Imagine “The Walking Dead” as seen through the lens of “Masterpiece Theatre.” Slashterpiece Theatre. Or maybe the love child of Jane Austen and George A. Romero. Either way, you get the high concept idea of the new Lily James film “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” It’s such a whack-a-doodle idea it’s either going to be great or the worst thing ever.
Set in 19th century England, the movie shares some character names and situations with the novel but in this new, fanciful version a plague has turned much of the population into “ravishing unmentionables.” These zombies are different than the “Night of the Living Dead” style droolers. If these ever-civilised British stenches never consume human brains, they will never fully transform. Still, enough of them have changed to warrant building a Trump-style anti-undead wall around London and for regular folk to become zombie-killing ninjas. Literally.
In this story upper crust English families send their children to Japan or China to learn the secrets of martial arts. One such clan are the Bennets. All five daughters are deadly—with knives hidden in their petticoats—but second oldest Elizabeth (Lily James) is a Shaolin monk trained fighter who can disembowel a zombie before you can say “Mr. Darcy.”
Speaking of Mr. Darcy, he’s a Colonel with a bloodlust for brain-eaters and a romantic lust for Elizabeth. His rival for Elizabeth’s affections is Mr. Wickham (Jack Huston), a handsome lieutenant who wants to try and find a way to coexist with the unwanted invaders. “Soon the dead will outnumber the living,” he says. “Nine months to make a baby, 16 years to turn them into a soldier… but just two seconds to make a zombie.”
As the zombie menace intensifies so do things between Wickham, Darcy and Lizzie. A final showdown brings them all together, alongside their pride, prejudice and yes, zombies.
The idea of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” may be koo koo bananas but it works. When they aren’t trying to make Blighty an undead free zone, or high kicking and karate chopping, for the most part they play it straight. As Darcy watches Lizzie slice-and-dice her way through a crowd of zombies he looks on in admiration, reciting a quote from the book about her face being rendered, “uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes.” The situation is ridiculous but the actors play it straight, heightening the absurdity.
It’s not all Austen, however. Darcy’s use of carrion flies to identify people who have been bitten but not yet turned into zombies—they’re attracted to dead flesh—is far beyond the English novelist’s sense or sensibility. Instead of Austen trademarked biting irony, there’s just a lot of biting.
As for gore, I’m sure the film would horrify Austen, but there’s more actual blood-and-guts in the first 10 minutes of most “Walking Dead” episodes than in this entire movie.
“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” makes the best of its one joke, the mashup of Austen romantic fiction with zombie realism, deftly (and ridiculously) blending the sublime with the ultraviolent.
Travis Parker (Benjamin Walker), the male lead of the new Nicholas Sparks tearjerker “The Choice,” only has one deck chair outside his North Carolina
Home. “A man with only one chair outside his house,” we’re told, “wants to be alone,” but does he really? This is a King of Romance® Nicholas Sparks, the man with a romantic plan so the whole movie is basically a countdown to Travis and his beautiful new neighbour, medical student Gabby (Teresa Palmer) have movie sex and experience a trademarked Sparksian tragedy.
Travis is a good ol’ boy who’s used to getting what he wants from women without ever falling in love. A combination of good looks and Southern charm—although some might call it Southern smarm—means that he is rarely without company. His on-and-off girlfriend Monica (Alexandra Daddario) boomerangs in-and-out of his life but mostly he goes it alone… that is until Gabby moves in next door. She’s cramming for her medical boards while working at the local hospital side-by-side her fiancée Ryan (Tom Welling) and future father-in-law (Brett Rice). She calls Travis a walking cautionary tale and has no interest but he is smitten and everyone around them thinks they have great chemistry.
“Are you two..?” asks Travis’s father Dr. Shep (Tom Wilkinson).
“Hell no!” drawls Travis.
“Gross!” spits Gabby.
