In polite society no one would dare ask a stranger about his or her father’s violent death, but celebrity culture is not polite society.
Over the years I’ve heard interviewers ask questions ranging from the innocuous — “What are you wearing?” — to the silly — “How do you keep your bum in such great shape?” — but rarely have I heard anything as unnecessarily meddling as the query aimed at Charlize Theron during a press conference I hosted several years ago.
A reporter asked the actress about seeing her mother shoot her abusive, alcoholic father dead when she was a teenager. But instead of breaking down Theron said, “I’m not talking about that,” with an icy finality that made everyone freeze.
I admired her for not over sharing, not spilling the intimate details of her life à la the Kardashian Klan. She’s careful what she says to the press, avoids scandal and damage controls the ones that inevitably pop up in every celeb’s life. For instance, recently she said, short and sweetly, “We both decided to separate,” when accused of “ghosting” on her romance with Sean Penn.
She understands some things should only be spoken about when and where she chooses and not at the behest of an aggressive reporter looking to dredge up painful memories for the sake of “good television.” Theron is media savvy so I was surprised a few weeks ago when she caused a media hurly burly with comments about the burden of being beautiful.
Chatting up her new film The Huntsman: Winter’s War with British GQ she said, “How many roles are out there for the gorgeous, BLEEPINGing, gown-wearing eight-foot model? When meaty roles come through, I’ve been in the room and pretty people get turned away first.”
She is a beautiful woman, that is as clear as the perfectly positioned nose on her face, but is she intimating that being beautiful has harmed her career?
Turns out she wasn’t, or so she claims. Alleging a misquote, she later apologized, saying that playing “deconstructed characters” appeals because, “how many characters really are there out there for a woman wearing a gown? You have to play real people.
The mea culpa was unnecessary. She works in a business where beauty is a commodity.
The problem with her earlier statement is that publicly acknowledging one’s own looks carries with it a hint of arrogance, a suggestion that winning the genetic lottery somehow makes you superior, but she simply said something others already have.
Keira Knightley claims she almost lost the role in Pride and Prejudice because the director thought she was too pretty and Jessica Biel says being Esquire’s 2005 Sexiest Woman cost her work.
Theron may have missed out on a job or two because of her looks, but it’s also an element of what made her a star.
That and talent, and just as you wouldn’t apologize for skin colour or having red hair or being tall or short, she doesn’t need to say sorry for being beautiful.
Once upon a time there was a movie called “Snow White and the Huntsman.” Starring Hollywood princesses Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron, it was a dark reimagining of the classic story that played like the love child of the Brothers Grimm and “The Hobbit” with two compelling characters, warrior Snow White and the villainous Ravenna.
Another film was inevitable, but how do you make a sequel when KStew busy making art films and Ravenna didn’t make it to the end credits? Easy, you rehire Theron, play mix and match “Frozen” and “Game of Thrones” and hope for the best.
“The Huntsman: Winter’s War“ begins its confusing journey as a prequel. Ravenna (Theron) is alive and well, a Grand Guiginol vision of a fairy tale Queen. Despite her best efforts sister Freya (Emily Blunt) refuses to embrace their evil birthright, choosing instead to start a family. When tragedy strikes the formerly good-natured princess finds her wicked power, morphing into the Winter Queen, whose icy glare can freeze kingdoms. The only things missing are Olaf and a show tune or two.
In her frigid northern empire she raises a child army of orphans called the Huntsmen (even though they’re not all boys or men). Elsa’s… er… Freya’s warriors are forbidden to love. They must let it go. “In my kingdom there is one rule do not love,” she says. “It is in a sin I will not forgive.” When Eric (Chris Hemsworth) and Sara (Jessica Chastain) fall hard for one another and plan to elope, Freya goes to extraordinary and cruel lengths to ensure they live happily never after.
Cut to seven years later. The movie is now into sequel territory. Snow White (who is glimpsed only briefly) has defeated Ravenna and now needs Eric to locate the Magic Mirror and ensure it is never used for evil. Cue the goblins, a few hi ho hi ho’s provided by Nick Frost, Rob Brydon, Sheridan Smith and Alexandra Roach and more CGI than you can throw an enchanted mirror at.
