Rumours

I was really looking forward to watching Rumours since the premise seemed original and the trailer looked fun without giving away too much. I still enjoy zombie movies, even though there are countless examples in the genre, because with some talent and unique ideas, they can still be great.

In this film, the leaders of the seven wealthiest liberal democracies are having their annual G7 meeting in a gazebo, while something strange begins happening in the world, with zombie-like creatures appearing in the woods. The movie is a satire and heavily dialogue-driven, which I didn't mind, and the bits of humor sprinkled throughout felt like a fitting touch.

However, as the movie progresses, nothing significant really happens. The characters interact and speculate about what might be going on, but there's no real climax. It's mostly talking and walking through dark woods with little action. Occasionally, the zombies or "Bog People Dancers" as they are credited appear in the distance, but they don't pose any real threat.

I understand what the movie is trying to achieve, but it's simply not entertaining and definitely doesn't warrant a 104-minute runtime. The acting was fine, though the inconsistent accents were noticeable but not overly distracting, but still worth mentioning.

Overall, I was pretty disappointed. While there might be a small niche audience that enjoys Rumours, the majority likely won't find it engaging. [4,7/10]

For someone who is a bit behind on Guy Maddin (and yes, that "someone" is me), Rumours is probably a bad place to begin. It also makes sense, as this is a lot more accessible than his prior catalog of silent films (a phrase I am comfortable using without the addition of "tribute" or "pastiche", because they're just that faithful to how silent cinema used to look), so I'm definitely not alone in starting here -- though I may have lost some cinephile cred in admitting this.

Regardless of how well you know your Maddin, this is certainly a movie with a lot of personality. It's hard to compare to any other film released this or any other year -- although I'm tempted to name one particular sequence "a better adaptation of Color Out of Space than the actual Color Out of Space movie".

Every location contains strange colors and magical mists; the music choices are bizarre to the point of idiosyncratic brilliance; the characters -- from the inexplicably British US president (Charles Dance) to the Swedish Secretary General (Alicia Vikander) who knows the forest's secrets -- are delightfully odd, but sometimes irritatingly unintelligible. (Cate Blanchett's performance, which has been described as an impression of Sandra Hüller doing an impression of Princess Diana, is particularly bemusing.)

It is also a pretty funny movie. For a while, at least. It loses some of its steam and satirical edge in the second half, seemingly getting bored of itself. Regardless, I am eager to check out more of this man's catalog and deeply ashamed that I have not.

Truly good satire needs a razor-sharp edge to succeed, but this latest effort from director Guy Maddin (in collaboration with filmmaking partners Evan and Galen Johnson) falls stunningly flat, resulting in a rambling, unfocused slog that somehow manages to mix messages and symbology that are simultaneously both cryptically understated and patently obvious. Set at a G7 summit in Germany, world leaders from the host country and their American, Canadian, British, French, Italian and Japanese counterparts (along with delegates from the European Union) hold their annual gathering to discuss the state of the world and pat themselves on the back for a self-congratulatory job well done (despite not possessing the requisite skills to accomplish anything meaningful or of substantive consequence other than keeping their nations' respective seats warm). They smile their hollow smiles and make empty though allegedly profound observations about a variety of subjects, all while attempting to craft one of their famous joint statements (position papers that the American president openly admits no one ever reads). In this case, the communique is meant to address some kind of undefined global crisis, but it appears to be one with apocalyptic overtones. But, in the course of their "work" - an undertaking for which they're far from qualified - they quickly find themselves in over their heads when the infrastructure around them begins to crumble, a circumstance made more ominous by the appearance of inexplicable apparitions and zombie-like bog creatures straight out of classic folklore and middle European fairy tales. One might think that this would make for an interesting premise in telling a surrealistically satirical fable about the state of contemporary world politics, but the execution here is so poorly carried off that it ends up amounting to little more than oh so much intellectual and symbolic masturbation (depicted here a little too literally and repetitive at that). To complicate matters, the narrative incorporates countless developments that go wholly unexplained, some of which presumably have to do with the symbolic emasculation of a prevailing patriarchal world in favor of an emerging female-directed paradigm, but others of which are just so enigmatically absurd that they defy description, explanation or purpose (there's more of that masturbation again, only this time reflected in the nature of the picture's screenplay elements). The overall result is a mess of a movie that, despite its gifted ensemble cast and atmospheric cinematography and production design, just doesn't work, especially since the insights it's trying to impart aren't particularly new, revelatory or funny. We're well aware of how inept many of the world's supposedly astute leaders are these days, including the fact that they're cluelessly engaged in little more than what amounts to unconscious acts of that aforementioned "self-love" (and self-aggrandizing ones at that), but do we really need a movie to remind us of that (especially one as shabbily made as this)? No thanks. If I were you, I'd duck out of this one and see what else is playing at the multiplex (or, better yet, skip it altogether).

I really didn't like this film. Fundamentally, almost nothing here worked for me. The satire can be summed up as 'politicians dumb', the photography is super weird and cheap looking, and the surrealist scenes are done without artistic reason. I have so much to say, and somehow this film has left me speechless.

Perhaps we can talk about some of the good? Cate Blanchett is okay in the lead role, but the material is so weak that it's hard to make heads or tails out of her actual performance. There are actually a couple good jokes sprinkled about its runtime. The jokes about trapping pedophiles and protestors attacking the leaders were pretty good, but only ephemeral glimmers of escape in the time warp that was this film. Perhaps another positive is that the characters in the group are all very distinctive, albeit mostly one dimensional.

On the whole, you can tell that this film is drawing from that Monty-Python-esque tradition of dry British satire, but there is so little endearing about the film. The characters are not particularly likeable, and the film makes no effort to make us want to root for the protagonists. The plot should be a straightforward zombie survival plot, but somehow we meander around with few goals or progress through the entire runtime. I'm sorry to say that the photography is awful. In day scenes, there is an ever present, odd cheesy glow. For the rest of the film, all shots are tight, despite being outdoors for virtually the whole film. It seems like just out of frame are the warehouse lights and HVAC system for the cheap and repetitive looking set. Nikki Amuka-Bird had a very poor showing in performance. Truly YouTube level acting.

Shockingly cheap film for a movie with real Hollywood actors in it.

Rumour has it there's a new movie out written and directed by 3 different people: Galen Johnson, Evan Johnson, and Guy Madden. A Canadian/German production, RUMOURS is a satirical look at the annual G7 summit, gathering together 7 of the world leaders who try to prepare a joint statement to address an unspecified world crisis. I really enjoy weird movies, but this one almost pushed my tolerance to the limit. It took a bit to understand the kind of humour this movie is going for. I appreciate it a tiny bit more now that I've had time to contemplate. Basically, it's a movie that says politicians and world leaders are more focused on drawing up a statement than actually taking any action. There is still one aspect of the movie I still don't understand, which I can't tell you about, just know it's very weird. According to this movie, politics is just one big circle-jerk. A few standout performances from Cate Blanchett, Roy Dupius, and Denis Ménochet carry the film. So much of RUMOURS is strange and surreal, but I feel like it's full of symbolism and metaphors. I understood some of them. By the end, I think I had a fun time?