This week on “Pop Life” Aja Naomi King, who plays Michaela Pratt on the legal drama series “How to Get Away with Murder,” talks self-worth, collaboration and her journey into television acting. Them, the “Pop Life” panel, sports anchor Jay Onrait, Olympian and broadcaster Rosey Edeh and actress Carolina Bartczak, discuss partnerships in creative fields.
Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.
Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock legends Sting and Meat Loaf, musicians Josh Groban and Sarah Brightman, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, superstar jazz musician Diana Krall, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actors Danny DeVito and Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Nigella Lawson, and many more.
The “Pop Life” panel, sports anchor Jay Onrait, Olympian and broadcaster Rosey Edeh and actress Carolina Bartczak, discuss partnerships in creative fields.
Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.
Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock legends Sting and Meat Loaf, musicians Josh Groban and Sarah Brightman, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, superstar jazz musician Diana Krall, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actors Danny DeVito and Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Nigella Lawson, and many more.
This week on “Pop Life” Aja Naomi King, who plays Michaela Pratt on the legal drama series “How to Get Away with Murder,” talks self-worth, collaboration and her journey into television acting. Watch the whole thing HERE!
“You are deserving just because you’re here.”
Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.
Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock legends Sting and Meat Loaf, musicians Josh Groban and Sarah Brightman, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, superstar jazz musician Diana Krall, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actors Danny DeVito and Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Nigella Lawson, and many more.
Remake happy Hollywood goes intercontinental, casting its eyes to France for the new Bryan Cranston, Kevin Hart film. “The Upside’s” based-on-a-true-story” odd couple story of a wealthy quadriplegic and his ex-con caretaker is lifted from “The Intouchables,” a movie so popular it was voted France’s cultural event of 2011.
Cranston plays Phillip Lacosse, an author, who, through clever investments is “richer than Jay-Z.” A hand-gliding accident has left him paralyzes, a prisoner in his fancy Park Avenue apartment. When parolee Dell Scott (Hart) shows up on his doorstep looking for a job Phillip hires him, even though he has no qualifications whatsoever. As an ex-con Dell will, Phillip figures, enforce his Do Not Resuscitate order. “Is that why you asked me instead of those other guys?” Dell asks. “‘Cuz you thought I would DNR your ass?”
Also in the mix are Dell’s ex wife Latrice (Aja Naomi King) their son Anthony (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) and Phillip’s devoted assistant Yvonne (Nicole Kidman).
Despite the fatalistic Phillip’s disinterest in life he gradually comes to life, spewing a series of dad jokes and doling out practical advice. The two men bond, learning from one another. Dell learns an appreciation of his boss’s open mind—both in curiosity and acceptance—while Phillip is exposed to Aretha Franklin, weed (for medical purposes) and New York City hot dog stands. Each is enriched as Phil rediscovers his lust for life and Dell becomes a better father and husband.
What “The Upside” lacks in originality—every plot point is telegraphed to point where anyone, even if they had never seen a movie before, will see where this is going—it almost makes up in committed performances from its leads.
Hart is unusually restrained, heaping on the earnestness and the occasional bit of slapstick. He earns a few laughs although a “funny” catheter scene isn’t going to bolster Hart’s bruised rep in the LGBTQ community.
Cranston does wonders with a performance that comes completely from the shoulders up. His expressive face conveys a range of emotions from utter joy to frustration to unbridled rage it’s a performance that subtly brings us into Phillips thought processes.
Only Kidman is wasted in a role that asks very little of her except to nod, do a little dance and add some heft to the marquee.
Despite strong performances “The Upside” is a slight feel good movie that values melodramatic and manipulation over real emotion.
Do we boycott what looks to be a good movie because originally it was produced by Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Hart is in it? Richard and NewsTalk 1010 host Jerry Agar discuss.
Out of Sundance “The Birth of a Nation,” a biopic of slave, preacher and revolutionary Nat Turner written, directed and starring Nate Parker, was being touted as an Oscar contender. It set a record as the biggest distribution deal ever made at the Sundance Film Festival and won rapturous reviews.
Then the news broke that Parker was accused of raping a drunk, unconscious 18-year-old Penn State University student in 1999, orchestrated campaign of harassment and that although he was cleared in a 2001 trial, the alleged victim was so traumatized by the incident that she went on to commit suicide in 2012 at the age of 30.
Word around Tinsel Town is that these revelations have torpedoed any Oscar hope the film might have had, but the question is, will Nat Turner’s tale prove more potent than Parker’s own story?
From a young age Nat Turner (Parker) is told he is a child of God, someone with purpose. Growing up on the Turner plantation, he is taught to read but nonetheless is sent to work as a field hand. As a young man the seeds of his discontent are sewn when he is sold to unscrupulous plantation owners, sent out to teach the godly value of servitude to his fellow slaves. “Slaves submit yourself to your masters,” he preaches. His words make his owner rich and lift some broken spirits, but soon the hypocrisy of his proselytizing seeps in after a series of unspeakable events. He witnesses rape, brutality and after he baptizes a white man he is whipped to within an inch of his life. Beaten but not broken, he decides to fight back just as David, Goliath and Sampson did. Where he was once a spiritual leader he is now a rebellion chief. “With the help of our father we will cut the head off the serpent!”
It took Parker seven years to bring “The Birth of a Nation” to the screen and his passion is writ large on every frame. He has made an audacious film, a brash epic that borrows its name from D. W. Griffith’s racist 1915 blockbuster.
It is Turner hero’s moral journey from slave to rebellion leader. It’s a coming-of-rage story that spares few details. We are shown the casual cruelty that turned Turner from a peace-loving preacher to a man pushed to violence. On screen Parker is at the center of the action, appearing in almost every scene and bearing the emotional brunt of the narrative. He is the story’s engine and with an understated, powerful performance he keeps us along for the ride.
It’s the filmmaking that falls short. There are moments of singular imagery—a slow tracking shot of bodies hanging form a tree set to Nina Simone’s “Strange Fruit” is unsettling and unforgettable—but Parker has paced the film at a deliberate, monotonous tempo that doesn’t do the story any favours. It feels like a missed opportunity to not build tension, to not allow the remarkable story to lead the way.
Turner was a remarkable man, whose actions led directly and indirectly to the Civil War. Parker fails to fully place the man into historical perspective and by doing so ignores dramatic opportunities.
“The Birth of a Nation” is an important story of a man in an inhuman world. Parker treats the material and the man respectfully but could have used more urgency.
This week on “Pop Life” Aja Naomi King, who plays Michaela Pratt on the legal drama series “How to Get Away with Murder,” talks self-worth, collaboration and her journey into television acting. Them, the “Pop Life” panel, sports anchor Jay Onrait, Olympian and broadcaster Rosey Edeh and actress Carolina Bartczak, discuss partnerships in creative fields.
