Fourteen years after the first “Barbershop” movie the recession has caught up to Calvin Palmer, Jr. (Ice Cube). Due to changing times the barbershop he took over from his father has been forced to amalgamate with a beauty salon run by his business partner, Angie (Regina Hall). “This was the original man cave,” complains one regular, “now it’s just a club with no drinks.”
The customers are divided by sex, men on one side, women on the other, but there’s plenty of back-and-forth, especially between flirty beautician Draya (Nicki Minaj) and the very married Rashad (Common).
Outside the atmosphere isn’t as playful. Out of necessity they have a No Guns Allowed sign in the shop. “Can’t even get a haircut without some knucklehead carrying a gun,” says Eddie (Cedric the Entertainer). “Barbershop used to be a place of peace.” Gang violence is at an all time high, putting Calvin’s teenage son Jalen (Michael Rainey Jr.) at risk. With the neighbourhood in tatters and his son in danger Calvin contemplates moving his shop and family out of the only home they’ve ever known, South Side Chicago. “What are we supposed to do,” Calvin asks his wife, “wait here until something happens?” Before taking that dramatic step the staff stages an intervention, calling for a forty-eight hour ceasefire. Setting up the shop as a safe, neutral space for everyone from all over the city to come and hash out their differences and get a free haircut, they hope to “Increase the Peace.”
“Barbershop: The Next Cut” breathes the same air as “Chi-Raq,” Spike Lee’s recent satirical look at gang violence in Chicago. Director Malcolm D. Lee does away with the stylish flourishes that made his cousin Spike’s movie so memorable, but doesn’t skimp on the social commentary. Wedged between sometimes sharp, sometimes silly one-liners are keenly observed remarks on everything from racism and street violence to monogamy and the importance of community building. The presentations are different—call this “Chi-Raq Lite” if you like—but the pleas for peace are the same.
Working from a thoughtful although occasionally unsubtle script, the large ensemble cast has the chance to provide laughs and heart. Cedric, former Conan O’Brien writer Deon Cole and JB Smooth are in charge of the chuckles, while Cube and Common’s family storylines provide the sentiment. Other standouts include rappers-turned-actors Minaj and Eve.
The humour in “Barbershop: The Next Cut” is the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. What could have been a heavy-handed treatise on urban violence is instead an enjoyable romp that shines a light on a very important topic.
“I was born. I went to New York. I made some music. Did some dope and made some more music and you showed up at my door,” says Miles Davis (Don Cheadle) to journalist Dave Brill (Ewan McGregor). Of course, if that were all there was to the story “Miles Ahead” wouldn’t be much of a film. Luckily director, co-writer and star Cheadle fleshes out the story of one of the twentieth century’s greatest but most troubled musicians in a biopic that defies expectations. Expected: drug use and sublime music. Less expected: a car chase and shoot out.
We meet Davis as he seems to have reached the “more profitable dead than alive” stretch of his career. At the end of the five-year hiatus from music, and the world, the trumpeter is holding new session tapes hostage until his record company Columbia pays him $20,000.
Brill hopes to get the inside scoop on the Howard Hughes of jazz but isn’t above making a deal with Columbia to steal the tapes from Davis’s home. Instead the tapes or stolen by an enterprising music manager (Michael Stuhlbarg) who seizes the opportunity to make some cash off of Davis notoriety. This sets off a string of events that underscores the movie’s central theme, the idea that Miles cared more about music than his life.
Woven throughout are flashbacks to Davis’s early life, how he found fame and Frances (Emayatzy Corinealdi), the woman who would change his life. The tortured artist scenes that make up the bulk of the film are the most interesting for obvious reasons, but the backstory fill in the gaps, explaining why and how he became the man he did. Undone by police brutality, long-lost love, drugs, ego, women, infidelities and health issues Davis emerges as a textbook example of an artist who channelled his restless, self destructive personality into beautiful, ground breaking music.
“If you’re going to tell the story tell it was some attitude,” says Davis. “Don’t be coy.”
“Miles Ahead” is anything but coy. It’s not quite as wild as Davis or his music, but Cheadle mixes and matches various periods from Davis’s life to paint an impressionistic portrait of the man, warts and all. He builds a complete picture, showing Davis on his highest highs and lowest lows. There isn’t much insight into the nuts and bolts of how Davis actually created his music. The creative process remains a mystery but we do get the biographical details that shed light on a troubled life.
The new Kevin Costner movie “Criminal” is crying out for a subtitle. “Criminal” is such a drab, nondescript name. It doesn’t tell you anything about the movie or grab the eye. How about “Criminal: How a Psychopath Found Redemption and Revenge.” It’s grabby and sums up everything you need to know about this deeply silly movie.
The movie begins with a cameo by everybody’s favourite Canadian Ryan Reynolds as Bill Pope, an undercover intelligence officer for the CIA. He alone knows the location of Jan Stroop, a computer whiz (Michael Pitt) who has hacked into the US’s military computers and now controls the world’s fate. The CIA desperately wants to find Pope and Stroop but unfortunately evil-doer and all round bad guy Hagbardaka Heimbahl (Jordi Mollà) got to Pope first. After some very unpleasant back-and-forth the steel jawed agent refuses to give up any information and is left for dead.
Here’s where it gets weird. CIA mucky-muck Quaker Wells (Gary Oldman) finds the grievously wounded Pope and with a ‘never say die’ attitude keeps the man alive long enough so scientist Dr. Franks (Tommy Lee Jones) can transplant the comatose CIA agent’s memories into the mind of another person. “Can you or can’t you transport memories from one live mammal to another?”
