I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including the animated anarchy of “Coyote VS Acme,” the dystopopian “The Dog Stars,” the fresh rom com “Finding Emily,” the silly smarts of “Idiots” and the supernatural slasher “Buddy.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make a sandwich. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the animated anarchy of “Coyote VS Acme,” the fresh rom com “Finding Emily” and the silly smarts of “Idiots.”Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift” to talk about a Dolly Parton song we’ll have to wait until 2046 to hear, a different kind of bat at Wayne Manor, I review the animation/live-action hybrid “Coyote Vs. ACME” and suggest some delicious cocktails to enjoy with the film.Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “The Dog Stars,” a new post-apocalyptic science fiction movie now playing in theatres, Jacob Elordi and Josh Brolin play survivors of a devastating flu pandemic that has almost eradicated humanity.CAST: Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, Guy Pearce, Benedict Wong. Directed by Ridley Scott.
REVIEW: Like many dystopian/pandemic movies, “The Dog Stars” has several large-scale action sequences where survivors defend their land from feral intruders. They’re big, loud and exciting and entirely not the point of the film.
Set nine years after a flu pandemic and blood disease ended almost all life on earth, former mechanic Hig (Jacob Elordi) lives in an abandoned Colorado airport with his dog Jasper and tough-as-nails former neighbor Marine Bangley (Josh Brolin). “The world that was doesn’t exist,” says Hig. “Here it’s just us… trying to hold on to what was.”
Together they guard against outside threats, other desperate survivors willing to use lethal force to gather supplies and food. “Out there, it’s kill or be killed,” Bangley says. “The only thing left to fear… survivors.”
The new world order sits uneasily on Hig’s mind. “This world fits you, Bangley. Wake up, defend, survive,” he says. “I think you were ready for it 10 years before it hit. I was a mechanic. When I wasn’t doing that, I was kissing my wife and playing with my dog, wondering every day how I got so lucky.”
Still grieving the loss of his wife, Hig holds out hope that there is a better world out there somewhere. His source of hope stems from a faint radio signal from years ago, a voice that pushes him to search for a new life in a new world. “There’s gotta be something better than this,” he says.
Director Ridley Scott, working from a screenplay by Mark L. Smith, certainly knows how to stage big action but “The Dog Stars” isn’t exactly an action movie. Instead, it’s a bittersweet story of lost and found relationships that works best when it isn’t trying to fill the screen with fireworks.
After a slow start Scott begins to develop his themes when Hig, on his way to a better world, connects with father and daughter duo Jack (Guy Pearce) and Cima (Margaret Qualley). It’s here the movie begins to differentiate itself from other end-of-the-world/survival films and shows like “The Road” or “The Walking Dead.” In its quieter moments, such as the look of happiness tinged by a sense of what has been lost that spreads across Cima’s face as she hears music for the first time in years, that the movie finds something new to say within the dystopian genre.
The picture “The Dog Stars” paints a grim picture of the post-apocalyptic world but it also understands that all is not lost if the plague survivors hold on to their humanity.
SYNOPSIS: In “The Idiots,” a raucous new comedy starring Dave Franco and O’Shea Jackson Jr., and now playing in theatres, two unqualified drivers get more than they bargained for when they take a job to transport a wealthy, troubled teen to rehab. “Be careful of him. The kid’s a maniac. He’s famous for it.”CAST: Dave Franco, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Mason Thames, Kiernan Shipka, Nicholas Braun, Peter Dinklage. Written, produced, and directed by Macon Blair.
REVIEW: Despite its title, “Idiots” is a smart cultural commentary that examines the haves and the have-nots.
Dave Franco and O’Shea Jackson Jr. play unemployed odd couple Mark and Davis. Mark’s poor impulse control cost him his call centre job while the earnest and awkward Davis was cut loose from his church after subjecting the Bible Studies kids to a screening of Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist,” mistakenly thinking it was an educational movie about the life of Jesus.
To make ends meet they take jobs as drivers for a shady transport service. “You know what we do here? Drive rich kids to rehab.” It’s a tricky gig with lots of loopholes. Chief among the one-sided rules were the provisos that they, and they alone, would be legally responsible for their cargo from the beginning of the trip until drop off and they won’t be paid until the job is over.
Their first assignment pairs them with Sheridan Kimberley (Mason Thames), an amoral trust fund kid who’ll do anything to avoid going to rehab. A delay caused by a flat tire sends them off on an odyssey that sees the unlikely trio up against Irina (Kiernan Shipka), an exotic dancer who makes house calls, a militia that includes Peter Dinklage and Pricka Bush Da Werewoof (Nicholas Braun), a lycan-obsessed SoundCloud rapper who is convinced the drivers have kidnapped the troublemaking teen. “That kid made a fool of me,” Mark, “and I will take his scalp for that. And that is not a metaphor.”
“Idiots” isn’t exactly a buddy comedy. It’s not consistently funny enough to earn that title.
Instead, it’s a dark, unpredictable look, with some funny, raunchy moments, at privilege, inequality and decency. Director and screenwriter Macon Blair isn’t afraid to play some scenes for sheer comedic shock value, but he’s also unafraid to weave some bleak social commentary in the story’s fabric.
