Near the end of “Creation Stories,” the story of record industry giant Alan McGee now on VOD, a young writer promises one day to write a story that matches his ego. “That’s a very noble ambition,” he snaps back. I’m not sure if she ever wrote the story, but director Nick Moran and screenwriters Dean Cavanagh and Irvine Welsh certainly have. “Modesty gets you nowhere,” McGee says.
Ewen Bremner, best known as Spud from “Trainspotting”, plays McGee, a wannabe punk musician who put down his guitar and picked up bands like Jesus and the Mary Chain, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine and Oasis for his UK indie label Creation Records. Told in the tried-and-true biopic form of a celebrity interview, the movie is a series of flashback vignettes of McGee that illustrate his answers. The format is old hat but allows Moran to zip through the story at a break neck speed.
The pace captures the spirit and drug fuelled joie d vivre of the times, but feels disjointed. It’s a scattershot movie that packs twenty pounds of story into a ten-pound bag. According to the movie, like a Scottish Zelig, McGee is here, there and everywhere but always in the right place at the right time. He’s front and centre in every scene, it’s his life story after all, but as we careen through McGee’s chaotic life, the side characters get lost. Particularly the musicians who made Creation so successful.
It often feels like a story, as the young writer played by Suki Waterhouse promised, that plays up to McGee’s ego courtesy of a constant stream of platitudes.
Luckily at the centre of it all is Bremner. His charismatic performance is the glue that prevents the disparate parts of the story from blowing a part. His likability holds our interest even as the story goes the way of so many other celebrity biographies—the dreaded time in rehab and/or involvement with politics. The rip-roaring stride of the film’s first half slows as “Creation Stories” searches for some elusive depth. Even then, Bremner is compelling, even if the skin-deep portrait of the music executive becomes less so as the movie nears the end credits.
“Creation Stories” is chirpily nostalgic for the heady days when Creation Records struck gold with records that resonated with millions of people. What it isn’t sentimental for is the actual music, McGee’s true legacy.
After a few years of appearing in adult dramas, “Underworld” star Kate Beckinsale is kicking butt again. The former action star clenches her fists in “Jolt,” a hard-hitting comedy now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Lindy (Beckinsale) gets mad. Really, really mad.
Doctors believe her uncontrolled rage is rooted in a troubled childhood but whatever the reason, no one is safe from her wrath. Loud chewers. Rude waiters. Men who wear flip flops with jeans. It doesn’t take much to set her off.
She’s tried a laundry list of “cures,” but nothing quelled her murderous anger until psychiatrist Dr. Munchin (Stanley Tucci) outfitted her with a barbaric shock treatment that allows her to live a normal-ish life. Still, she could erupt at any time.
The shock treatment, Dr. Munchin tells her, is just one element of her recovery. She must reconcile her past, he tells her, work through her issues and maybe even date.
Reluctantly, she agrees to try some human contact in the form of a dinner date with an accountant named Justin (Jai Courtney). After a rocky start she discovers he’s the first person in ages she doesn’t want to beat bloody for the slightest infraction.
He’s sweet but unfortunately after their first sleepover, he’s discovered dead, shot in the head.
Heartbroken, she goes on a revenge bender while police (Laverne Cox and Bobby Cannavale) investigate her as a prime suspect in Justin’s untimely passing.
Dr. Munchin advises her to leave it alone, but she can’t. “Some people cry,” she says. “Some write s**t poetry. I hurt people.”
“Jolt” is a bit of blood-stained fun. Zippy, occasionally funny and empowering—“What is it with gross old men always underestimating women!”—it delivers the kind of neck-breaking fight scenes you expect from a movie about a person with violent impulse control issues. Director Tanya Wexler stages several generic-but-frenetic action scenes—a car chase, fist fights—but also manages to inject some life into a laugh out loud escape from a hospital nursery.
“Jolt” is what is often called a Refrigerator Movie. It makes enough sense as you watch it but later, while you stand in front of the fridge looking for sandwich ingredients, you think back and realize there are plot holes big enough for Kate Beckinsale to walk through.
The movie has enough jolts to keep you entertained for ninety minutes, but I’m not sure I am as interested in the set up to a sequel as the filmmakers are.
