I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift”for Booze & Reviews! This week we have a look at how the apocalyptic “Rumours,” starring Cate Blanchett and Alicia Vikander, poke fun at self-serving politicians and suggest some poli-cocktaiols to enjoy while watching the movie.
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less than a New York Minute! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the horror flick “Smile 2,” the Michael Keaton drama “Goodrich” and the political satire “Rumours.”
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to do a handstand! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the drama “We Live in Time,” the satire “Rumours” and the edgy family film “Bookworm.”
I sit in with hosts Jim Richards and Deb Hutton on NewsTalk 1010 to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” This week we talk about the drama “We Live in Time,” the satire “Rumours” and the family flick “Bookworm.”
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the bonkers horror film “Smile 2,” the drama “We Live in Time,” the satire “Rumours” and the Michael Keaton flick “Goodrich.”
“Blue Bayou,” a new immigration drama starring Justin Chon and Alicia Vikander, tells a fictional, but all-too-true, story that is sincere but heavy-handed.
Written, directed and starring Chon, the story takes place in the Louisiana bayou. Chon plays the Korean-born Antonio LeBlanc, adopted by an American family when he was three. Now married to Kathy (Vikander) he’s raising step-daughter Jessie (Sydney Kowalske) with another child on the way.
A loping Cajun twang disguises the anxiety he feels with a new baby coming but not enough money coming in. His two felonies make it tough to find extra work, and his job as a tattoo artist does not cover the bills. Still, the family is happy, even if Jessie is concerned Antonio, the self-proclaimed “fun” parent, won’t spend time with her when the new baby arrives.
A little spat between Kathy and Antonio in a grocery escalates when Ace, a cop and her ex-husband, and his violent partner (Emory Cohen) get involved. Antonio is arrested. When Kathy attempts to pay his bail, she’s told, matter-of-factly, “He’s not here anymore. ICE took him.”
Seems his adoptive parents didn’t follow the proper procedures to make him a citizen, and now, after thirty years in America he may have to return to a country he doesn’t remember.
“I understand your frustration,” says the lawyer (Vondie Curtis-Hall) the couple hire but can’t afford. “Depart voluntarily,” he continues, “and have a chance to get back in. You can fight, but if you lose, you can never come back.”
“I’m not leaving my family,” Antonio replies.
“Blue Bayou” has much going for it. Chon has a poetic eye for visuals and frames the hot button story nicely. There are enough details about the family to make us care about them and Antonio’s backstory adds some mystery to the proceedings. The chemistry between the core group—Antonio, Kathy and Jessie—feels genuine—Kowalske is a real find—and, as the immigration situation spins out of control, we’re along for the ride. But as the story gets heavier, so does the story-telling. Like leaden.
Chon’s characters are so compelling and much of the tale so heartfelt, that it’s a disappointment when the movie turns to melodrama in its final third. Nuance goes out the window and the quiet naturalism of the first half disappears. Add to that a villain in the form of Cohen’s bad cop character who seems to have wandered in from a British pantomime and you’re left with a case of the let-downs.
“Blue Bayou” details a very important, and for many people, very personal story, but falls victim to ham-fisted storytelling.
“The Green Knight,” a new medieval fantasy film now playing in theatres, reaches back to Arthurian legend and a fourteenth century poem for its hero’s journey.
Based on the poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” the movie stars Dev Patel as King Arthur’s nephew and Knight of the Round Table, Sir Gawain. The young man is headstrong and rash but, despite his bravado, he says, “I fear I am not meant for greatness.”
The young knight sees a chance to prove his mettle when the Green Knight (Ralph Ineson), a larger-than-life, green skinned “tester of men,” throws down a challenge to King Arthur. “O greatest of kings, let one of your knights try and land a blow against me,” he says. “Indulge me in this game.”
Gawain impulsively accepts, charging at the stranger, removing his head with one blow.
But the challenge isn’t over.
Picking his own head up off the floor, the Green Knight mocks Gawain, commanding him to meet again in one year’s time at a cursed place, the Green Chapel, to finish their duel. As the headless adversary gallops off, Gawain’s quest to test his prowess begins. The journey to the Green Chapel is a dangerous adventure, fraught with supernatural forces, betrayal and challengers who will test the strength of his character.
“What do you hope to gain from all of this?” he is asked. “Honour,” Gawain replies. “That is why a knight does what he does.”