Here’s where it gets weirder. In their infinite wisdom the CIA chooses death-row psychopath Jericho Stewart (Costner) as the memory recipient. “He does not understand society or how people are supposed to behave,” says Wells. Perfect. What could go wrong? Jericho must come to grips with the two personalities swirling around his brain—“It’s like my skull is being crushed from the inside,” he says.—as he slowly develops emotions and enough awareness to help and not hinder law enforcement in their search for Stroop.
By the time Pope’s daughter (Lara Decaro) teaches Jericho to play Christmas carols on piano “Criminal’s” cheese factor needle is bouncing uncontrollably into the red.
Remember the face-transplant surgery movie “Face/Off”? It was a silly movie, but at least it made sense in its own oddball way. Unlike the face swap film, however, “Criminal” has no internal logic. Things happen simply because the story requires them to happen and not because they make sense. The leaps of faith required to buy into “Criminal’s” story would give Evel Knievel vertigo. Suspension of disbelief is fine, and a time-honoured way of enjoying a movie, but you have to care about the story and characters in order to go along for the ride. Unfortunately not even this group of old pros can elevate this material.
When Jericho appears to develop feelings for Pope’s wife Jill (Gal “Wonder Women” Gadot) he expresses himself with the most unintentionally funny line of the year. “I know what that ‘love’ word is supposed to mean but…” It’s straight out of a b-movie, a b-movie that should be called “Criminal: How a Psychopath Found Redemption and Revenge.”
Richard and the “Canada AM” hosts Marci Ien, Beverly Thomson and Jeff Hutcheson play King Louie, Kaa, Shere Khan, Bagheera and Baloo as they lend their voices to “The Jungle Book” trailer!
Pete Townshend, guitar god of The Who, says he learned to play guitar and started a band for two reasons:
A: His nose. B. To meet girls.
About his nose he said, “It was huge. It was the reason I played guitar.” He also noted that bands (even band-members with large noses) “always got the best girls.”
“It is definitely one of the things that inspires lads to play music,” agrees Sing Street star Ferdia Walsh-Peelo.
Ask most male musicians why they joined a band and 99 out of 100 will tell you it was for one very simple reason, to meet women. Art, money and fame are often far distant second place to the lure of the opposite sex. Such is the case with Conor (Walsh-Peelo) a fifteen-year-old school by with a crush on Raphina (Lucy Boynton) in Sing Street, the new musical romance from Once director John Carney that plays like a spiritual cousin to The Commitments.
“I think that is the thing that gets Conor started and gets people started pop music,” he says. “Then you form the band and you find refuge in the music. It becomes more than just getting the girl. It’s actually a way of coping when things are crap.
“I didn’t have a great time in school and I went through all these similar kind of phases [as Conor]. I remember seeing [the John Lennon biopic] Nowhere Boy and me and this other guy at school bought leather jackets, gelled our hair back and went into school. Bringing combs with us and doing our hair like in Grease. Looking like complete twats running around town just doing mad stuff. It’s all part of the process. Finding yourself and finding your voice.”
Born and reared just thirty minutes outside Dublin in in County Wicklow, in the film the young actor is the perfect picture of an 80s rock star, despite knowing next to nothing about the decade or the music when he signed on to play Conor.
“It was a huge learning curve,” he says. “I hadn’t reached that point where I was diving into 80s music. I suppose I was up to the late Sixties. When I went into Sing Street I was playing bands and we were still in that place. I was listening to loads of country, music from Tennessee, skiffle music, bluegrass. I had been experimenting with loads of different kinds of music and I got into the 80s stuff when we shot the movie.
“It took me a while but then I got into it after watching a million ridiculous 80s videos. I just got it,” he says. “They just weren’t taking themselves seriously at all. It was just that kind of era. It was all just mad, wasn’t it? There was loads of horrendous stuff around at that time but there were a few gems. Hall and Oates are absolute gems of the pop stuff.”
The musician-turned-actor also singles out The Cure and The Talking Heads as great stuff,” but says his heart lies in folk music.
“Folk music is always where it’s been at for me. I played skiffle music with bands for the craic (fun) of it but when I came back, in my room I’d be listening to Joni Mitchell.”
Richard’s “Canada AM” interview with Tatiana Maslany. They talk about the new season of “Orphan Black,” playing multiple roles, working with Jake Gyllenhaal and what fans can expect in coming weeks.
Richard’s column “Big Screen/Small Screen” in the April issue of “Movie Entertainment“!
“Recently moviefone.com asked, “Is April the new October?” Their question had nothing to do with a change in the weather or the fact that April is the seasonal equivalent to October in the Southern Hemisphere but with the number of horror films set be released in the fourth month of the year. Perhaps it’s the relentless rain or maybe it’s because taxes are due but April is now the most terrifying month on the calendar, in the theatres anyway…” TO READ THE WHOLE THING CHECK OUT THE MAGAZINE ON STANDS NOW!
Welcome to the House of Crouse. Roger Corman has had 90 birthdays. In that time he’s directed 55 movies and produced almost 400. He gave a start to many young film directors, Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese and James Cameron to name a few, and is known as the The Pope of Pop Cinema. As a belated birthday present this week the House of Crouse pays tribute to the man who bragged he made a hundred movies in Hollywood and never lost a dime.
Richard and CP24 anchor host Nneka Elliot have a look at he weekend’s big releases, Melissa McCarthy’s “The Boss,” Jake Gyllenhaal in “Demolition” and “Hardcore Henry’s” wild action.
Fourteen years after the first “Barbershop” movie the recession has caught up to Calvin Palmer, Jr. (Ice Cube). Due to changing times the barbershop he took over from his father has been forced to amalgamate with a beauty salon run by his business partner, Angie (Regina Hall). “This was the original man cave,” complains one regular, “now it’s just a club with no drinks.”