Richard speaks to Jordan Clazzer, valet manager at the Four Seasons Hotel Toronto and veteran valet Robert Hookey about the nerves that come along with parking a high-end car and fundamental changes in the valet business for the Toronto Star.
Richard makes a Negroni, the perfect cocktail to enjoy while watching the new documentary “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain.” Have Bourdain’s favourite drink and a think about “Roadrunner” with us!
What’s up, Doc? A sequel to a twenty-five-year-old movie, that is what’s up.
“Space Jam: A New Legacy,” now in theatres, freshens up the 1996 Michael Jordan live-action/animated sports hybrid film with a new star and a lot of familiar (animated) faces.
The story begins in Akron, Ohio, 1988. Teenaged LeBron James is a gifted basketball player, but is distracted by his Game Pocket Computer and cartoons. A reprimand from his coach—“You’re a once-in-a-lifetime-talent!”—convinces him to focus on basketball and forget about childish things.
It’s a lesson he takes to heart.
By the time he’s grown, and a superstar, he’s all business and doesn’t understand why his son Dom (Cedric Joe) is more interested in coding than crossover dribbles. The younger James is busy too creating a basketball video game to become a team player.
Meanwhile inside the Warner Bros Serververse, Al-G Rhythm, a computer program stuck inside the Serververse, and who looks just like Don Cheadle, has his eye set on LeBron as his way out into the world. “Once I combine King James with my incredible tech,” she says, “I will finally get the recognition I deserve.”
Trouble is, LeBron is not impressed by the studio’s offer to scan him into movies, making him a virtual movie star. “Say yes,” the studio reps say, “and we’ll make mind blowing entertainment forever.”
But it’s a no. “It’s among the worst ideas ever,” says LeBron. “Athletes acting. That never goes well.”
Dom likes the idea, and his curiosity about the process leads him to the Warner Bros tech department, where he and LeBron get sucked into the movie studio’s server and come face-to-face with “nefarious nimrod” Al-G Rhythm.
Trapped in the digital space, the only way out is a high-stakes basketball game. LeBron must recruit the Looney Tunes gang to play against AI’s over-the-top Goon Squad, made up of virtual avatars with super powers and names like Wet-Fire, White Mamba and Chronos.
From the Nike logo LeBron leaves pressed into the ground when he falls into the Looney Tunes-verse, to the “Mad Max,” “Casablanca,” “Austin Powers” and “Matrix” takeoffs, to the endless mentions of Warner Bros in the script, it’s hard not to feel like intellectual property and product placement are driving the story. It’s a wild ‘n wooly world, imaginative and unpredictable but it often feels like marketing rather than a story.
Not that kids will care. And that is who this movie is for.
Director Malcolm D. Lee keeps younger minds entertained with video game and cartoon inspired action, while adults will get the clever Michael Jordan joke and bask in the nostalgia of sees old characters like Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian in new situations. There’s also a pretty fun game in spotting the mix-and-march of characters who make up the audience for the big game. I spotted the Gremlins, the flying monkeys from “Wizard of Oz,” Pennywise the Clown and a dozen or so others.
“Space Jam: A New Legacy” smooths away some of the adult edges from the first movie—there’s no Quentin Tarantino references this time around and Lola Bunny, now voiced by Zendaya, no longer wears a crop top—resulting in a family friendly film with good messages about being your authentic self and not what others want you to be and the importance of playing by the rules.
In the opening moments of “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain,” a new documentary about the late television host and author, now playing in theatres, we hear the titular character’s voice state the obvious. “This does not have a happy ending,” he says.
For fans of Bourdain, the former heroin addict chef-turned-author-turned-television-star-turned-cultural-avatar, “Roadrunner” comes with high expectations.
The edgy but empathic Bourdain, who was 61 when he took his own life while shooting a television show in France, inspires strong feelings. A standard, hagiographic look at his life, rehashing the well-known details of his career, would be met with a collective yawn. Get too prickly and it might be seen as disrespectful to the memory of a man many still miss.
“Roadrunner” somehow straddles the line, providing a balanced overview of the scrappy chef’s personal and professional lives. Using outtakes from Bourdain’s shows “No Reservations,” “The Layover” and “Parts Unknown,” new interviews with friends and family and home footage, director Morgan “20 Feet from Stardom” Neville compiles a Russian nesting doll look of his subject.