Calling “The Green Knight” an adventure implies that it is also exciting. It has all the earmarks of an old school “Lord of the Rings” style adventure story—there are trippy giants, a talking fox, a headless woman and more—but exciting it is not.
Director David Lowery has made a cerebral movie about finding one’s true path in life through trials and temptations. His retelling of the classic poem is dense, deliberate and often beautiful. But just as often it is willfully obtuse as it gets lost in the surreal deconstruction of Gawain’s journey. As a result, the film is oft times more interesting than actually entertaining.
Near the end of the film Gawain asks, “Is this all there is?” Oddly enough, life imitated art in that moment as I found myself wondering the same thing.
“The Glorias,” now on VOD/Digital, is an ambitious retelling of the life of a trailblazer. Women’s-rights icon Gloria Steinem has led such a multi-faceted life it takes four people to play her over the course of the film.
Based on Steinem’s 2015 memoir “My Life on the Road,” the story is told on a broken timeline that uses a bus metaphor to shift through the various aspects of Steinem’s life. From life as a child (played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong) with a transient salesman father whose optimistic motto is, “You don’t know what will happen tomorrow. It could be wonderful,” and former journalist mother Ruth (Enid Graham) to rebellious teen (Lulu Wilson) to magna cum laude graduate and journalist () who went undercover (Alicia Vikander) at Playboy Club to adult activist Gloria (Julianne Moore), the film offers a detailed if somewhat fragmented look at a remarkable life.
To tell the tale director Julie Taymor uses a variety of vibrant colour palettes, newsreel footage, animation, some theatrical techniques—adult Steinem gives advice to her younger self on the aforementioned bus—and biographical notes. Larger than life characters like social activist Bella Abzug (Bette Midler), businessperson and co-founder of Ms. Magazine Dorothy Pitman Hughes (Janelle Monáe) and Lorraine Toussaint as lawyer, feminist, activist Flo Kennedy are brought to vivid life, helping to establish a sense of time and place for a story that hop scotches through time.
“The Glorias” isn’t a standard biopic, but it also isn’t as radical as its subject. It’s an artfully arranged greatest hits package of a remarkable and influential life that dilutes its impact by trying to cover eighty of Steinem’s years. Nonetheless, the four performances fit so neatly together to form a whole that we see Steinem’s growth as she evolves into the person who made history.
Unsurprisingly “Euphoria,” the new end of life drama starring Alicia Vikander and Eva Green and now on VOD, is a rather lifeless affair.
Not to be confused with the Zendaya television series of the same name, which positively sparkles with energy, this dreary story sees estranged sisters Emilie (Green) Ines (Vikander) looking grim for the entirety of the movie’s ninety-five-minute run time. In fact, using the title “Euphoria” on this movie may be the most ironic thing to happen in 2020, and that is saying something.
The “action” centers around the euthanasia clinic run by Marina (Charlotte Rampling), where Emilie, in the late stages of cancer, has chosen to end her life. Lush and lavish, the facility is essentially a five-star hotel, where rich people curate their deaths much the way Influencers curate their lives on Instagram. Bands are hired to play at the going away party for one resident (Charles Dance) who wants to dance his life away while others choose less ostentatious but equally expensive exits.
It soon becomes clear the sisters have little in common except shared DNA. The two attempt a reconciliation but a decade old slight—Ines took off to travel the world after their parent’s divorce, leaving Emilie to pick up the pieces of their mother’s shattered life—has left a deep wound. The argue and throw food at one another before embracing the inevitable, the tolling of the bell (literally a bell rings at a guest’s time of death) for Emile.
It’s a pity “Euphoria” isn’t a better movie. Director Lisa Langseth fills the screen with interesting images and, in Ines and Emile, has two characters ripe with possibility. She’s chosen a serious subject to explore, and has good actors but they are forced to chatter their way through difficult situations while never showing us anything new or interesting.
Assisted death is an issue ripe for drama and yet the movie sidesteps every opportunity for depth with the kind of fake solemnity favored by undertakers.
I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift”for Booze & Reviews! This week we have a look at how the apocalyptic “Rumours,” starring Cate Blanchett and Alicia Vikander, poke fun at self-serving politicians and suggest some poli-cocktaiols to enjoy while watching the movie.
