I join CP24 to talk about new movies playing in theatres, including the dark comedy “The Roses,” the relationship farce “Splitsville” and the gritty crime drama “Caught Stealing.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV Atlantic anchor Todd Battis to talk about the dark comedy “The Roses,” the relationship farce “Splitsville,” the gritty crime drama “Caught Stealing” and the rebirth of “The Toxic Avenger.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Jim Richards is off, so I sit in with host Deb Hutton on NewsTalk 1010 to go over some of the week’s biggest entertainment stories and let you know what’s happening in theatres. We talk about Guillermo del Toro’s “Bleak House” memorabilia auction, Bill Belchick’s “gold digger” trademark, The Wizard of AI, Taylor Swift’s impact on the wedding business and two movie reviews, “Caught Stealing” and “The Roses.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I joined CTV NewsChannel anchor Roger Peterson to have a look at new movies coming to theatres including the dark comedy “The Roses,” the relationship farce “Splitsville” and the gritty crime drama “Caught Stealing.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including the dark comedy “The Roses,” the relationship farce “Splitsville” and the gritty crime drama “Caught Stealing.”
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 the bed! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the dark comedy “The Roses,” the relationship farce “Splitsville” and the gritty crime drama “Caught Stealing.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: Inspired by the 1981 novel “The War of the Roses” by Warren Adler, and the 1989 film with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, “The Roses” sees Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman as married couple Theo and Ivy. Their picture-perfect relationship dissolves into resentment when Theo’s career takes a dip while Ivy’s own ambitions take off.
CAST: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Andy Samberg, and Kate McKinnon. Directed by Jay Roach.
REVIEW: This story of the thin line between love and hate begins with love at first sight. British architect Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) and chef Ivy (Olivia Colman) have instant chemistry and soon find themselves living in San Francisco with their two kids, Hattie and Roy.
Life is good.
Even though Ivy’s restaurant, I Got Crabs and I Loved It is struggling, Theo’s bold design for a new maritime museum is just about to celebrate its grand opening. “We want to be the couple who supports one another completely,” she says.
When a storm hits their coastal town, closing off the main road, traffic is diverted to her failing restaurant. For the first time ever, the place is packed. On the other side of town, the same storm tears the roof off Theo’s latest design, collapsing the building and his self-worth.
The next morning, he is unemployable, crushed and embarrassed. “It was everything to me,” he says. Her business, however, is bolstered by a rave review in the paper from a food critic who was stranded by the storm.
As Ivy’s culinary empire blossoms, Theo’s jealousy and resentment grows.
Unemployable, he stays home with the kids as Ivy buzzes around in private jets, consumed with growing her restaurant empire.
When he designs a beautiful home for them—which she pays for—their discontent ripens, pushing them to extremes. “Someone has to sacrifice themselves on the altar of our marriage,” she says. “But who is it going to be?”
“The Roses” is top loaded with laughs. In the film’s first minutes Cumberbatch and Colman set the tone with their edgy back and forth—”In England we call that repartee,” Theo says—tossing off one-liners in response to a therapist’s suggestion that they list ten things they love about one another.
“I would rather be with her than a wolf,” he says.
“He has arms,” she says.
The scene is fast, funny and establishes their tetchy, witty banter as the couple’s love language. In a departure from the original film, Ivy and Theo actually seem to like one another, even when they don’t.
Theo’s treatment of their children—he weans them off Ivy’s homemade sweets in favor of hardcore exercise—is a major source of tension in the couple, but it’s the kids who are also, in many ways, the glue that holds them together.
That dynamic makes for a more realistic look at a couple near the breaking point, but it also slows down the “endlessly whirring machine” the couple finds themselves trapped in. The propulsive vibe of the film’s first act fades as the story sits at a slow simmer for much of its latter half.
Still, even though this iteration of the story doesn’t lean into the farcical elements, or much of the nastiness of the original, it’s a pleasure to watch Cumberbatch and Colman effortlessly cut through this material like a hot knife through butter.
SYNOPSIS: In “Caught Stealing,” a new dark comedy from director Darren Aronofsky, and now playing in theatres, Austin Butler plays Hank, a bartender whose life is turned upside down when he agrees to look after his neighbor’s cat. Drawn into the soft underbelly of 1990s era New York City, Hank finds himself fighting for his life (and the cat’s well-being) at the hands of various gangsters who believe he has something they want. “These guys you’re messed up with,” says Detective Roman (Regina King), “they’re scary monsters.”
