Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to do a high five! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the genre defying “Sinners,” the immersive documentary “One to One: John & Yoko” and the rom dramedy “The Wedding Banquet.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Scott Hirsch to talk about the genre defying “Sinners,” the immersive documentary “One to One: John & Yoko” and the rom dramedy “The Wedding Banquet.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “The Wedding Baquet,” a new romantic dramedy starring Bowen Yang and Lily Gladstone, and now playing in theatres, two couples come up with an unusual arrangement. Lee (Lily Gladstone) and Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) are trying to have a baby but can’t afford another round of IVF treatment. Their landlords, Min (Han Gi-chan), whose student visa is set to expire, and Chris (Bowen Yang), his commitment-phobe boyfriend, are having a rocky patch. Min wants to get married, but Chris is hesitant. In exchange for the money for more IVF Angela agrees to a marriage of convenience with Min, who’ll then get his Green Card. The plan is complicated when Min’s rich grandmother (“Minari” Oscar-winner Youn Yuh-jung), who doesn’t know Min is gay, unexpectedly arrives for a visit. “If my grandmother thinks your marrying me for money,” Moin says, “she’ll blow the whole thing up.”
CAST: Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, Han Gi-chan, Joan Chen, Youn Yuh-jung. Directed by Andrew Ahn who co-wrote the script with James Schamus.
REVIEW: A modern update of Ang Lee’s 1993 Oscar-nominated film of the same name, the new movie features all the standard rom com flourishes. There’s the usual miscommunications, physical comedy and romantic antics but they are tempered by emotion that elevates “The Wedding Banquet” from rom com to, if not drama, at least a low-key dramedy, heavy on the poignant moments.
The tonal switches are made believable by a talented cast. The scenes between Lee and Angela, Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran, have a warm, lived-in feel that reveals their deep connection. Ditto the connection between Angela and her mother (Joan Chen). It’s a shame we don’t get more scenes of the dynamic between mother and daughter.
Best of all is a late movie scene between Min and his grandmother, played by Youn Yuh-jung. Youn brings warmth, humour and understanding to a scene that could easily have slipped into melodrama.
“The Wedding Banquet” nicely updates the original’s (which Schamus co-wrote) take on the modern vs. the traditional and does so with a great deal of heart. It winds up with a rushed ending, but rom coms, even ones with a serious edge, are never about the destination. We know how these movies will end. They’re about the journey and “The Wedding Banquet” is a fun ride.
SYNOPSIS: Set before Dorothy Gale blew into the Land of Oz, “Wicked,” the first half of the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, chronicles the unlikely friendship between Shiz University—Where knowledge meets magic!—students Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo), before she became the Wicked Witch of the West, and Galinda Upland (Ariana Grande-Butera), who later becomes Glinda the Good Witch of the North. “Are people born wicked,” asks Glinda, “or do they have wickedness thrust on them?”
CAST: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande-Butera, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, Keala Settle, and Peter Dinklage. Directed by Jon M. Chu.
REVIEW: A big, bold and brassy reimagination of the fifth longest-running show in Broadway history is an origin story that pays tribute to the beloved stage show, but also brews up its own cinematic vibe.
Fans of the show will be pleased to know the themes that made “the untold story of the witches of Oz” so popular have been maintained. As the fairy tale unfolds, it reveals commentary on identity, privilege and control woven into the story of Elphaba and Galinda’s friendship and the climatic showdown with Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) and the (not-so) Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum).
Elphaba is kind, intelligent and honest but suffers society’s slings and arrows because she looks and behaves differently than the norm. “I don’t cause a commotion,” she says. “I am one.”
She is the green-skinned outsider, misjudged by everyone from her father (Andy Nyman) to the student body of Shiz University who openly laugh at her. With powerhouse vocals (even when she’s singing a duet with a goat) Erivo guides the character along a journey from innocence to a certain kind of jadedness as she learns how the world really works. In doing so, facing racism and persecution, Elphaba, a character who is very specific to the story, turns into a universal avatar for the misunderstood.
When Madame Morrible strips her of her name, dubbing her the Wicked Witch, she is villainized by a powerful bully, but finds strength in that adversity.
Erivo’s intensity is countered by Grande-Butera’s bubbly, hair-flipping comedic take on the spoiled Galinda. “Something is wrong,” she says with wide-eyed wonder. “I didn’t get my way.” Her vocals soar, but it is the chemistry she shares with Erivo and the glittery gusto with which she attacks the role that is memorable.
