Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to drink a latte! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the time travelling farce “Nirvanna: The Band The Show The Movie,” the drama “Sirāt” and the coming-of-age story “Pillion.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Pillion,” a new queer romantic dark comedy starring Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård, and now playing in theatres, timid gay man Colin becomes the submissive partner of Ray, a handsome and dominant biker. “I have an aptitude for devotion,” says Colin.
CAST: Harry Melling, Alexander Skarsgård, Douglas Hodge, Lesley Sharp, Jake Shears. Directed by Harry Lighton.
REVIEW: A study of blossoming sexual awareness and acceptance, “Pillion” traces Colin’s journey into submissiveness with frankness, wry humor and tenderness.
The action in “Pillion” begins on a quiet London suburban Christmas Eve. The mousy Colin (Harry Melling) is performing in a chirpy barbershop quartet at a pub when he meets charismatic biker Ray (Alexander Skarsgård). A relationship quickly blooms, as Colin becomes a submissive partner to the dominant Ray. “Next to you I am nothing,” says Colin, “but I’m yours all the same.”
Over the next year Ray leads Colin into the world of BDSM and dominant-submissive relationship within the gay biker subculture, establishing power dynamics—Colin cooks, cleans, and obeys a strict set of rules while riding pillion, passenger seat on a motorcycle—and the boundaries of the pair’s desires.
Though submissive to Ray, Colin embraces the new relationship through all its challenges and thrills.
Based on Adam Mars-Jones’ novel “Box Hill,” “Pillion” is a straightforward and nonjudgemental rom com about desire and growth.
Melling, best known for playing Harry Potter’s spoiled cousin Dudley Dursley, hands in a wonderful performance as Colin, whose transformation from vulnerable and insecure to someone in control of his life and sexuality is handled with gentleness and authenticity.
Though for the most part emotionally cut off, Ray benefits from Skarsgård’s stoicism, but the actor brings the character to life by allowing hints of vulnerability to shine through his distant facade.
“Pillion” succeeds because of strong performances, but also because it accepts Colin, just as he learns to accept himself.
I join the CTV NewsChanel to talk about the teen horror of “Whistle,” an amorous “Dracula” and the mockumentary “The Moment.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit with Deb Hutton on NewsTalk 1010 to go over some of the week’s biggest entertainment stories and movies playing in theatres. We talk about Will Arnett’s love of Harvey’s hamburgers, the Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobile race, big changes at Wordle and I review the Charli XCX mockumentary “The Moment.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to slam the door! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the teen horror of “Whistle,” an amorous “Dracula” and the mockumentary “The Moment.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: “The Moment,” a musical mockumentary about pop star Charli XCX sees her grapple with fame and her first arena tour. “I just want this moment to last forever,” she says.
CAST: Charli XCX, Rosanna Arquette, Kate Berlant, Jamie Demetriou, Hailey Benton Gates, Isaac Powell, Alexander Skarsgård. Directed by Aidan Zamiri.
REVIEW: Fans of Charli XCX should know that “The Moment” isn’t a concert film. The satirical mockumentary could best be described as a film about a concert.
Set on the eve of the stressed-out singer’s first headlining arena tour, it’s meant to be a poke in the side to a music business who take innovative artists and suck them dry of authenticity.
Folks unfamiliar with Charli XCX may want to check out her songs, like “Von Dutch’s” brash electronic pop, and her Wikipedia page or otherwise be baffled by references to Brat Summer and the color lime green.
In short, the movie takes place in the aftermath of Charli XCX’s sixth studio album “Brat.” Not just a title, it was a state of mind that celebrated a messy, unapologetic, hedonistic, party-girl lifestyle through bangers like “Girl, so confusing” (featuring Lorde).
“The Moment” begins as Charli XCX is having her moment. As she prepares for her biggest tour ever, the singer grapples with her record company’s expectations, exhaustion and loss of creative control. She feels the authentic cultural impact of Brat Summer is being commodified, or worse, might be slipping away. “Everybody’s waiting on the moment I fail,” she says.
The movie captures the Brat vibe. It’s messy, audacious, unapologetic and flawed.
Playing a heightened version of herself, Charli XCX finds some humor, humanity and a healthy dose of vulnerability in the tortured artist syndrome. She hands in a credible lead performance as a woman at a career crossroad, balancing the demands of her record label, a pushy film director (Alexander Skarsgård) and her management. She effectively portrays the fraying effect of fame as her creativity is commercialized and she is increasingly treated like a product rather than artist.
