I join the CTV NewsChanel to talk about the Lucy Liu heartbreaker “Rosemead,” the historical drama “The Choral” and the family dynamics of “Father Mother Sister Brother” and the feelgood divorce movie “Is This Thing On?”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
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 Lucy Liu heartbreaker “Rosemead,” the historical drama “The Choral” and the family dynamics of “Father Mother Sister Brother.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: “Father Mother Sister Brother,” a new anthology film directed by Jim Jarmusch starring Adam Driver and Cate Blanchett, and now playing in theatres, is a tryptic of stories about awkward family relationships in the United States, Ireland and France.
CAST: Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps, Sarah Greene, Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat. Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch.
REVIEW: Three stories united by the theme of family dynamics, “Father Mother Sister Brother” is a quiet, well-observed portmanteau centered around the mysterious nature of the connection between parent and child and family secrets.
In the film’s opening segment, “Father,” siblings Jeff (Adam Driver) and Emily (Mayim Bialik) travel to the rural Northeast U.S. to visit their estranged father (Tom Waits). Concerned about his finances since the death of their mother, Jeff brings along an expensive box of groceries, but unanswered questions arise when Emily notices her father is wearing an expensive Rolex watch. “You’ve always been my favorite son,” father says to Jeff. “Well, I’m you’re only son.”
In “Mother,” the film’s second story, sisters Lilith (Vicky Krieps) and Timothea (Cate Blanchett) make their annual pilgrimage to spend an afternoon with their secretive novelist mother (Charlotte Rampling). An undercurrent of tension silently hangs over their visit as the sisters compete for their mother’s attention as many secrets are left unsaid. “I’m very happy to see you on one hand,” says mother, “ but I have to keep you from stirring things up.”
The movie wraps with the Paris-set “Sister Brother.” Adult twins Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) confront the fragility of life when they return to their parent’s apartment in the aftermath of a family tragedy. “Each moment is each moment,” says Billy.
Quiet, melancholy and tinged with a bittersweet quality, “Father Mother Sister Brother” is a film where the things left unsaid are as important as the things the characters say.
It isn’t conventional drama. Conflicts exist but are put on simmer as writer and director Jim Jarmusch leaves space around the characters and situations, so the stories breathe. It allows the audience to be present, to catch the nuances of the terrific performances from Driver, Waits, Blanchett, and Rampling. The subtle slights, the gentle comedy and embrace of the mundane are seemingly unassuming but sharpened to a fine point in the hands of these actors who understand the exceptional ordinariness of the film’s situations.
What “Father Mother Sister Brother” lacks in fireworks, it makes up for in introspection. It may be too slow for viewers expecting family drama writ large, but the various awkward interactions on display will certainly ring bells for many theatre goers.
SYNOPSIS: In “Black Bag,” a new thriller from director Steven Soderbergh, and now playing in theaters, Michael Fassbender plays a methodical spy who must choose between his country and his wife when a dangerous device is stolen, and she is a prime suspect.
CAST: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, and Pierce Brosnan. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp.
REVIEW: “What’s on the menu?” asks Kathryn Woodhouse (Cate Blanchett) asks her husband George (Fassbender) at the film’s start.
“Fun and games,” he replies, and he ain’t lying.
Like John le Carré meets “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “Black Bag” is a dialogue driven spy drama fueled by star power rather than fire power.
Steven Soderbergh, working from a script by his frequent collaborator David Koepp, creates a stylish, slick and suspenseful London-based thriller where people say cool spy things like, “This ends with someone in the boot of a car.”
At the helm is Fassbender. A master spy and happily married man, he’s a buttoned-down character in the John le Carré mode. He’s not a James Bond style bruiser. He’s reserved, a cold fish who once even put his own father under surveillance, concerned only with data and gathering cold hard facts. After one eventful dinner with all his suspects he says, “That was the rock, now I watch the ripples.”
Still, he generates heat in his scenes with Blanchett. They’re both spies, and as such, live in a world where there are secrets and not everything is what it seems to be. Their cat and mouse relationship is effervescent, providing sex appeal, domestic drama and intrigue as the limits of loyalty are tested. Their relationship just may give new meaning to the term, “I would die for you.”
A strong supporting cast—“Industry’s” Marisa Abela, “Mank’s” Tom Burke, “No Time to Die’s” Naomie Harris, “Bridgerton’s” Regé-Jean Page and Pierce Brosnan—add much but the real star here is Soderbergh and his crisp, fast paced and stylish filmmaking. Offset by a chic electrojazz score by David Holmes (who also scored “Out of Sight” and the “Ocean’s” trilogy), “Black Bag” slowly untangles its web of deception and keeps you guessing until the end.
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.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: “Borderlands,” a new sci fi action comedy based on the video game series of the same name, prompted me to write words you don’t often see in the same sentence: Cate Blanchett, action star. The two-time Academy Award winner plays ruthless bounty hunter Lilith in a post-apocalyptic world, hired by the powerful president of a giant corporation (Edgar Ramírez) to track down his kidnapped daughter Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). The search leads her to the planet of Pandora, a wasteland at the edge of human civilization, home to monsters, “psychos” and a treasure trove of valuable alien technology.
CAST: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Bobby Lee, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis. Directed by Eli Roth.
REVIEW: It’s hard to know exactly who “Borderlands” is aimed at. It shares the bright and bold aesthetic from the video games that inspired it, but the tone is radically different. The lewd and crude video game, rated M for mature audiences, features mature humor, strong language, gushes of blood and decapitation. The PG13 rated movie, directed by Eli Roth, maker of splatter movies like “Cabin Fever” and “Hostel,” smooths down the video game’s rough edges, leaving behind a movie that is neither fan service or something new.
