As you may or may not know, when I’m not here talking to you on my show, I can be seen on the CTVNewsChannel and loads of other places talking about movies. I saw almost three hundred movies this year, wrote reviews for two hundred of those and there were high highs and the very lowest of lows.
I rate my movies on a scale of 10 to 5 stars. I never a full 5 stars because nothing is perfect, but this year there were several 4 ½ star movies. The lowest rating I have ever given was “Minus Infinity x 10” for a movie whose name I will never mention again.
Most movies fall into the 3 to 3 ½ star category, but there is a fairly wide range. Ten percent of the movies I see every year are terrible, ten percent are great but 80 percent fall into that mushy middle. Good to almost great.
I don’t care about the box office. I love it when a movie makes a lot of money because it means the industry is healthy and people are supporting theatres, and that’s a good thing, but just because a movie makes bank doesn’t mean it is a good movie.
Every now and again, though, there are movies that, for whatever reason, are great, but don’t connect with audiences. There have been a few of those this year, and for every movie that took a well-deserved dive, like “Joker: Folie a Deux” or “Borderlands” there were others that should have found an audience. On this show I’ll tell you about those movies!
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I take a look back at the year that was at the movies. From a chimp who becomes a pop superstar and a 93-year-old action star to an all-singing-all-dancing villain and an enormous elf, the movies gifted us the best and worst–the naughty and nice, the champagne and lumps of coal–of what Hollywood and elsewhere has to offer.
Here is the Nice List, a compendium of the very best films of the year, presented alphabetically.
Instead of attempting to unwind Dylan’s mystique, “A Complete Unknown” director James Mangold, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks, wisely opts for a portrait of the time, the America and, in microcosm, the Greenwich Village folk era, that produced the singer. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the battle for civil rights indirectly hang heavy over the film, completing the portrait of the time that fuelled Dylan’s early work. The back-to-basics approach benefits the movie, allowing Timothée Chalamet’s tour de force lead performance to shine.
“A Different Man” is a singular movie. Schimberg digs deep to examine the skin-deep notions of attractiveness, and the effect of beauty on the eye of the beholder.
Part screwball comedy, part fight for survival, “Anora” is a triumph of controlled chaos. As in his earlier films, “Tangerine,” “The Florida Project” and “Red Rocket,” director Sean Baker keenly observes his characters with empathy and emotion in stories that examine money, class, and power. An insightfully made look at the wealth divide, with elements of suspense and comedy, it never fails to entertain.
“Better Man,” the biopic of Take That singer-turned-solo superstar Robbie Williams is a sex, drugs and British Pop story given an audacious treatment by “The Greatest Showman” director Michael Gracey. A surreal mix of “Behind the Music” and “Planet of the Apes,” it is a raw portrayal of the singer’s vulnerabilities and foibles in which he’s rendered throughout as a CGI monkey. No explanations are offered, and none are needed. Whether it’s a comment on the performing monkey nature of his work, or his ever-evolving emotional state, or whatever, it’s a startling and surprisingly effective gimmick in a wildly entertaining film.
The flirty, intimate and indulgent “Challengers” is a ménage à trois of ever shifting power games, mind games and tennis gameplay in which the power dynamics are batted back-and-forth, just like in a real tennis match.
There are no monsters or supernatural aspects in “Civil War,” but make no mistake, this is a horror film. The horrors of war are detailed in a visceral and chaotic way but it is the idea of a societal collapse that haunts.
“Conclave” has a hushed, restrained feel, but even though the characters all carry bibles as they walk the ecclesiastical halls, director Edward Berger understands this story is more pulpy thriller than holy book.
If the word bombastic took steroids it might come close to describing the R-rated “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Filled with fan service, it’s a good time, even if the experience of watching it sometimes feels like being on the inside of a blender set to puree.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is a high-octane apocalyptic tale with a fierce Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth as a charismatic warlord, that features action scenes that’ll make your eyes pop out of their sockets.
“The Greatest Night in Pop” doesn’t reinvent the music documentary wheel, but it is more than a star-studded episode of I Love the 80s as it vividly captures the remarkable effort and magic that went into the recording of We Are the World.
Make no mistake, “Hey, Viktor!” is a comedy, first and foremost, and a raunchy one at that, but as it works its way to the end, it careens through a dysfunctional journey of self-discovery.
“Hit Man” is a rom com and a caper comedy with some thrilling twists, anchored by a smart script that acts as a showcase for the lead performances from Glen Powell and Adria Arjona.