Her performance is aided by director Aidan Zamiri’s extreme up-close-and-personal photography. Her expressive face reveals much in these close-ups, particularly the pressure she feels to be effortlessly cool. The framing provides an interesting look at the woman behind the image and the work that goes into propagating the “Brat” image and allows the singer to let down her guard and reveal the often-insecure person behind the party image.
Skarsgård’s obsequious take on the director of the film-within-the-film provides several memorable, funny moments and raises obnoxiousness to stratospheric heights. His role of manipulative foil to Charli’s creative authenticity pushes the movie’s themes of artistic compromise to the fore.
Unfortunately, that is about as deep as “The Moment” gets.
Director Aidan Zamiri’s fondness for cinéma vérité style jiggly camera requires a dose of Dramamine as the story meanders repeatedly through the same plot points of artist manipulation and the stresses of leveling up.
“The Moment” is a movie with lots of extreme style desperate to say something about what happens when pop culture turns its eye on an artist, but the message gets bogged down by its own Brat style.
SYNOPSIS: In “Lee,” a new biopic now playing in theatres, Kate Winslet plays celebrated war correspondent and photographer Lee Miller. The fiercely independent former fashion model became a World War II correspondent for British Vogue, covering the London Blitz, the liberation of Paris, and the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau.
CAST: Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Andrea Riseborough, Andy Samberg, Noémie Merlant, Josh O’Connor, Alexander Skarsgård. Directed by Ellen Kuras.
REVIEW: As a reminder of the importance of journalism and photography, “Lee” contains several unforgettable moments. Recreations of her famous photographs dot the film.
Memorable images of an “unexploded bomb” sign stuck to a tree or a nurse’s underwear hung in a window to dry, mirror her innate visual style, one that combined artful composition with stark matter-of-fact journalism. “Even when I wanted to look away,” she says. “I knew I couldn’t.”
Perhaps Miller’s most famous photograph captured her in front of the camera.
In the iconic image, set up by Miller and taken by Life Magazine photographer David Scherman (Andy Samberg), she is topless, bathing in Adolph Hitler’s bathtub on April 30, 1945, the day Hitler killed himself. New Yorker writer Chris Wiley called it an “apt visual metaphor for the end of the war” and it remains a potent symbol of triumph against evil.
When the film focusses on Miller’s trailblazing work, as in the above examples, “Lee” shines.
Winslet is terrific as the fiercely committed photographer, but she is let down by a conventional set-up—an older Miller looking back on her life—and a tendency to drift from the character’s inner life to the story’s more mundane aspects.
“Lee” is a serviceable film, but it is nowhere near as remarkable as the woman whose story it tells.
“Infinity Pool,” the new horror film from director Brandon Cronenberg, now playing in theatres, takes place in the beach resort of your dreams… if you are prone to nightmares.
The action in “Infinity Pool” takes place against a sun-drenched all-inclusive beach resort in the fictional country of Li Tolqa. The exclusive, and very pricey, vacation spot offers a safe and secluded place for the wealthy to wine, dine and have fun. Imagine a kinkier “White Lotus.”
Just don’t go beyond the barbed wire gates.
That’s a lesson James (Alexander Skarsgård) and Em (Cleopatra Coleman) learn too late. He’s a writer, looking for inspiration; she is his wife, an heiress to a publishing fortune. Their lives take a turn when they meet Gabi (Mia Goth) and Al (Jalil Lespert), an adventurous couple who convince them to leave the compound for a beachside BBQ. “It’s one day,” James says. “Let’s mix things up a bit.”
Some grilled sausage and a graphic sex scene later, it’s night. Time to pile into the car and return to the resort. On the way James accidentally hits and kills a local man. Distraught, he wants to call the police.
“No police,” says Gabi. “Do you know anything about the police in Li Tolqa? This isn’t a civilized country. It’s brutal and it is filthy. We’re not getting picked up for this.”
They skedaddle, but soon enough the law catches up with them, questioning Em and arresting James for murder. After a night in jail, he is sentenced. “Here, the punishment for any crime committed is death.”
But even though Li Tolqa is an eye for an eye kind of place, the rules are different for wealthy tourists. By law someone must atone for the crime, but instead of putting James to death, they offer to make a clone of him. The replica will have his memories and will believe it is being killed for James’s crimes.