Mason Thames plays Sheridan Kimberley as the poster boy for toxicity, a smirking rich kid whose consequence free behaviour has made him an internet sensation with one million followers. Sociopathic and remorseless, he forces the “idiots”—Mark and Davis—to confront their place on the food chain. Despite despicable behavior, Sheridan is insulated by money against any repercussions. Mark and Davis, however, are left to pay the price for Sheridan’s actions.
The social commentary isn’t subtle but Thames, best known for his work in “The Black Phone” and the live-action “How to Train Your Dragon,” doesn’t play Sheridan as a moustache twirling baddie. Instead, he’s even more insidious, someone who feigns vulnerability, who lies and cheats through a smile.
The secret sauce, however, is the relationship between Mark and Davis. Polar opposites, there is comedy to be mined from the differences, but it is in the unlikely bond that grows between them that the movie finds its heart.
“Idiots” feels stretched in its final third, but up until then is a sporadically funny socially aware reinvention of the buddy comedy.
SYNOPSIS: In “Finding Emily,” a new British romantic comedy now playing in theatres, a lovesick twenty-three-year-old meets the woman of his dreams, but when she mistypes her number in his phone, he has to embark on a campus wide search for the mysterious Emily. “Last night I met this girl called Emily,” says Owen. “Felt like time stood still.”CAST: Angourie Rice, Spike Fearn, Minnie Driver. Directed by Alicia MacDonald.
REVIEW: In true rom com fashion, one night in a loud Manchester student bar sound engineer and bumbling romantic Owen (Spike Fearn) becomes instantly smitten by Emily (Sadie Soverall), a young woman wearing fairy wings he meets on the dancefloor. Before leaving, she gives him her number, then disappears. The next morning as he attempts to text her, he has a terrible realization—she mistyped the number. “It’s missing a digit.”
“I don’t know herb last name,” he says, “or anything that will help me find her.”
Unable to reach Emily, he sets off on a mission to track her down which puts him in the sights of another Emily (Angourie Rice), an American psychology student studying on a visa, who agrees to help him in his search. “She’s a perfect, uncomplicated, heteronormative projection of everything you want her to be,” she says of Emily Number 1.
But she has an ulterior motive. She’s writing a thesis called “Romantic Attachment: A Self-Sabotaging Madness.”
“He’s the case study I’ve been waiting for,” she says. “He’s my very own Stanford prison experiment.”
For her, he’s a case study in how romantic attachments cause “temporary psychosis.”
Owen’s quest to locate “Fairy Emily” soon becomes a sensation, for better and for worse. What some people see as a sweet attempt at getting her attention, other view as stalking.
He becomes a social media star after serenading the missing Emily online and sending e-mails to every woman named Emily at the school. But as Owen gets closer to finding his Emily, psychologist Emily begins to rethink her scientific thesis.
Produced by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, the team behind gold standard romantic comedies like “Bridget Jones,” “Notting Hill” and “About Time,” “Finding Emily” has all the trappings of a regular rom com, but there’s a Northern English grittiness to it—it’s a bit of a Valentine to Manchester—that sets it apart from the run-of-the-mill comedic romance.
The usual web of misunderstandings, personal complications, grand gestures and last-minute declarations are present, but it gently massages these rules of the genre to make it more limber than the same old. Tropes for the age of social media, campus culture and post #MeToo attitudes are welcome additions and never overplayed.
The film also deftly side-steps the toxic masculinity inherent in some of Owen’s dodgier schemes by framing them as ideas for Emily’s psychological study, and not the behavior of a predator.
The film’s heart and soul is Spike Fearn. Looking like the third, long lost Gallagher brother, he brings a scruffy, heartfelt appeal to Owen. Without an ounce of cynicism, he wears his heart on his sleeve and is a charming, if somewhat clueless focal point for the romantic action.
Also, next time around please give Minnie Driver’s terse and hilarious school dean character a movie of her own, or at least more to do in the sequel.
“Finding Emily” is a little longer than it needs to be but it’s just original and charming enough to be worth a look.
SYNOPSIS: In “Coyote vs. ACME,” a new hybrid live-action/animated comedy now playing in theatres, Will Forte plays a down-and-out attorney who becomes Wile E. Coyote’s lawyer. “Have you ever set a big stack of TNT on the road hoping to blow up your nemesis, but the detonator itself explodes? Have you ever pulled the rip cord of your parachute and only a bunch of silverware comes out? It’s not your fault! ACME is evil!”CAST: Will Forte, Lana Condor, Tone Bell, Luis Guzmán, Martha Kelly, P.J. Byrne, John Cena. Eric Bauza, Kenneth Choi, Candi Milo, Jim Cummings. Directed by Dave Green.
REVIEW: Shot years ago and shelved as a tax write off by Warner Bros. Discovery in 2023, “Coyote vs. ACME” is finally getting its richly deserved chance at a big screen release courtesy of Ketchup Entertainment.