I’m not sure what to call “The Huntsman: Winter’s War.“ It’s not a sequel or a prequel and yet it is both. Officially I suppose we’re supposed to call it a “sprequel”; I call it bloated, confusing and worst of all, dull. You would think that any movie featuring Emily Blunt riding a polar bear would be great fun but you’d be wrong. From the half hour of narration that opens the story to the cavalcade of CGI and bad accents—Hemsworth and Chastain easily beat Kevin Costner for worst-ever cinematic British Isles burrs—to sloppy storytelling, this is a grim, not Brothers Grimm tale.
Bad accent aside Hemsworth brings some swagger to the role of Eric, Chastain tries to keep a straight face and sidekicks Frost, Brydon, Smith and Roach create a badly needed sense of fun to the proceedings. Blunt isn’t given much to do, aside from her rather stunning entrance in the polar bear but Theron actually disappoints. In the first film she’s a hoot, a bundle of bad intentions gathered up in one pretty package. Here she’s not the same figure of malicious amusement but oddly disconnected and not nearly as much fun.
Over long “The Huntsman: Winter’s War“ drones on for almost two hours until the narrator (Liam Neeson) reappears. As his dulcet tones close the movie with something to the effect of the story may be over “but fairy talks never end,” it doesn’t seem so much like an ending as it does a threat that they might make a sequel to this mess.
“A Hologram for the King” is a crappy title. Doesn’t mean much. Sounds like it could be a sci-fi film or a high-tech Elvis Presley tribute. To really sum up the feel of the new Tom Hanks film I’d suggest calling it “How Tommy Got his Groove Back.”
Hanks plays Alan Clay, a put-up middle manager with a testy ex-wife and unhappy boss. He’s a boy wonder whose later years have not been so wonderful, an older man who finds himself beaten down by the corporate system he helped create. The opportunity to pitch an IT system for a new Saudi Arabian city offers up a way out of his financial, personal and career woes, but when he arrives in the Arab state he discovers there are no easy answers to his problems. He clashes with Saudi culture but ultimately find connections with people, including his reckless driver (Alexander Black) and compassionate doctor (Sarita Choudhury).
“A Hologram for the King” is an aimless, meandering movie that isn’t so much about being a fish out of water is as it is about one man getting his mojo back. When we first meet Alan he has lost direction. His ability to make complicated situations go smoothly has evaporated and he has a weird lump on his back that may or may not be cancer. He’s a sad sack with a permanent grin plastered on his face, the kind of loveable loser Hanks can play in his sleep. The actor has entered the Spencer Tracy phase of his career; he’s effortlessly likeable and doesn’t bump into the furniture.
Too bad he’s wasted in a tragicomic movie that can’t decide if it wants to make a statement about how American greed drove industry offshore or about Arab culture or about an aging yuppie facing emasculation and mortality. It’s all over the place and Hanks does his best to ground it but ultimately “A Hologram for the King” feels like two or more movies spliced together to form one whole.
The title character of “Hello, My Name is Doris” is an unmarried woman of a certain age left alone when her elderly mother dies. It sounds depressing but a wonderful performance from Sally Field brings both comedy and heartache to the film.
Doris lives in Staten Island in the home she grew up in and shared with her mother until she passed away. A job as an accountant in “the city” keeps her busy, but she is lonely, surrounded by mounds of stuff she and her mother hoarded over the years, loved only by her pet cat and best friend Roz (Tyne Daly).
When Doris meets John Fremont (Max Greenfield), a new hire at her company, she is immediately smitten despite the several decades difference in their ages. She moons over him, awkward and afraid, but with the words of a self help guru echoing in her ears—“Don’t ask Why me, ask Why not me?”—she courts him, i.e. stalks him on the internet. When she goes to a concert by one of his favourite artists they hit it off… but only as friends. The quirky Doris is a hit with John’s hipster pals but it turns out John has a girlfriend (Beth Behrs), dive bombing Doris’s hope of getting closer to her work crush.
“Hello, My Name is Doris” is a slight movie, but much funnier than you might imagine given the subject matter. It’s a showcase for Sally Field’s loosest performance in years. Whether she is frozen, lost in the reverie, or dancing to electropop for the first time, she delivers a fine comedic performance. Simmering under the comedy, however, is subtly rendered heartbreak. She’s a woman who feels life passed her by while taking care of her mother and a cloud of sadness and disappointment hangs over her.
Will Doris’s life plan set her on a path to disappointment and rejection or will this be an update of “Harold and Maude”? No spoilers here but suffice to say what “Hello, My Name is Doris” lacks in twists and turns it makes up for with inventive, likeable performances, particularly from Field and co-star Daly.
