in to care for against Tom’s wishes.
Based on a novel by Bethan Roberts, one theme of “My Policeman” is revealed in a scene without dialogue near the end.
That’s when the older Tom sees a gay male couple openly showing affection, indicating how times have changed as the decades have passed.
It is such a moving film, and Styles and the rest of the cast are so uniformly exceptional that I was surprised to come home and see how poorly it has been rated on Rotten Tomatoes. I recommend it, even though one might wonder why Marion would stay in a marriage when she knew of and witnessed her husband’s infidelity with a man. Perhaps that’s unfairly judging her in a different time.
Next up was a Korean film, “Hunt,” starring Emmy winner Lee Jung-jae of “Squid Game.” It is a nonstop action thrill ride that deals with Korean politics and has a decent twist.
My brother loved it more than I did. But I liked it enough to think that some streaming service should pick it up if it hasn’t already.
Our 10th and final film was “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” a parody of the life of the songwriter who parodied the lyrics of popular songs to comic effect. It is scheduled to stream on the Roku channel on Nov. 4.
It stars Daniel Radcliffe as Weird Al, who supposedly overcame a disapproving father to find his music niche.
The cast includes Rainn Wilson as Dr. Demento, Evan Rachel Wood as a Madonna, Julianne Nicholson as Al’s mother, Toby Huss as Al’s father and Quinta Brunson (“Abbott Elementary”) as Oprah Winfrey.
Directed by Eric Appel, it is a longer version of his 2010 shorter film about Yankovic.
The first 15-30 minutes or so were very entertaining. However, the film is too long and goes off the rails once Wood shows up as Madonna, who supposedly is romantically interested in using Weird Al to further her career. Do I really have to tell you that it isn’t true?
Like rehearing many of Yankovic’s songs, the gimmick of “Weird Al” falls flatter than a month-old draft beer the longer it goes on.
