I join CTV Atlantic’s Bruce Frisco to talk about the playful “Toy Story 5,” the grim historical drama “The Death of Robin Hood” and the supernatural horrors of “Leviticus.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join “CP24 Breakfast” hosts Nick Dixon and Jennifer Hsiung to talk about the playful “Toy Story 5” and the grim historical drama “The Death of Robin Hood.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I review “Toy Story 5” for ctvnews.ca: “By the time a franchise gets to the fifth instalment it’s usually a case of diminishing returns. The further you get from the source, the worse the movie. Luckily, “Toy Story 5” defies traditional wisdom, delivering a movie for the whole family that brims with heart and humour…” Read the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to brush your teeth. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the playful “Toy Story 5,” the grim historical drama “The Death of Robin Hood” and the supernatural horrors of “Leviticus.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Toy Story 5,” the new Pixar animated film now in theatres, eight-year-old Bonnie shifts from tradition toys to a newfangled tablet.
CAST: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Tony Hale, Annie Potts, John Ratzenberger, Wallace Shawn, Blake Clark, Keanu Reeves, Bonnie Hunt, Kristen Schaal, Ernie Hudson, Melissa Villaseñor, Greta Lee, Conan O’Brien, Craig Robinson, Shelby Rabara, Matty Matheson, Bad Bunny. Directed by Andrew Stanton.
REVIEW: By the time a franchise gets to the fifth instalment it is usually a case of diminishing returns. The further you get from the source, the worse the movie. Luckily, “Toy Story 5” defies traditional wisdom, delivering a movie for the whole family that brims with heart and humor.
The story revolves around lonely eight-year-old Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), the only kid on the block who still plays with toys, like the cowgirl rag doll Jessie (Joan Cusack) and superhero action hero Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen). The other kids spend their time on their screens and don’t have time for a girl who still plays with dolls.
Hoping to help her fit in, Bonnie’s parents (Lori Alan and Jay Hernandez) buy her a Lilypad (Greta Lee), a frog-shaped smart tablet that comes complete with games, chat rooms, social media and a very assertive attitude.
“Once tech enters your home,” says tech-phobic toy Dr. Nutcase (voiced by Matty Matheson), “it’s over.”
As Bonnie plays games and joins chat rooms on the device she spends less and less time with Jessie and the other toys.
“Extinction!” yelps Rex the dinosaur (Wallace Shawn). “Not again!”
With the help of a team of Buzz Lightyears and cowboy ragdoll Woody (Tom Hanks), who returns from rescuing abandoned toys, Jessie sets off to make sure Bonnie makes new friends, without forgetting about her toy pals.
“Playing games isn’t play,” Woody says.
“Toy Story 5” isn’t the old man of the franchise, yelling at tech to get off their lawn. Nor is it a story about the evils of tech. Instead, it’s a testament to the power of imagination.
It’s about screens vs. imagination and the joys that come when an unstructured young mind is allowed to run wild, to create and learn. But the screenplay, by Andrew Stanton and Kenna Harris, doesn’t dismiss the place of passive tech in the modern world, it simply favors playtime over screen time.
As a movie, “Toy Story 5” has a sense of play about itself. Like the best of Pixar, it tackles real world issues like on-line bullying, insecurity (“What if am I just no good at being a toy?” asks Jessie.), the value of childhood memories and what true friends are but does so in a way that never feels maudlin. Director Stanton keeps things lively, pulling fun voice work from the returning cast, plus new additions like Conan O’Brien who has a blast voicing Smarty Pants, a toilet training tablet, and inserting some self-aware jokes, like depicting Woody, presumably the oldest of the toys, with a bald spot.
Add to that, beautiful cinematic visuals, with state-of-the-art 3D computer animation embellished with a lovely, handcrafted look for the imagination scenes, and you have a fine addition to the “Toy Story” franchise, rich in timely themes of the effects of tech on blossoming minds but never preachy or pedantic.
I join CHUM-FM’s Marilyn Denis and David Corey to talk about “Toy Story 5,” “The Odyssey” and why people are going back to the movies!
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
See video HERE!
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.
