I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift” to talk about the uptick in Michael Jackson songs after the release of the biopic, why a Japanese writer was sentenced to jail for spoiling a movie, the new Andre the Giant monument and I review “The Devil Wears Prada 2” and suggest some glamorous cocktails to enjoy with the film.
Listen to the whole thingh HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” the twenty-years-in-the-making sequel to the 2006 Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt hit, Andy Sachs returns to Runway Magazine as Miranda Priestly navigates the new world of media. “Well, look what TJ Maxx dragged in,” says Nigel (Stanley Tucci).
CAST: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci, Justin Theroux, Kenneth Branagh. Directed by David Frankel.
REVIEWS: The clever callbacks and echoes of the past in “The Devil Wears Prada 2” should satisfy fans of the original but may leave series newcomers with a case of the cerulean blues. (Fans will get the joke.)
The movie begins in a much different world from the 2006 movie. Journalism is under fire and the formerly high-flying world of fashion magazines has been grounded, relegated to creating “content for people to scroll past while they pee.”
Even Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), editor-in-chief of the formerly formidable magazine “Runway,” feels the pinch. She still has a beautiful corner office, longtime right-hand Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci) and a withering attitude toward her staff, but these days she is reduced to hanging up her own coat rather than tossing it one of her assistants.
Fate brings together Miranda and her former second assistant Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) in a perfect storm of journalism woes. Andy loses her job as an investigative reporter just as Miranda is accused of failing to fact check a story about a fashion company that secretly uses sweat shops to produce their clothes.
Much to Miranda’s consternation, “Runway’s” owner hires Andy as Features Editor hoping that her standard of journalistic excellence will rehabilitate the magazine’s tattered reputation. “All I have to do is bide my time until you fail,” Miranda says disdainfully, “and you will.”
Andy’s job at the magazine is to “turn on new readers without turning off old readers,” which, coincidentally, is also director David Frankel’s job with the film’s viewers.
For the most part he succeeds.
The script, by Aline Brosh McKenna, who also wrote the original, follows a similar structure to the first film, placing Andy, once again, as an eager outsider in the exotic world inhabited by Miranda, Nigel and Emily. Frankel puts the band—Streep, Hathaway, Tucci, and Blunt—back together, keeping the traits that made them popular in the first place, while allowing them to grow.
Fans will get a boatload of Miranda’s dismissive remarks, Andy’s puppy dog energy and ambition, Nigel’s quiet mentorship and Emily’s judgmental edge, but all are tweaked. Miranda has vulnerabilities, Andy is more confident, Nigel is an avatar for the changing industry and Emily is still fiercely fashionable and wants to please Miranda but has a modicum of power she didn’t have before.
Reunited, the characters fit together like puzzle pieces, but it is the movie’s macro focus that gives “The Devil Wears Prada 2” its juice.
Of course, the characters click and there are beautiful, over-the-top clothes, but that’s not the point. Amid the laughs and emotional plot turns, mixed in with the runway drama, is a timely, love letter to the importance of journalism. The gloomy picture the movie paints of the future of journalism and media outlets is unexpected, and seemingly at odds with the glamourous backdrop, but it adds a dose of maturity to the story. The audience has grown up and so have the characters and the situation.
“The Devil Wears Prada 2” has style and substance. It isn’t as light and fluffy as the original but has a modern tone that reflects where the world and the characters are today. It’s still a bit of a fairy tale, with callbacks and nostalgia, but a grounded one that fans should enjoy.
SYNOPSIS: In “Hokum,” a new folk horror film now playing in theatres, Adam Scott plays an author whose trip to Ireland takes a supernatural twist.
CAST: Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, David Wilmot, Florence Ordesh, Michael Patric, Will O’Connell, Brendan Conroy, Austin Amelio. Directed by Damian McCarthy.
REVIEW: “Fado, fado… Long, long ago… Deep in the woods… There lived… An old Cailleach… A witch.”
“Severance” star Adam Scott is Ohm Bauman, a misanthropic American author of the best-selling Conquistador series of novels. Prone to fits of drunkenness and cruelty, he’s travelled to Ireland to finish his new novel and find personal closure by spreading his parents’ ashes in a forest near their favorite place, the remote Bilberry Woods Hotel. “My folks came here for their honeymoon,” he explains, “and always wanted to come back.”
He quickly manages to alienate the quirky staff, including handyman Fergal (Michael Patric), concierge Mal (Peter Coonan), bartender Fiona (Florence Ordesh) and owner Mr. Cobb (Brendan Conroy).
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he says, “but there are some oddballs walking around this place.”
“There are worse things than strangers out there, yank,” Mr. Cobb replies grimly.
His curiosity peaked by whispers of an ancient witch the inn’s owner has trapped in the honeymoon suite, he investigates the locked room after one of the inn’s workers disappears on Halloween night.
Inside the room he has terrible visions that compel him to explore his troubled past.
“You do know these things exist,” says local pariah Jerry (David Wilmot). ”It’s just closed minds can’t see them.”
From dead animals and darkened hallways to creepy carved Halloween gourds and things that lurk in the shadows, there is a cloak of unease that hangs over the movie even before the action officially starts.
Director Damian McCarthy subliminally weaves dread into the film’s fabric. The simple haunted house story is elevated with classic but skillfully employed slightly off kilter camera work, which emphasizes empty space and the hotel’s many shadowy corners. It sets up a disquieting atmosphere of unease that pays off when Bauman’s investigation on to the mysterious, claustrophobic hotel room begins.
It’s then that the little details, a harmless chiming clock, the draping around the four-poster bed, become sinister without the aid of CGI creatures.
