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.”
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.”
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.”
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.
I joined CTV NewsChannel anchor Roger Peterson to have a look at new movies coming to theatres, including the pandemic drama “Eddington,” the smurfy “Smurfs” and the legacy sequel “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”
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 pandemic drama “Eddington,” the smurfy “Smurfs” and the legacy sequel “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”
SYNOPSIS: Set in a small, dusty New Mexico town, the satirical neo-Western “Eddington,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal and now playing in theatres, sees a humiliated man pushed to extremes in the early days of the pandemic.
CAST: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Austin Butler, and Emma Stone. Written and directed by Ari Aster.
REVIEW: No one will accuse writer-director Ari Aster of a lack of ambition. “Eddington” throws a handful of genres—neo-Western, political satire, dark comedy, and thriller—into a blender to tell a chaotic story of the early pandemic era. At 145 minutes Aster digs deep into a specific time in the summer of 2020 when the world was turned up-side down by COVID, social distancing, George Soros conspiracy theories, Bitcoin, post truth and any other number of hot button topics. It was a time of ideological whiplash that Aster essays in a film that addresses those powder-keg topics without completely lighting the fuse.
Joaquin Phoenix is Joe Cross, sheriff of the sleepy little town of Eddington, New Mexico and husband to Louise (Emma Stone), a complex woman who suffers from anxiety. Her fragile mental state is exacerbated by her mother Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), a conspiracy obsessed who never met a bit of misinformation she couldn’t embrace.
Joe’s anti-mask stance—”There’s no COVID-19 in Eddington,” he says—puts him in conflict with Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), Eddington’s incumbent mayor now running for re-election.
As outside influences take hold in Eddington, anti-racist protests break out on their lone main drag in response to the death of George Floyd, and calls to de-fund the police ring in Joe’s ears.
As Joe and Ted’s personal and professional animosities grow, the sheriff takes matters into his own hands and announces his bid to run for mayor. With slogans like “Joe Cross for Air! Joe Cross for Mayor!” and “Try No Corruption for a Change,” Joe’s run at public office leads him to down a dangerous and deadly path.
The action described above plays out against a background of news and social media reports of the turbulent social, political, and economic climate that were the earmarks of the era, adding to the film’s unsettled feel.
Unlike most Westerns, even recent neo-Westerns, this isn’t a story of good guys vs. bad guys. In “Eddington,” everyone is morally ambiguous, and while you may like some characters over others, all are damaged, driven by ego, selfishness, greed or ideology.
As Sheriff Joe, Phoenix is a weak man in a job that requires strength and decisiveness, qualities that seem foreign to him until he is pushed up against a wall. A flip on the usual, stoic main figure in a typical Western, this is a guy whose character flaws make up his character. Phoenix isn’t afraid to make him pathetic, and in doing so, delivers another interesting, edgy performance. He’s a walking metaphor, an emasculated man emblematic of the fears and concerns that defined the uncertain, divisive summer of 2020.
He’s a complex guy, an attribute that can’t be said of any of the film’s other characters.
As the smooth-talking mayor, Pascal’s laid-back performance is an antidote to the film’s intensity, but the character doesn’t give him much room to maneuver. Ditto Emma Stone, whose limited screen time reveals a committed performance but little else.
On the plus side, “Eddington” is a confrontational experience, a provocative recreation of the unsettling chaos of the pandemic years and its effect on humanity. On the debit side of the leger, Aster’s reluctance to dig beneath the film’s unsettled surface puts a dull edge on the film’s satire.
LOGLINE: The 1960s set “The Bikeriders,” a new drama starring Jodie Comer, Austin Butler and Tom Hardy, and now playing in theatres, is about the rise and descent into lawlessness of The Vandals, a motorcycle club founded as a surrogate family for its members.
CAST: Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist, and Norman Reedus. Written and directed by Jeff Nichols.
REVIEW: “The Bikeriders,” based on a 1967 photo-book of the same name by Danny Lyon, wants to be an ode to individuality, but lacks the grit and spirit of rebellion required to feel authentic. It does do a good job of essaying the evolution of motorcycle clubs from groups of outsiders who didn’t belong anywhere—except with one another—their loyalty and camaraderie, to criminal organizations that used fear and illegality as currency.
As a timeline of how male bonding turned toxic within this subculture, the sociological history lesson is interesting, but director Jeff Nichols allows the biker aesthetic and posturing to overshadow the nitty gritty of biker gang life. It’s more effective in its portrayal of how this shift in culture affects the leader of the gang, Johnny, played by Tom Hardy. He becomes a tragic figure when he realizes his club is out of control, and legacy is not what he intended.