CAST: Austin Butler, Regina King, Zoë Kravitz, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, Griffin Dunne, Bad Bunny, Carol Kane. Directed by Darren Aronofsky.
REVIEW: “Caught Stealing” is a departure for director Darren Aronofsky. His movies have essayed everything from addiction and apocalypses to isolation and psychological turmoil, and while many of them, like “Black Swan,” “The Wrestler,” “The Whale,” and “Requiem for a Dream,” have been critical and commercial hits, they haven’t been what you would call crowd-pleasers.
His latest film, “Caught Stealing,” starring Austin Butler as a bartender who gets drawn into the criminal underworld of Giuliani-era New York, however, is a crowd-pleaser, but only in the most Aronofsky-esque of ways.
A violent, dark comedy that plays like a cross between Guy Ritchie’s quirky criminal dramas and the Kafkaesque absurdity of “After Hours,” “Caught Stealing” is an adrenalized, twisty trip typical of the genre, but seen through Aronofsky’s edgy lens.
Hank, the charming bartender played by Butler, is not your genre typical everyman who gets in over his head. Aronofsky and screenwriter Charlie Huston, who adapted his own 2004 novel, give Hank layers. He’s a wild child who dances on pool tables and greets the day with a Miller Light. Tormented by nightmares of an alcohol fueled accident that took the life of his best friend, he repeatedly wakes up in a sweat. As his situation spirals out of control his survival is driven by a mix of fear and desperation.
So, he’s the hero, but in true Aronofsky fashion, he’s a morally ambiguous one whose quest for survival comes with a high body count and a trail of destruction. He may not be as relatable as “After Hours’” Paul Hackett, played by Griffin Dunne, who makes an appearance here as coke snorting dive bar owner Paul, but the charismatic Butler keeps him compelling with a combo of vulnerability and steeliness.
Aronofsky populates the rest of the story with a variety of colorful characters, like observant-but-deadly Jewish mobsters Lipa and Shmully (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio), a throwback punk rocker (Matt Smith), gangster Colorado (Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, better known as Bad Bunny) and no-nonsense cop Elise Roman (Regina King), but this is Butler’s show.
“Caught Stealing” has the character complexity of an Aronofsky film, but it’s way more fun than he usually has on screen.
SYNOPSIS: “Loathe Thy Neighbor” sees a recently relocated city slicker in a battle of wills with his new country neighbor. “Lost my father, lost my job,” says Will Larkfield (Brennan Clost), “and now I’m losing my mind.”
CAST: Lauren Holly, Brennan Clost, Shaun Benson, Brittany Raymond, Paloma Nuñez, Jessica Greco, Luke Humphrey, Patrice Goodman. Directed by Sergio Navarretta.
REVIEW: A dark riff on “Green Acres,” “Loathe Thy Neighbor” is more than the standard fish-out-of-water story. What begins as a “citidiot” in the country tale, slowly reveals itself to be a lesson in community and personal growth.
When Will Larkfield (Brennan Clost) inherits his estranged father’s rundown farm he sticks out like a sore thumb in the rural community. Vegetraian, allergic to everything and anxiety-prone, the locals don’t quite know what to make of him. They refer to him as him an “aristocrat,” and regard him with suspicion. No one more so than his next-door neighbor/bee-keeper Wanda Bellerose (Lauren Holly), who takes an instant, intense dislike to the city slicker. “He moved here a couple of days ago and he’s already ruining my damn life,” she says.
As a dispute over the mis-delivery of an EpiPen escalates, Will takes to referring to Wanda as a deranged lunatic,” while she calls him a “Yuppie on a stick,” and threatens to “roast [him] like a holiday ham.”
And that’s before things turn really ugly between the two.
Character-driven, “Loathe Thy Neighbor” plays on established tropes—the neurotic city guy vs. the tough-as-nails country person—to set up the story of petty grievances, nasty neighbors and, ultimately, growth and resilience.
Clost and Holly embrace their edgy characters. Constant conflict fuels their behavior, pushing them to extremes, but, as good as they are, it plays as one dimensional. It’s a clash of cultures, city vs. country, and when the insults are flying, it’s a bit of fun, but the level of animosity is never truly examined. They fundamentally just don’t like one another, and the film doesn’t dig much deeper than that before setting up its rushed redemption arc.
Still, as a story of putting aside our differences and learning to co-exist, “Loathe Thy Neighbor” spreads some good, neighborly vibes.