Thematically and performance wise, “Wicked” gets it right. The beloved mix of lighter songs, emotional numbers and power ballads are expertly and lovingly rendered, and director Jon M. Chu fills the screen with constant movement and elaborate set design, but at 2 hours and 40 minutes—that just five minutes shy of the entire stage show’s runtime, including intermission—the movie feels overstuffed. Several scenes are overlong and over designed, despite Chu’s enthusiastic direction, as though the film is a little too in love with its own iconography.
In other words, Ain’t no rest for the “Wicked.”
Still, by the time “Wicked: Part One” gets to its finale, Elphaba’s transformation into the Wicked Witch and the rousing version of the show’s signature song, “Defying Gravity,” blows off whatever dust may have accumulated. It’s a showstopper that literally brings the curtain down until part two drops in theatres on November 21, 2025.
I joined BNN Bloomberg to talk about the weakest Memorial Day long weekend in nearly three decades.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
LOGLINE: Lasagna-loving, comic-strip cat Garfield returns to the big screen with a new voice, courtesy of Chris Pratt, and a new adventure. After being abandoned by his street cat father Vic (Samuel L. Jackson) as a kitten, the orange tabby leads a life of leisure with easy-going Jon (Nicholas Hoult) and canine best friend Odie. When Vic reappears, Garfield and Odie leave the lasagna behind to embark on a risky, high-stakes heist.
CAST: Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames, Nicholas Hoult, Cecily Strong, Harvey Guillén, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, Snoop Dogg.
REVIEW: “The Garfield Movie” is a big, action-packed (and product placement heavy) movie that doesn’t really feel like a Garfield movie. It’s a big, colorful action-adventure that will entertain kids, make their eyeballs spin and inspire a giggle or three, but the essence of the character, the sardonic, lazy cat with an obsession for sleeping, has been set aside in favor of a lively, fun character who has little to do with what made the comic-strip popular in the first place.
The new Garfield loses the simplicity of the strip, instead, filling the screen with rapid fire gags and frenetic action. The animation, which feels like a cross between computer generated and the comic-strip, offers up expressive character faces and fun voice work, particularly from Waddingham, who takes a generic villain character and gives her some oomph.
Aside from the father-and-son story, which touches on the importance of family, screenwriters Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove and David Reynolds keep it simple, sentimental and predictable.
“The Garfield Movie” will likely have little appeal for anyone over the age of 10, but has a silly sense of mischief that the younger members of the family may enjoy.
Were it not for the explicit language, X-rated songs and a pair of monstrous puppets called The Sewer Boys, “Dicks: The Musical,” a raunchy new movie now playing in theatres, could have been a 1960s sitcom style family comedy about a pair of twins who conspire to get their estranged parents back together.
Instead, it’s a no-holds-barred ode to the likes of John Waters, attempting to find that sweet spot between shock and awe.
Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson are Craig and Aaron, two high-powered salespeople who meet for the first time when their company Vroomba! merges their two offices into one. They’re alpha males, sharks in tight suits and ultracompetitive, but one musical number later, they realize they share a birthday, looks and goals. They are long separated twins, one raised by their mother Evelyn (Megan Mullally), the other by father Harris (Nathan Lane). They concoct a plan to be a family again, to bring their parents back together, despite the fact that Evelyn keeps her winged genitals (you read that right) in a purse and Harris is gay and keeps The Sewer Boys, two toxic creatures he found in the NYC sewer, in a cage as his children.
“We didn’t realize being lied to your entire lives would be so upsetting,” says Harris.
Cue a barrage of crude jokes and a series of show tunes with double entendre titles like, “I’ll Always Be on Top” and “Love in All Its Forms” (“All love is gross/But all love is love.”) as this unconventional family discovers how to love again.
Originated as a two-hander theatre piece by Upright Citizens Brigade members Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson, “Dicks: The Musical” feels like an attempt at a Midnight Madness movie, but is more outrageous than actually funny. There are amusing moments, mostly courtesy of Mullally and Lane, who understand, unlike Sharp and Jackson, that not every line has to be delivered with the annoying enthusiasm of Woody Woodpecker in the midst of an amphetamine binge.
When Evelyn says, “I’m dumbfounded and flummoxed,” Harris sharply shoots back, “Those were always your best qualities.” It’s a classic set-up and response that raises a laugh because it is character based and delivered with panache. Unfortunately, the rest of the material is dispensed at a fever pitch, like a manic children’s show television host, creating a white noise that becomes tiresome early on.
“Dicks: The Musical” was probably a blast as a half-hour underground cabaret show, but on the big screen it feels stretched paper thin. For all its surrealist affectation, envelope pushing and yes, even blasphemy, it’s never as shocking as it wants to be.