Using the chatty narration of Jodie Comer as Kathy, wife of the sensitive but rebellious rider Benny (Austin Butler), as a framework, Nichols injects a different and welcome point-of-view to the story. Biker movies often treat female characters as afterthoughts, but Kathy is the hub from which the story emanates. This is essentially a love story, a story of the platonic love between the bikers, and Kathy’s almost unquestioning love of wild child Benny. It’s a showcase for Comer and her plain-spoken mid-western accent, allowing the “Killing Eve” star to reveal the personality layers of someone who says, wistfully, “I used to be respectable.”
The episodic “The Bikeriders” plays it by the rules to tell a story about people who don’t.
After 2021’s “Dune” was relegated to the small screen in the wake of pandemic related theatre closings, this weekend, the long awaited “Dune Part 2” brings the thunder, debuting on screens suitable for the story’s epic scale. The sci fi saga starring, well, almost everyone, in a sprawling cast headed by Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and the giant sandworms who are literally and figuratively the film’s biggest stars, will play exclusively in theatres.
Wrestling novelist Frank Herbert’s expansive story of a psychedelic drug called Spice and reluctant messiah Paul Atreides, into a comprehensible movie has confounded filmmakers for decades. Most notably, David Lynch adapted the 1965 novel into a noble 1984 failure. The story is complex, with many characters and big, brainy concepts.
As a result, the spectacle of “Part 2,” on its own, isn’t for casual viewers. The last movie ended with Fremen warrior Chani (Zendaya) saying “This is only the beginning,” which means the new film isn’t a sequel, or a reboot. It’s a continuation, the second part of the story director Denis Villeneuve began in 2021, and to understand the story, you have to see the first film.
Equal parts action packed and philosophical, “Part Two” picks up where “Dune” left off. Set 8,000 years in the future, Atreides (Chalamet) son of an aristocratic family, and once heir to the planet of Arrakis, a desolate, almost inhabitable place, but rich in the lucrative, and psychedelic Spice, that is home to the Indigenous Fremen people.
Betrayed by Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), the former steward of Arrakis, the family is all but wiped out, with Atreides and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), left in the desert to die. If they are to survive it will be with the help of the Fremen—including Chani and Stilgar (Javier Bardem), leader of the Fremen tribe at Sietch Tabr—who call Atreides “The Chosen One” and believe he is a prophet with the power to bring peace to their world.
“Part 2” sees Atreides embedded with the Fremin in a mission of revenge against the House Harkonnen, the treacherous Baron, his sinister nephews, the brutish Beast Rabban (Dave Bautista) and Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), who Atreides holds responsible for the death of his father. Fighting gallantly alongside the Fremin, he’s mostly unconcerned with their belief that he is their messiah. His feelings for Chanti and his thirst for creating a conflict that will place him within striking distance of Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken), his daughter Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), and Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother and the Emperor’s Truthsayer, Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling), are top of mind.
As the reckoning approaches, Atreides is plagued by terrible visions of the future.
There is so much more, but that is essentially the peg on which Villeneuve hangs his epic vision of Herbert’s tale. The director gives voice to the author’s study of vengeance, spirituality, fanaticism, liberation and conquest, articulating the story’s humanist nuances in the framework of a film that can only be described as a spectacle. It’s a bigger, wilder vision, an answer to the stately elegance of the first film.
The action sequences fill the screen. Villeneuve overwhelms the senses with grand images of desert warfare and Atreides sand surfing courtesy of giant “grandfather sand worms.” It’s blockbuster filmmaking writ large, exciting and laced with high stakes. Perfect for IMAX screens.
But the action sequences wouldn’t mean much if the film’s world building and characters didn’t set the stage. Arrakis is a sand swept hell, so immersive you’ll think you have sand in your underpants by the time the end credits roll. The vision of the planet is aided considerably by Greig Fraser’s gorgeous cinematography.
The devil, though, is in the details. On an arid planet, the Fremin syphon water from the bodies of their vanquished enemies to use in their cooling systems. Minutiae like this, and more, give the story depth, creating an exciting world for the characters to inhabit.
The stacked cast of a-listers deliver. Chalamet’s character comes of age on his hero’s journey, shedding any boyish traits Atreides may have had, to become a worm riding warrior and leader of armies.
Also making a mark is Butler as the eyebrow-challenged Feyd-Rautha (the part played by Sting in the Lynch’s adaptation). He maintains the rock star swagger of Elvis, his best-known role, but brings the danger as the sadistic nephew and heir.
It’s good stuff that showcases Villeneuve prowess, even if it feels rushed in its last act.
What Villeneuve isn’t good at, are endings. His first “Dune” film left audiences hanging, finishing up with no definitive ending. The end of “Dune Part 2” doesn’t dangle in quite the same way, but tensions are still unfolding as the end credits roll. Looks like we’ll have a “Part 3” coming in a couple years.
Despite the open-ended conclusion, however, “Dune Part 2,” with its stunning visuals, deep emotional core and good performances, suggests “Part 3” will be worth the wait.
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.”