Anyone familiar with Wile E. Coyote’s endless pursuit of the Road Runner, will also know of his unsuccessful use of rocket-powered roller skates, anvils, dehydrated boulders and many other tools of destruction manufactured by ACME.
After years of unsuccessfully using their products Wile E. Coyote has had enough. Holding a placard reading “ACME SUCKS,” he hires down-on-his-luck attorney Kevin Avery (Will Forte) to sue ACME Corporation for selling defective gadgets. “ACME has knowingly been making dangerous products for decades!”
As ACME’s lawyer, the ruthless Buddy Crane (John Cena), prepares to go scorched earth on Avery—“I don’t just want him scared, I want him ruined!”—the case reveals ACME as a profit-obsessed conglomerate with no regard for the safety of its customers. “Wile E. Coyote,” says Crane, “is reckless and all his injuries are self-inflicted.”
A mix of live action and animation, à la “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “Coyote vs. ACME” blends a high-level comedic cast, led by Will Forte, and classic cartoon characters in a rambunctious comedy that captures the anarchic spirit of Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies films.
It’s a love letter to the cartoons that inspired it, but it’s not simply a rehash of decades old animated movies. Instead, it takes well-known characters, like Wile E. Coyote, the Roadrunner, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck and many others (mostly voiced by Canadian actor Eric Bauza), and creates a new world for them to inhabit without losing what made them fun in the first place.
Wile, for instance, is taking on ACME, an even bigger foe than The Roadrunner, but just like in the old shorts, he refuses to give up no matter what. His perseverance against Sisyphean odds is the thing that makes him lovable, and when echoed in Avery’s rediscovery of what the law can do for his client, brings a nice symmetry to the storytelling. “He’s one of the most hard-working people I’ve ever met,” Avery says of Wile. “He would never think of quitting. And I think everyone should be inspired by that.”
Fans will uncover Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies tributes throughout. “That’s all folks,” written in dust on the back of Avery’s car, is a throwback reframed as a veiled threat from opposing council. The non-consensualist Pepé Le Pew is blasted with anti-predator spray, and Foghorn Leghorn as ACME CEO.
Hard core fans will note that Forte’s character, Kevin Avery shares a last name with Tex Avery , director and co-creator of the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies style.
“Coyote vs. ACME” is a lot of fun, creating something new from the nostalgia fans feel for these characters and their trademarked brand of comedic chaos. It hits the anvil on the head (or should that be the other way around?) with impossible cartoon physics, humor—Forte and Cena are live action but have a fun cartoon vibe—heart and even some unexpected anti-corporate messaging.
SYNOPSIS: In “Buddy,” a comedy slasher film now playing in theatres, the host of a children’s television show has some dark secrets.CAST: Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Patton Oswalt, Michael Shannon, Topher Grace, Keegan-Michael Key. Directed by Casper Kelly.
REVIEW: There’s no Tickle Trunk in “It’s Buddy,” the kid’s show within the movie. If there was, it would be used to store the bodies of Buddy’s victims.
A nightmarish version of “Barney & Friends” with a side of “Pee Wee’s Playhouse” thrown in for good measure, the show is a brightly colored kid’s show, hosted by a giant unicorn who should rightly be called Bloody instead of Buddy, where children are taught basic skills, manners and how to run for their lives.
This strange blast of 90s nostalgia begins with increasingly demented episodes of the TV show. The kids dance and sing simple songs—”I love Buddy yes I do, I’m so glad he loves me too.”—while Buddy (Keegan-Michael Key) becomes increasingly erratic when one youngster (Tory Jacqui Malone) refuses to play along.
Soon, the kid disappears and an argument with the show’s nurse turns violent.
“Everything’s fine,” says Strappy, the chipper backpack (Patton Oswalt), “look at how tightly he’s hugging her neck!” The remaining children flee, disappearing into the make-believe world of Diamond City with Buddy in pursuit. “I hate Buddy yes I do, I hate, I hate, I hate you,” they sing. “Stab your heart and kick your knee, Buddy you’re my enemy!”
Meanwhile, in present day, suburban mother Grace (Cristin Milioti) with the help of a parapsychologist is sucked into the television and the deadly world of “It’s Buddy.”
Definitely not kid friendly, “Buddy” is a tribute to an unlikely combo of 90s kids shows and the era’s slasher movies. The mix and match is a one joke premise, but it’s a pretty good joke that sustains the film’s brisk ninety-minute running time.
From the songs like, “You Gotta Be Scared to be Brave,” which sound like echoes from an alternate “Barney” universe, and Keegan-Michael Key’s twisted Pee Wee Herman vocal tribute (“Now it’s time for your hug,” he says before dispatching a victim.), to period perfect set design and Clint Howard’s nutty performance as a former kid show host, “Buddy” is a keenly observed, if somewhat absurd take on its inspirations.
“Buddy” is a cult movie in the making, a bizzarro blast of retro fun.
I join NewsTalk 1010 guest host Mark Towhey to discuss the life, legacy and cultural importance of the late Dolly Parton.Listen to the whole thing HERE!