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” is jam packed with big ideas and even bigger action scenes but feels intimate because of its emotional content.
A closer look at the remastered “Let It Be,” free from the furor of the break-up that coloured the 1970 release, reveals the shared joy of creation.
Romance and ‘roid rage collide in “Love Lies Bleeding,” a pulpy romp that is a bloody and brutal twist on the neo noir that harkens back to films like “Wild at Heart” and early Coen bros.
Despite a title that suggests a 1990s teen comedy, “My Old Ass” is a surreal coming-of-age story that stays anchored to reality with natural, heartfelt performances and a great deal of humor.
“Nosferatu” will be categorized as a horror film, and there are elements of gore, death and the unnerving auditory experience of hearing Count Orlock drain his victims, but it is an old-school horror movie that aims to unnerve its audience with just a few jump scares and no vats of fake blood. Eggers conveys terror with the film’s atmosphere of dread and depiction of madness, decay and unrelenting, elemental evil
“The Piano Lesson” is crisply complex, a tangle of emotion, the paranormal and family dynamics, with characters so carefully written each of them could be the star of their own story.
Younger audience members should enjoy the characters and the animation in “Robot Dreams,” but there is a depth to the story that will strike adults differently.
Because the uplift and empathy on display is such a departure for a prison movie, it would be easy to be cynical about a movie like “Sing Sing.” But it is impossible to deny the crowd-pleasing universal story of the redemptive power of art and community.
Clever and subversive, “Strange Darling” is an expertly made exercise in nihilism. What begins as a standard serial killer flick soon widens and deepens to become a thought provoking, provocative rethink of the whole genre.
“The Substance” goes on a bit too long, but director Coralie Fargeat’s gruesome vision, and the finale’s ankle-deep bloodbath, is a thing of terrible beauty.
“Suze” is a funny, never-judge-a-book-by-its-cover dramedy, that succeeds because of its engaging lead performances and in the way it presents a platonic relationship based on mutual respect.
“Thelma” is something you don’t see very often, a thriller starring a 93-year-old action hero. The fantastic June Squibb, in the lead role, may not exactly be Ethan Hunt, but she’s more endearing and delightful than Jack Ryan and Jason Bourne combined.
A mixture of nostalgia and hard-edged reality, of bittersweet poetry and heartfelt relationships, “We Grown Now” is a nuanced look at the ties that bind and their importance, even when those ties begin to fray.
Part rom com and part essay on what lingers after we’re gone, “We Live in Time” is a five-hankie tear-jerker fueled by the intimate and charismatic performances of its leads Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.
The animated “The Wild Robot” will put you in the mind of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and WALL-E, but carves out its own, unique, rewarding space andhas the makings of a classic.
I take a look back at the year that was at the movies. From an apocalyptic musical and a haunted pool to a sinfully dull exorcism movie and mysterious masked marauders, the movies gifted us the best and worst–the naughty and nice, the champagne and lumps of coal–of what Hollywood and elsewhere has to offer.
Here is the Naughty List, a compendium of my least favorite films of the year, presented alphabetically.
“Argylle” has so many twists, not even Chubby Checker could keep up. It is an outrageous, twisty-turny idea trapped in a movie that is afraid to really cut loose.
Amy Winehouse was a singular artist, a fearless performer who made her own rules, and dug deep to create her art. So, it’s a shame her biopic “Back to Black” is such a standard cautionary tale that only skims the surface.
“Borderlands” shares the bright and bold aesthetic from the video games that inspired it but smooths down the rough edges of the game, leaving behind a PG13 rated movie that is neither fan service or anything new.
“The Crow” is back, but, unfortunately, never really takes flight. For a movie about soulmates, and with a villain who dooms souls to hell, the new film feels soulless.
“Damaged” is a feature film that feels like episodic television, right up to a cliffhanger-y ending that should come with a “To Be Continued” end credit.
For all the free-wheeling vibes the movie emits, Ethan Coen’s “Drive-Away Dolls” is a bit of a slog, even at its abbreviated 84 minute runtime.
“The End” is an audacious film, with very committed performances from the cast, but this bleak study of guilt becomes overwhelmed by pretension and wears out its welcome well before the end credits roll.
Russell Crowe’s considerable star power goes a long way to keep “The Exorcism” watchable, but the film’s lack of overall lack of drama and scares is a sin.
“The Fabulous Four” means well but is a less than fabulous film that doesn’t deliver the goods.
The Quebec-set “French Girl” may be the only rom com to feature Mixed Martial Arts as a plot point. Other than that, it’s a standard romantic comedy, heavy on the romance but light on the comedy.