Their lips say no, but their eyes say yes. When will they kiss? When will they walk in the rain? When will the inevitable tragedy that strengthens their love happen?
“The Choice” is all about decisions, the little determinations you make along the way that may have long-term effects on your life. I’m here to help you decide if buying a ticket for “The Choice” will have any effect, good or bad, on you.
If you know Nicholas Sparks movies like “The Notebook,” “The Last Song” or “Dear John,” you already know what to expect. There will be “witty” repartee that, I guess, is what passes for foreplay in the Sparks universe. The story will be tinged with tragedy and the main couple will hate one another at first. Someone will offer up old timey romantic advice like, “If you see a man sleeping on the cold floor there must be a beautiful woman nearby” and at some point something vaguely supernatural will happen. It’s a formula geared to make you well up and this movie has every Sparksism in spades. In truth, however, it is about as affecting as a Canadian Tire commercial.
If you enjoy being manipulated and cry easily you make (or may not) enjoy the movie. That choice is yours.
Fans of Maggie Smith’s cantankerous “Downton Abbey” character Violet Crawley will find some pleasure in her new performance as a homeless woman. The costumes have changed but her irascibility and way with a line are firmly in place.
“The Lady in the Van,” is the true story of the friendship between “The History Boys” playwright Alan Bennett (Alex Jennings) and Miss Mary Shepherd (Smith, reprising her acclaimed stage role) the woman who lives in front of his Camden home. In the early 1970s he let her park her van in his driveway. “It’ll be easier,” he says, “just until she figures out where she’s going.” Fifteen years later she was still there, a curiosity for the neighbours but a muse of sorts for Bennett.
Little by little he discovers more details about her life—how she was once a nun, a gifted piano player and once committed to an institution by her family—including her darkest secret, that she felt responsible for the death of a motorcyclist after a car accident. Living in fear of arrest her life unravelled and she wound up on Bennett’s driveway and a part of his life.
“The Lady in the Van” is a character study of a difficult person contained in a movie that often errs on the side of sentiment, particularly in its fanciful final moments, but avoids caricature. It isn’t driven by story, instead it’s a comedy of manners propelled by Smith’s characterization of the eccentric titular character and the human bond that grows between Bennett and Shepherd.
In terms of any real action, nothing much happens, save for a bang at the beginning.
Bennett, who wrote the screenplay based on his stage play, is clearly fond of his central character—despite describing her as someone for whom “feelings of gratitude, humility and forgiveness were either foreign to her nature or had become so over the years”—and has painted a portrait of a socially uncomfortable woman who isn’t an ogre but a tragic figure. Smith brings her to vivid life, giving this slight movie some real heart and soul.
“Mojave” is so manly you can smell the sweat oozing off the screen. Two men, one a famous filmmaker, the other a serial killer go mano e’ mano for ninety tense minutes after a chance meeting in the desert. I would call their back-and-forth a cat and mouse game, but I can’t because they’re both dogs, charismatic anti-heroes with few likeable traits.
Thomas (Garrett Hedlund) is a tortured artist, a famous director struggling to edit his new movie as his personal life disintegrates. Like many he-men before him he takes off to the desert for some soul-searching with only two jugs of water, some smokes and a bottle of vodka as company. “A man goes to the desert to find out what you are,” he says, “if you’re anything at all.”
The Hemingway-esque idyll is interrupted by fellow traveler Jack (Oscar Isaac, who seems to be channelling Max Cady). He’s a silver tongue drifter—“I have poverty an obscurity and abundance,” he says.—with a dangerous aura and a rifle. When an existential campfire conversation turns violent, deadly mistakes are made and soon there will be a reckoning. Thomas and Jack’s desert dalliance continues in Los Angeles as the tension and body count rises.