A fable that pits ego against ambition, acceptance against insecurity, “The Monkey King” is a new animated Netflix film starring the voices of comedian Jimmy O. Yang and Bowen Yang.
Based on a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming Dynasty attributed to Wu Cheng’en, the film centers around The Monkey King (Jimmy O. Yang), a rebellious monkey born from a magical rock. Filled with an exaggerated sense of self-worth, his ego has alienated him from friends and family.
“An old geezer once told me, ‘You don’t belong here,’” he says. “And he was right. I belong with the Immortal ones. I’ll become legendary and then they’ll have to accept me.”
Trouble is, to get the attention of the Immortals, led by the Jade Emperor (Hoon Lee), he’ll have to defeat at least 100 demons.
“One hundred demons,” he says, “coming up!”
Despite being told by his elder (James Sie) to, “know your place, young one,” the braggadocious warrior sets off with a rallying call of “Anyone need a hero?” On his journey to find immortality he looks to the duplicitous Dragon King (Bowen Yang) for help, does battle with Red Girl (Sophie Wu), gets his mighty fighting stick and meets his trusty (but underappreciated) sidekick Lin (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport). “Whatever the Monkey King does,” he says, “I do big!”
“The Monkey King” is a big action-adventure, one that moves at the speed of light, filled to wild battle scenes and slapstick humor. But at its heart, it is the story of a search for family, approval and a sense of belonging. The titular character is driven to fighting demons—literal and personal—as a way to assuage his feelings of seclusion from his peers who wouldn’t accept him for who he is. It provides the film’s emotional core, even if the movie’s unrelentingly frenetic pace threatens to overwhelm the message. A film that is all peaks and very few valleys, needs a moment or two of introspection. A few more heartfelt scenes between the Monkey King and Lin could have slowed the action, but upped the emotional impact.
The story feels episodic and, despite featuring characters that have endured since the Ming Dynasty, a tad generic in its animated form. Director Anthony Stacchi pumps it up with vibrant animation and production design that mixes familiar CGI art with flavorings of traditional Chinese brushwork, a couple fun Broadway style musical numbers and a collection of voice actors that bring the characters to life, but it reverberates with echoes of similar movies like “Emperor’s New Groove.”
“The Monkey King” has laughs and gags, mostly for young viewers, and diverting well-choreographed martial arts scenes, but offers very little new stuff in its retelling of an old tale.
“I’m not the person to write a romcom,” says Billy Eichner as the acerbic Bobby in “Bros,” the first major studio LGBTQ+ rom-com to play exclusively in theatres.
It’s a meta line in a movie that is both subversive and cliched. Star, co-writer and producer Eichner has melded frank sexuality with rom con conventions to create a funny, sincere movie that kicks the celluloid closet door wide open.
Eichner, the former host of the guerilla-style talk show “Billy on the Street,” plays Bobby, a gay, commitment-adverse podcaster. “I’m like whatever happened to Evan Hanson,” he says.
For Bobby random and anonymous Grindr hook-ups are a way of life until he spots handsome Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) in a club. At first, they appear to be polar opposites. “I don’t think he’s my type,” says Bobby. “He’s like a gay Tom Brady.”
But soon their mutual fear of commitment brings is the glue that bonds them. “Maybe we can be emotionally unavailable together,” Bobby says.
The confirmed bachelor who meets his partner is a standard rom com set-up. “My whole life, I prided myself on being self-reliant,” says Bobby, “but this *bleeper* has gotten into my head.”
But this story about the difficulty of dating is given a facelift by a meta joke about writing a gay rom com and the addition of steroids, thruples, a hat shaped like the Stonewall Inn and extensive use of Grindr.
“Bros” has echoes of “When Harry Met Sally” and “You’ve Got Mail” throughout. It’s a pure rom com from the nice apartments, New York City backdrop and the trademarked Drew Barrymore Misunderstanding That Leads to a Temporary Break-up©. You know where the story is going, but rom coms are not about the destination, they’re about the journey and, “Bros” is a fun trip.
Eichner layers this story of self-acceptance and love-at-first-sight with laugh-out-loud jokes, an unexpectedly caustic cameo from Debra Messing and heartfelt observational humor. It embraces the innate vulnerability and complexity of Aaron and Bobby’s exploration of masculinity and queerness without forgetting the funny.
But just as it makes you laugh, Eichner subverts the form with some more introspective moments. As a gay man with aspirations to chronicle his community, Bobby has a long, earnest monologue about waiting for the world to catch up with him.
“Bros” is a queer rom com; a subversive, new, crowd-pleasing take on a Hollywood staple.