What emerges is a deep dive into the life a complex man; a person who circled the globe dozens of times searching for meaning with every air mile point earned. “His whole personality was of a searcher,” says Alison Mosshart, the vocalist of The Kills and The Dead Weather. “He was always looking for something, and it was agony for him.”
Neville captures some of that agony, forcing the viewer to see familiar footage recontextualized by Bourdain’s co-workers and friends. With no shortage of material to choose from—Bourdain’s 250 days a year on the road were meticulously filmed and documented—Neville cherry picks moments that reveal the toll Bourdain’s schedule, celebrity and search for normalcy took.
Often the most revealing footage isn’t of the man speaking, but of the exhausted or melancholy look visible in his eyes as he performs for the camera. “Life was never going to measure up to how he pictured it,” says “Parts Unknown” segment producer Helen M. Cho. “He set himself up for disappointment.”
The circumstances of his death, of course, are investigated. His colleagues become tearful describing his last months as a lifelong addict who turned his addition to Italian actress and director Asia Argento. “Roadrunner” examines Bourdain’s final days but this isn’t a whodunnit or an exercise in pointing fingers. It’s a story about his life, not death.
“Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” provides an emotionally raw portrait of a gifted, charismatic man who travelled the world but never quite figured out where he needed to be. “You are not going to outrun or out smart pain,” comments artist David Choe, who provides the movie with a suitably Bourdain-esque ending.
Trailers for “Pig,” the new Nicolas Cage movie now playing in theatres, suggests a bacon flavored version of “Taken,” but that’s not what the movie is about. There is a kidnapping, a chase and even a catchphrase—“I need my pig.”—but this is an dissertation on bereavement, so don’t expect a hog-wild action movie.
Cage plays Robin Feld, a once revered chef in the Portland, Oregon area, who gave it all up to live in the middle of nowhere with his truffle hunting pig. His only contact with the outside world is Amir (Alex Wolff), the young man who supplies restaurants with the truffles Robin and his beloved pig find in the woods.
After a day of foraging, Robin and the pig settle in for the night, when suddenly the door is kicked in. Robin is knocked unconscious and the pig is abducted. The next day, with dried blood still caked on his face, Robin recruits Amir to chauffeur him around Portland in search of the people responsible for the pignapping.
“Pig” is advertised as a thriller, but it’s not. It’s more a story loss and what happens to people when the thing they care about is taken away. A key phrase comes in a long scene between Feld and a local chef as they discuss passion as it relates to food, life and relationships.
“We don’t get a lot of things to really care about,” Feld says. It’s a speech about the deep connection we make to the people and things we feel passionate about, and how important it is to heed those passions.
It’s also a testament to the void those passions leave when bad things happen. No spoilers here, but “Pig” isn’t about the kidnapping or the chase, it’s about passion, and the deep well of emotion that accompanies it.
Once again Cage takes on a taciturn character with a past. For the first half of the movie the pig has more lines than Cage. As such, the gonzo actor keeps the yelling and the histrionics to a minimum. For much of the movie, despite his ragged appearance, he is restrained almost to the point of sleepwalking. It doesn’t make for compelling viewing, but as the character opens up verbally, we begin to understand his motives for past and present behavior and the character comes into focus.
“Pig” is a nicely performed movie that delivers beyond its absurd sounding premise—man searches for his kidnapped pig—but may play too minor a chord to really strike home emotionally.
If you were to make a Venn diagram of “Black Widow,” now on Disney+ with premium access, and the recent animated film “The Boss Baby: Family Business,” you’d be surprised by the overlap. Both movies are about estranged families coming together and siblings finding a path forward after years of bitter feelings. One is much louder than the other, but underneath it all they are both all about family. “I chose to go west and become an Avenger,” Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) says. “They treated me like family.”
The story begins with a flashback.
It’s 1995 and sisters Natasha (played as a child by Ever Anderson) and Yelena (Violet McGraw) are separated from their Soviet sleeper cell family in Ohio. Removed from their undercover agent parents, scientist mother Melina (Rachel Weisz) and super-soldier father Alexei (David Harbour), they are placed under the supervision of evil Soviet General Dreykov (Ray Winston) in a training camp called the Red Room where they are brainwashed and taught the deadly ways of the Widows.