It is agreed the son of the dead man will even the score by killing the clone. Justice and vengeance will have been served. But there is a caveat. James and Em must watch the execution. After that, they’re free to go, with the clone’s ashes in hand. “Consider it a souvenir.”
Trouble is, James doesn’t want to leave.
“Infinity Pool” is a deep dive into depravity. Sensuality, violence and horror merge, as death becomes a spectator sport, sex becomes hallucinogenic as James becomes seduced by the hedonism of Li Tolqa and his new friends.
Fittingly, there is an unhinged quality to the filmmaking. In a story where anything could happen, and often does, director Brandon Cronenberg ups the debauchery with slick filmmaking, gorgeous cinematography from Karim Hussain and the kind of nihilism not seen since the days of Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games.”
By design it is an unpleasant movie, a Grand-Guignol commentary on the privilege of wealth and the evil men do. Blood—and other bodily fluids—spurt, cruelty is celebrated and the moral compass is left spinning. It is, in its reflection of the foulness of society, also kind of a singular cinematic experience.
We will see better performances this year, but I doubt that we will see two more committed performances than the ones handed in by Skarsgård and Goth. As James, Skarsgård has few boundaries, pushing the character to disturbing places. Goth is the personification of bored debauchery; a person who treats heartlessness as recreation.
“Infinity Pool’s” mix of sadism and satire will not be for everyone. The gratuitous grotesqueries on display will put many viewers off, but adventurous moviegoers may find something new and compelling in Cronenberg’s nightmarish vision.
Robert Eggers is an idiosyncratic filmmaker whose previous films, “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse,” have more in common with silent era movies and formal stage presentation than they do with the blockbusters that rule today’s box office. His latest, the violent Viking drama “The Northman,” now playing in theatres, has all the hallmarks of Eggers’ work, but despite the inclusion of old Norse language, mysticism and its occasionally psychedelic tone, it may be his most accessible movie yet.
When we first meet Amleth, the Viking warrior prince, played as a teen by Oscar Novak, as a muscle-bound adult by Alexander Skarsgård, it is the year AD895 somewhere in the North Atlantic. He is a child about to enter the line of succession to one day take over from his father, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke).
An unspeakable act of betrayal interrupts Aurvandill’s plans for the future, forcing Amleth to flee the only home he has ever known, leaving behind his mother Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman).
Years pass. Adult Amleth is now a fierce warrior with revenge on his mind. When the would-be prince and his band of berserkers ravage a village, the locals who survived the carnage are sold off as slaves. When Amleth learns the purchaser is the man who betrayed his father, he disguises himself as one of the prisoners with a plan to get close to the man who destroyed his life and family, and earn back his honor. “I will haunt this farm like a corpse returned from the grave,” he declares.
On the journey he meets Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy), a sorceress who becomes his ally and love interest. “You are still a beast cloaked on man flesh,” she tells him. His strength, she tells him, will break their bodies. Her cunning will break their minds.
Amleth’s journey is also a spiritual one, driven by mysticism and the words of a whispering seeress played by Björk. ““Remember for whom you shed your last teardrop,” she says, sending him off on his mission. Eggers seamlessly blends the supernatural and the nature until the lines blur into one trippy whole.
“The Northman” is based on the Scandinavian legend that influenced William Shakespeare‘s beloved “Hamlet.” It’s a familiar story of payback, violent, visceral and vengeance-filled, but Eggers’ singular vision, and fondness for pathetic fallacy, ancient symbolism and psychedelia, make it a singular experience.
And don’t forget the violence. So much violence.
Amleth chews one man’s neck, killing him in a memorably bloodthirsty fashion, and that is before the revenge story comes into play. Eggers amps up the brutality, shooting long scenes in unbroken wide shots that provide full few of the action. This ain’t Michael Bay’s frantic cut and paste. It’s full coverage, carefully orchestrated violence that drives home the brutality of the battles. It’s ferocious, audacious—check out the showdown at the Gates of Hel—if occasionally unpleasant, stuff.
It’s not all fun and bloody games, however. The storytelling gets bogged down from time to time and Amleth’s frequent vocalizing of his mission mandate—avenge his father, kill his uncle and rescue his mother—gets old after a while.
Having said that, “The Northman” more than delivers on the director’s pure, primal cinematic vision. To Valhǫll!