Early on in the film John says, “I like you Doris.” I predict by the end of the film you will too.
Ask any male musician why they joined a band and 99 out of 100 will tell you it was for one very simple reason. To meet girls. Art, money and fame are often far distant second place to the lure of the opposite sex. Such is the case with Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) a fifteen-year-old school by with a crush on Raphina (Lucy Boynton) in the new musical romance “Sing Street” from director John Carney.
Fuelled by jittery new wave music, this Dublin set coming-of-age story is a crowd pleaser. The year is 1985 and Conor is a fifteen-year-old student at Synge Street Catholic School. Leaving the tyrannical Brother Baxter (Don Wycherley) behind one day he lays eyes on Raphina, a teen dream with a perm and aspirations to be a model in London.
In a clumsy attempt to impress her he asks if she’d like to perform in his band’s new video. Trouble is, he doesn’t have a band. Not yet, anyway. Enlisting manager Darren (Ben Carolan) and musicians Eammon (Mark McKenna), Ngig (Percy Chamburuka) among others, he forms a band, writes songs and works to win Raphina’s heart. ‘
With the help of his older brother, stoner Brendan (Jack Reynor), who tells him, “Rock and roll is a risk… you risk being ridiculed,” Conor changes his name to Cosmo and slowly finds his sound. The songs are crafted from his experience—his mom and dad’s martial troubles, the prissy priest who torments him and, of course, his lady love in “The Riddle of the Model”—and are catchy enough to impress audiences and maybe even Raphina.
Call “Sting Street” a neo “The Commitments” if you like—the two have much in a common, a strong soundtrack, a scrappy Dublin setting, a charming cast of unknowns—but the story of music’s power to change and uplift lives is a potent one. Director John Carney says the story is partially autobiographical and his personal touch elevates what could have been a run-of-the-mill rite-of-passage/dream girl story. Walsh-Peelo and Boynton are appealing central characters (even if the other band members are underwritten) but it is the music that binds it all together. Like Carney’s other films, “Once” and “Begin Again,” the tunes and Carney’s deft handling of them, work as more than just a soundtrack. They are the lifeblood of his stories, the thing that makes them special.
In one bravura fantasy sequence Cosmo imagines his video for “Drive It Like You Stole It” as an elaborate restaging of the prom scene in “Back to the Future,” complete with choreography and 1950s costumes. Instead of simply being a flash set piece, Carney works in all of Conor’s issues into the visuals, entertaining the eye and furthering the story.
There isn’t a cynical bone in “Sing Street’s” body. It celebrates risk taking and underdogs in a story that is as joyful as it is tuneful.
Everybody loves the sound of the saxophone. Smooth and sexy, it is as close to the cooing voice of a loved one is any instrument can be. Yet, for that very reason the instrument has had a long and storied past complete with more intrigue than an Agatha Christie thriller. In “The Devil’s Horn” director Larry Weinstein walks us through the wild and woolly history of the saxophone.
The premise of the film is simple. The sax is a cursed instrument that dooms its players to lives of torment and despair.
Sounds outrageous doesn’t it? Consider the evidence.
The sax’s inventor Adolphe Sax dodged death at least seven times, barely escaped at least one known assassination attempt, went bankrupt three times fighting with his rivals, developed lip cancer and died penniless.
Sax icons Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, John Coltrane and many other players of the devil’s instrument battled heroin addiction, creating sounds so carnal and voluptuous they were outlawed by everyone from the Nazis (who banned the sax from the Earth) to the Vatican. Movie studios barred it from soundtracks and it put the sex in sex, drugs and rock n’ roll.
Of course the instrument isn’t cursed. Once Weinstein gets past that catchy concept he makes a compelling case for the sax as more than a symbol of depravity and immorality. Using a mix of archival footage and new interviews with musicians like Colin Stetson, Jimmy Heath and Giuseppi Logan, he reveals not only the wild past of the instrument, but it’s importance in the future of music as well.
I spent some time thinking about what to say to about National Canadian Film Day. I thought of some funny things, a couple of Can Con jokes I could throw around like, “How many Canadian actors does it take to screw in a light bulb? One hundred, one to do it and ninety-nine to say ‘I could’ve done that.’” For obvious reasons I decided not to go that route.
Instead I cast my mind back to growing up.
I thought about living in small town Nova Scotia. I reflected on being a young man who hadn’t traveled anywhere yet, who imagined the West Coast was an exotic land where arbutus trees grew and nobody needed to own a parka.