“Here” is ambitious, but its technical aspects, like the dead-eyed digital de-aging of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, overwhelms whatever heart is embedded in the story.
For better and for worse, “Joker: Folie à Deux” mixes romance and show tunes with law and order in what may be the bleakest jukebox musical ever. It is ambitious and bold, like All That Jazz filtered through a funhouse mirror, but it’s also frustrating.
Origin stories are tough, and unfortunately, “Madame Web” isn’t up to the task. By the time the end credits roll, you’ll wish you had the power to see into the future, like Cassandra Webb, so you’d know to skip this one.
“Megalopolis” is idiosyncratic a movie as we’re likely to see this year.
Drenched in metaphor and allegory, the dark comedy “Mother, Couch” breathes the same air as Charlie Kaufman and Ari Aster, but director Niclas Larsson allows the metaphysical aspects of the movie to overwhelm the story’s true emotion.
The idea of drowning is terrifying, especially if someone or something is pulling at your legs, or pushing your head under the surface, but in “Night Swim” you’ll find yourself playing Marco Polo in search of actual scares.
A Christmas movie with product placement for the whole family, from Hot Wheels to Bulleit Bourbon, “Red One” a formulaic action film, with generic CGI battles and Johnson in automaton mode.
In “The Strangers: Chapter One,” irector Renny Harlin squeezes whatever juice is left out of The Strangers IP, building a bit of tension here and there, but the film’s slow pace, repetitive action and decidedly non-gruesome violence sucks away the menace of the premise.
I appear in Sarah Plowman’s CTV National News report on the the legal action taken by Blake Lively against her “It Ends With Us” co-star and director Justin Baldoni.
SYNOPSIS: Timothée Chalamet stars as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” an intimate portrait of four tumultuous years in the life of the “Blowin’ in the Wind” singer.
CAST: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Scoot McNairy, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz, P. J. Byrne, Will Harrison and Eriko Hatsune. Directed by James Mangold who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks.
REVIEW: From the surreal “Rocketman,” that turned Elton John’s life into pop art and the self-congratulatory “Bohemian Rhapsody” to the monkey business of the Robbie Williams biopic “Better Man” and Brian Wilson’s introspective “Love & Mercy,” music bios come in all envelope pushing shapes and sizes.
So, it’s a surprise that “A Complete Unknown,” the new film chronicling four years in Bob Dylan’s eventful life, from Greenwich Village newbie to the enigmatic superstar who was booed off the stage at the Newport Folk Festival for playing an electric guitar, is so straightforward.
A story about the man who wrote, “The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face,” could reasonably be expected to take some stylistic risks à la “I’m Not There,” Todd Haynes’s metaphoric retelling of the “Like a Rolling Stones” singer’s life.
Instead, “A Complete Unknown” is more “Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story” than “I’m Not There” or “Inside Llewyn Davis.” The storytelling is efficiently linear (although not all together factual) without the kind of flourishes that Dylan regularly applies to his songs.
But the back-to-basics approach benefits the movie, allowing Timothée Chalamet’s tour de force performance to shine.
Dylan is one of the most documented people of the twentieth century, a man who has inspired a million nasally impressions, and influenced generations of musicians, and yet remains somewhat unknowable.
As a result, “A Complete Unknown” lives up to its name. When we first meet Dylan, he’s an unknown commodity. Four years later he’s the voice of a generation, the most famous export of the folk scene, but in many ways, he remains an enigma.
Chalamet captures the voice and the physicality of young Dylan but isn’t weighed down by the superstar’s legend. Despite his documented life, Dylan, the man, the myth, the legend, is basically unknowable. He’s a cipher; a dancer to a song only he can hear. Chalamet plays him as a mysterious, sometimes imperious guy and most importantly, gets the essence of what made Dylan the voice of a generation. It’s the It Factor, the Rizz, the elusive quality that is impossible to define, but easy to spot.
Instead of attempting to unwind Dylan’s mystique director James Mangold, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks, wisely opts for a portrait of the time, the America and, in microcosm, the Greenwich Village folk era, that produced the singer. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the battle for civil rights indirectly hang heavy over the film, completing the portrait of the time that fuelled Dylan’s early work.
The songs, and there are plenty of them, most performed by Chalamet, are the product of these influences and act as a commentary on that chaotic period.
“A Complete Unknown” may not be revelatory in terms of its biography of Dylan, but it places the singer in context of his times, revealing a rich vein of history, personal and otherwise.