The monster here isn’t the Honeymoon Suite Witch, it’s the long-lasting effects of trauma and the consequences of immoral human behavior.
The atmosphere is so thick it almost distracts from Bauman’s unlikability. Almost, but not quite. Scott plays the writer as persnickety and pretentious, broken and bitter, without ever overplaying his hand. Casually cruel, he’s not a moustache twirling baddie, just a narcissist with a mean streak.
When the room forces him to confront his past, vulnerabilities shine through, but he never breaks character. He doesn’t suddenly become likable or sympathetic. He remains a pain, and Scott keeps the performance as layered as the horror McCarthy creates with his camera and setting.
“Hokum, even though the mid-section feels a bit stretched, is the real deal, a movie that is genuinely unsettling.
SYNOPSIS: In “Deep Water,” a new Aaron Eckhart survival film now playing in theatres, a flight goes down in the middle of the Pacific leaving survivors to risk shark infested waters to find safety.
CAST: Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, Angus Sampson, Kelly Gale, Madeleine West, Molly Belle Wright, Kate Fitzpatrick. Directed by Renny Harlin.
REVIEW: Renny Harlin is no stranger to shark movies. His 1999 film “Deep Blue Sea” saw researchers terrorized by sharks with genetically enlarged brains. Harlin returns to shark infested storytelling with “Deep Warter,” but this time leaves the intelligent part behind.
“Deep Water” begins on an intercontinental flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai. Overseeing the 257 passengers, including Dan (Angus Sampson), a loud-mouth chain-smoker whose suitcase causes problems mid-flight, are the ready-for-retirement Captain Richard Lewis (Sir Ben Kingsley) and world-weary First Officer Ben (Aaron Eckhart) who picked up this flight instead of dealing with a personal tragedy at home.
“Looked like you wanted to take a swing at me at the flap check,” Cap says to Ben. “Isn’t that how you got bounced out of the Air Force?”
“That senior officer had it coming. You? You’re just annoying.”
When a fire breaks out in the cargo hold, all hell breaks loose, forcing a crash landing in shark infested waters. With only 30 pieces of shark bait… er… I mean survivors, Ben must step up to save lives.
“The way I see it, we have one job to do,” he says heroically. “And that is to get home to see our families. Just gotta hold on.”
“Deep Water,” not to be confused with the 15 other movies, mini-series and TV shows with the same title listed on IMDB, is about as original as its name. Director Renny Harlin, working from a script that somehow took six credited writers (Pete Bridges, Shayne Armstrong, S.P. Krause, Damien Power, John Kim and Dan Luo) to put “The Poseidon Adventure,” “Jaws” and “Airport ‘77” into a blender and hit puree, is in pure “been there, done that” mode.
The several minutes of mayhem as the airplane disintegrates is the kind of high-energy action filmmaking you expect from Harlin. People are sucked out of large tears in the plane’s fuselage, chaos reigns as a mile high couple in the bathroom are trapped in flagrante delicto and passengers are killed by flying carry-on luggage and bottles from the bar cart. It’s wild, workmanlike stuff that effectively shows the horror of a midair meltdown.
Ditto with the shark attacks. All shark movies owe a tip of the sailor’s cap to “Jaws,” and “Deep Water” is no different, but the scenes of the hungry CGI sharks are just schlocky and gory enough to make an impression.
Unfortunately, as the plane crashes and the sharks feed, the impact is blunted because the characters come second place to the plane and the sharks. One note characters, or, more accurately, caricatures straight out of “Disaster Movie Big Book of Clichés,” are paraded past the camera, but make little to no emotional impact no matter how loud Harlin cranks up the soundtrack’s manipulative, sappy score. They’re shark food, and little more.
Despite its title, “Deep Water” is tremendously shallow, valuing sharks and spectacle over people.
I appear in a CTV National News report by Allison Bamford on the changes to the film rating procedure in Saskatchewan.
Watch the report HERE!
Allison Bamford writes about why movies no longer require an age-based rating from the government before they can be screened in Saskatchewan theatres.
“Film expert Richard Crouse says the new rules take away government control and put the onus on individual movie theatres…” Read the whole thing HERE!
On the Saturday April 25, 2026 we’ll meet we’ll meet Elyse Aeryn, a roots-rock singer-songwriter from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. She spent nearly a decade in the pulp and paper industry—then, in her late 20s, walked away to chase the music that’s always burned inside her.
Her roots-rock sound fuses Stevie Nicks-inspired soul, with some Alanis, and memorable melodies. Her 2023 debut Joy State of Mind put her on the map with nominations and awards, and now, after overcoming a devastating motorcycle crash in 2025, she’s back. Her sophomore album Everybody Loves You… is10 tracks of bold, emotionally resonant rock that features radio-toppers like ‘Unstoppable.’
Then, Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol of “Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie.”
The movie, which blends footage from the 2007–2009 web series of the same name, begins with unemployed musicians Matt and Jay (Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol) hatching a plan to land a gig at the legendary Rivoli on Queen Street West in Toronto. Without contacting the club, writing any songs or practising, they decide to parachute off the CN Tower into the Skydome during a baseball game to announce the show in front of a stunned crowd.
What could go wrong? Well, lots.
No spoilers here, but when their skydiving stunt doesn’t get them the Rivoli gig, they (along with their camera guy Jared Raab) find themselves accidentally traveling back to the year 2008, and struggling to find a way back to the future.
I sit with host Deb Hutton on NewsTalk 1010 to talk about where people are getting their news, the first lady of “Heated Rivalry” fans, Bob Seger Bars and I review the musical biopic “Michael.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