Jump forward twenty-one years to the gap between the events of “Captain America: Civil War” and “Infinity War.” Natasha (Johansson) is cut loose from her Avengers pals after breaking the Sokovia Accords. The superhero clan have gotten “divorced,” and Natasha is hiding out in Norway. When she is attacked by Dreykov’s bodyguard, the mysterious Taskmaster, she reunites with her estranged “family” to take on the Russian general.
“Black Widow,” the first Marvel Cinematic Universe solo outing for Johansson’s character, has spent a year bouncing around the pandemic release schedule and brings with it high expectations from fans.
Directed by Cate Shortland, Romanoff’s convoluted backstory is handled in a fairly straightforward way, part Marvel, part “The Americans.” The movie does offer up a fair amount of fan service but still provides eye-scorching action and basic, relatable themes of the importance of family and responsibility for the casual viewer.
Despite the wild CGI action and Jason Bourne style one-on-one combat, the film feels more grounded than most other Marvel movies. Perhaps it’s because Natasha and Yelena (Florence Pugh) don’t have super powers (although they are VERY resilient) or perhaps it’s because the story details the dysfunctional, tragic past that put Natasha on the road to becoming an assassin or maybe it’s because the villain Dreykov barely makes an impression, but the usual stakes—saving the world—take a backseat to more personal concerns.
“Black Widow” is a swansong for Natasha. The character jumped off a cliff in “Avengers: Endgame,” sacrificing herself so her superhero buddies could acquire the Soul Stone and help defeat genocidal warlord Thanos. Johansson sends her off with a suitably steely yet vulnerable performance, and when she isn’t running, jumping, punching or shooting, she brings some real humanity to the quieter scenes.
Pugh and Harbour bring some much-welcomed levity, the former as the eye-rolling sarcastic younger sister, the latter as the insecure wannabe super soldier who is just a bit too concerned about his legacy. Their bickering and subtle character touches help add life to the family vibe so important to the story the movie is trying to tell.
Like so many of the Marvel films, near the end “Black Widow” succumbs to overkill, noise and frenetic CGI action scenes. The family is united, à la “The Boss Baby” but the onscreen fireworks overwhelm the compelling family story that lies at the heart of Natasha’s journey.
“The Summer of Fear” continues on Netflix with the release of “Fear Street Part 2: 1978,” the second part of their R.L. “Goosebumps” Stine trilogy about the cursed town of Shadyside, where terrible things have been happening for three hundred years.
Moving backwards in time sixteen years from the first instalment, this movie takes place in 1978. Against a classic slasher movie backdrop, a local sleep-away on a lake called Camp Nightwing, a group of teens, half from the Richie-rich town of Sunnyvale, the others from the possibly possessed Shadyside, get ready for a summer of swimming, campfires, secret hook-ups and… murder. As Ziggy Berman (“Stranger Things’” Sadie Sink) says, “bad things always happen to Shadysiders.”
Cue the gallons of blood, masked killer, a pentagram and more clues as to why some Shadysiders just can’t stop killing people. With axes.
In real life 1978 was a pretty good year for horror movies. “Halloween,” “Stranger in Our House” and “Dawn of the Dead” all dropped that year, and all feel like they are paid homage to by director Leigh Janiak. “Friday the 13th” also looms large over “Part 2,” both in vibe and look.
Janiak is faithful to the tropes of vintage slasher films, and despite the young adult label that comes with Stine’s work, doesn’t spare the blood, allusions to sex, the language or the scares. Characters we care about are offed with mighty swings of an axe, blood squirts and the teens react how teens would react, by using language that may make mom and dad blush.
“Fear Street Part 2: 1978” may look in the rear view mirror for inspiration but what is innovative is the way it links with the other two movies, connecting the narrative over the course of the trilogy. They aren’t sequels to one another, but one Shady-verse, bound by a certain set of rules, some of the same characters and lots and lots of gore.
“Fear Street Part 2: 1978” is rated R for obvious reasons, but the rating feels necessary and authentic to the genre. What feels less necessary are scenes of exposition and a drawn-out storyline between Ziggy and sister Cindy (Emily Rudd), but when the rest works so well, these are quibbles.