“Mojave” tale of twisted justice is a Los Angeles noir, a dusty, sun-dappled thriller with hard-boiled dialogue that sounds snatched from Raymond Chandler novel. It’s the kind of movie where tight-lipped men sneer, “You should’ve killed me in the desert,” and a woman brushes off a pick up line with the words, “no thanks, I’m already in a sufficiently disturbing relationship.” The stylized dialogue by “The Departed” writer William Monahan (who wrote and directed this) skirts with parody, often sounding like a duel of bad guy clichés.
Not that it isn’t entertaining. Hedlund and Isaac make the most of Monahan’s musings—as do Mark Wahlberg in an extended cameo as an excitable drug-dealer-turned-film-producer and “The Hateful Eight’s” Walton Goggins who does a bang-on Jack Nicholson impression—and the dynamic between them is interesting. A flip of the coin is used as a metaphor for life and death (seen it before) but here it becomes a larger comment about the vagaries of Thomas and Jack’s life. Why was Thomas successful while Jack could never break through? Was it luck, a toss of the coin or is it about ability?
“Which of us is the sociopath?” asks Jack. “How many people did you leave behind… kill… on your trip up the [Hollywood] hill?”
It’s a question that lingers after the end credits roll but it is too bad that is the only remaining sentiment. “Mojave” is not nearly as profound as it thinks it is despite some good actors trying their best to bring real meaning to the script. Perhaps the most telling line of dialogue comes early on in a conversation between the leads. “Where are you going?” asks Jack.” “Nowhere in particular,” says Thomas. That’s the movie in a nutshell.
Well Dressed for Spring Fashion Show raises funds for Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation
Toronto, ON – Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation, hosts the fifth annual Well Dressed for Spring Fashion Show and fundraiser on February 24, 2016 in collaboration with Holt Renfrew and Women in Capital Markets. This exclusive, high-energy event features local media and sport celebrities and top executives as models, all of whom have had a personal connection to cancer.
Emceed by Gurdeep Ahluwalia, TSN Anchor and former CP24 Breakfast Host with fashion commentary provided by Lisa Tant, vice president, exclusive services at Holt Renfrew, the Well Dressed for Spring Fashion Show is an evening of glamour, fashion, networking and inspiration.
Models include:
Elizaveta Bulokhova Canadian Fashion Model
Mark Tewksbury, Olympic and Humanitarian Champion
Richard Crouse, Film Critic and Author
Sabrina Fuoco- Dunn, Elle Model Search Selectee; Cancer Advocate; Blogger; Lawyer
Janice Fukakusa, Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Financial Officer, RBC
Jane Ulrich, Principal, Jane Ulrich & Associates
Lindsey Deluce, News Anchor, CP24 Breakfast
Diane Dupuy, Founder and President, Famous PEOPLE Players
Blake Jespersen, Managing Director and Head of Canadian Corporate Derivatives, BMO Capital Markets
The February 24, 2016 show will be held at Holt Renfrew’s Bloor Street location.
Each $200 ticket includes a wine reception, the fashion show and a $100 Holt Renfrew gift card to use during a private shopping experience following the show.
Click here to watch Mark Tewksbury talk about the Well Dressed for Spring Fashion Show.
“This year the Well Dressed Spring Fashion Show reaches a new event milestone as we celebrate its fifth anniversary,” said Christina Smith, CEO, Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation. “To date, the event has raised $1.1 million for vital cancer support programs and services offered at Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation.”
Wellspring is grateful for the lead support received from RBC, BMO Financial Group, Scotiabank, Deloitte, PwC, EY, Mastercard, Air Canada, Elle Canada, CTV Toronto and CP24.
About Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation:
Wellspring is a network of community-based cancer support centres offering professionally led programs and services that meet the emotional, social, practical and restorative needs of men, women and children living with cancer, as well as, those who care for them. Wellspring charges no fees and requires no medical referral. Wellspring receives no core government funding and relies on donations provided by individuals, foundations and corporations to continue to allow Wellspring to provide programs entirely free of charge. To make a donation or contribute your time as a volunteer, please visit wellspring.ca.