I remembered the guy who spent most of his early life sitting at the Astor Theater in my town watching the images Canadian directors like Claude Jutra, Don Shebib and Ted Kotcheff created dance across the screen.
I thought about what I learned about my own country watching the visions of cinematographers like Eugene Boyko, John Spotton and their colleagues. They were pioneers who looked at our country and figured out a way to represent it honestly, on screens big and small.
For me the pictures of Toronto in Going Down the Road or Newfoundland in The Rowdyman, shaped the way but I thought about my country, and the way I thought about the people who lived in my country.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that the birth of the film and television industry in Canada in the 50s, 60s and 70s coincided with a renewal of nationalism nationwide. For the first time Canadians were treated to beautiful, lifelike, moving, in depth portraits of places like Dawson City courtesy of cinematographers Wolf Koenig and Colin Low in City of Gold; or the icy chill of Montreal, captured in Don’t Let the Angels Fall and an all encompassing look at us in Across This Land with Stompin’ Tom Connors.
Forget the railroad or the Trans Canada Highway, your images of what makes Canada and Canadians special are the things that really connected the country.
The camera has been called a time machine and when we look at the films shot by Canadian filmmakers we see our past, but we also see a glimpse of our future. The pioneering work done by those men and women laid the foundation for the industry we celebrate on April 20. In those images are the very essence of who we are as a people and the creative promise of the industry we have today.
Celebrate National Canadian Film Day by watching a Canadian film, for free, at locations all over the country. Find out more HERE.
In 2009 I hosted an on-stage event with Disney legend Richard Sherman.
The co-writer (with his brother Robert) of classic songs like It’s a Small World (After All), Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and the Oscar winning Chim Chim Cher-ee, was seated behind a piano and after regaling us with stories from his career, asked if anyone had any song requests.
I took advantage of my position as host and butted in, asking if he’d sing the hippest children’s song ever written, I Wan’na Be like You (The Monkey Song) from The Jungle Book.
As his fingers danced across the keyboard, he began, “Now, I’m the King of the Swinger’s Ball, a Jungle V.I.P…” and I was transported back to being a kid, wearing the grooves off the soundtrack record, playing it over and over. I was reminded of that memorable moment earlier this week as I watched the new, updated version of The Jungle Book. The song gets a remake, this time sung by Christopher Walken, but the magic is still there.
In the animated 1967 original, Louis Prima — playing the raucous orangutan King Louie — sang the upbeat tune but Richard Sherman says when they wrote the song they didn’t have Prima in mind.
Walt Disney hired them to help “Disnify” Rudyard Kipling’s original stories about a feral child raised in the jungle by wolves.
“Our assignment was to find crazy ways of having fun with it,” says Sherman.
For King Louie’s big moment the brothers went with a New Orleans inspired musical arrangement, complete with scat-singing.
They played the swingin’ song at a story conference and it was decided the singer should be the most swingin’ jazz act in the country. “When we first got an idea for I Wan’na Be Like You, we said an ape swings from a tree, and he’s the king of apes. We’ll make him ‘the king of the swingers.’ That’s the idea, we’ll make him a jazz man.”
The brothers presented the song to Prima who reportedly said, “You want to make a monkey out of me? You got me!”
It was a perfect marriage of performer to character, so much so that Disney animators filmed Prima live on a soundstage as a guide to animate his movements in the movie.
The I Wan’na Be like You (The Monkey Song) sequence is a standout in a film filled with great songs and has made a lasting impression on a generation or two of musicians.
Everyone from Phish and Voodoo Glow Skulls to Los Lobos and Fall Out Boy have covered the song. There’s a Hungarian version called Egy ilyen majom embernek való by Gyula Bodrogi & László Csákányi. And O Rei do Iê-Iê-Iê was a hit in Brazil for Márcio Simões & Mauro Ramos.
Of all the covers, Sherman says he likes the version by Smash Mouth featured in The Jungle Book 2. Almost 50 years after he originally co-wrote the song Richard Sherman revisited the tune. On the red carpet at The Jungle Book’s premier last week Sherman said he wrote new lyrics, “because it’s not the King Louie you saw in the first movie. This is a gigantopithecus, the greatest ape there ever was.”
Louis Prima’s version will always be the classic, at least for me, but Sherman says, “Chris Walken does a great job (on the song).”
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