Of course, Blanchett pulls off the action hero role. She’s Cate Blanchett and can do anything. She could play a doorknob and it would be the greatest doorknob in cinema history. It’s just too bad the script requires her to spout recycled action movie platitudes.
Kevin Hart inspires a sense of déjà vu in his portrayal of warrior Roland. He’s likable, and earns some of the film’s few laughs, but his performance here is interchangeable with almost every other character he’s ever played on screen.
Fan favorite CL4P-TP, better known as Claptrap, the chatty, uni-wheeled cycloptic robot featured in the video games, is part of the gang of characters. Voiced by Jack Black, he’s like an annoying little brother who never knows when to shut up, and, who poops bullets.
“Borderlands” aims to be a good time at the movies, but by trying to appeal to a wider audience it betrays the source material, and falls flat.
“Pinocchio,” the wooden boy with a lie detector for a nose and dreams of becoming a real boy bouncing around his sawdusty brain, is one of the most reimagined characters in children’s literature. Earlier this year Tom Hanks starred in a traditional remake of the 138 year-old-story that echoed the classic Disney film.
The Oscar winning director of “The Shape of Water” takes the story in his own direction in “Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio,” a stop motion retelling, now playing in theatres and coming soon to Netflix. In what may be the only version of the story featuring a cameo by Mussolini, the movie travels a different, darker path than previous adaptations.
Del Toro keeps the original story’s Italian location, but places the action between World Wars I and II. Woodworker Geppetto (voiced by David Bradley) is a skilled artisan, lovingly teaching his young son Carlo the ropes of the craft while working on large crucifix at a local church. When Carlo is killed in a bombing raid, Geppetto spirals into despair and alcoholism.
While soothing his loss with booze, the heartbroken Geppetto cuts down an Italian pine tree near his late son’s grave and builds a roughhewn puppet as a replacement for his boy. Gangly, with a long nose, the puppet sits slumped in Geppetto’s workshop until a magical Wood Sprite (voice of Tilda Swinton) breathes life into him and appoints Sebastian J. Cricket (voice of Ewan McGregor), a mustachioed insect who lives inside the puppet, as his guide and conscience.
The rowdy newborn, dubbed Pinocchio (voice of Gregory Mann), doesn’t make a great first impression on Geppetto or the local townsfolk. But as Geppetto warms to him, the locals, including fascist government official Podestà (Ron Perlman), don’t quite know what to make of him.
“Everybody likes him,” says Pinocchio, pointing to the still under construction crucifix. “He’s made of wood too. Why do they like him and not me?”
As Pinocchio tries to figure out his place in the world, he soon discovers that not everyone has his best interests in mind.
This is not your parent’s “Pinocchio.” Del Toro sticks to the bones of author Carlo Collodi’s original plot, but expands the story with a deep dive into what it means to be human, mortality, the weight of expectation and the horrors of fascism. It doesn’t sound particularly family friendly, but while there are some intense, nightmarish images, this is a fairy tale in the Brothers Grimm tradition. It speaks to the issues surrounding growing up, whether you’re made of wood or flesh and blood, and should be fine for kids ten and up.
Visually spectacular, the stop motion animation gives the movie a more organic feel than it may have had if rendered in computer generated images. Rich in detail and imagination, the film’s style mixes and matches dreams with nightmares to create a palette that paints the fanciful and the earthbound in equal measure.
“Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio” does something remarkable. Just as the Wood Sprite breathed new life into Geppetto’s puppet, Del Toro breathes new life into a very familiar and often-told story. He is buoyed by fine voice work and visuals, but it is the auteur’s allegorical stamp that really brings this wooden boy to life.
Cate Blanchett gives a bravura performance in “Tár,” a new 158-minute cancel culture melodrama, disguised as art house fare.
Blanchett is Lydia Tár, the superstar maestro of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. As she prepares for a landmark recording of Mahler’s Fifth, she is exacting and demanding, on-stage and off. In other words, she is a bully, used to folks kowtowing to her genius.
She quietly belittles her assistant Francesca (Noémie Merlant), and unleashes a withering takedown of a Julliard student (Zethphan D. Smith-Gneist) whose crime was suggesting that Johann Sebastian Bach’s ribald personal life makes the composer unworthy of study.
In Berlin, when she isn’t putting the orchestra through their paces, she lives with partner Sharon (Nina Hoss), who happens to play violin in the orchestra, and stepdaughter Petra (Mila Bogojevic). At work she plays favorites with Olga (Sophie Kauer), a virtuoso cellist who rises through the ranks a little too quickly for the comfort of some of the other musicians.
Just as she is on the verge of major career milestones, a new memoir and the completion of her Mahler cycle of recordings, a crudely edited video of her Julliard lecture surfaces, alongside accusations of professional improprieties with a former colleague.
“Tár” places the emphasis on the wrong end of the story.
We can all imagine the high-flying part of Tár’s life. Images of limousines and private jets, of harried personal assistants and the hushed kind of respect that greeted her in the hallways of power, are all evidence of that.
What is far more compelling, but not as familiar, is the fall from grace. What happens when all you have worked for is taken away, gradually, then suddenly? That’s the real story and it’s the tale “Tár” doesn’t tell. Unfortunately, it spends two-plus hours on the other stuff, and gives a short shrift to the comeuppance in a way that is very unsatisfying.
Despite the imbalance in the story, “Tár” contains some breathtaking scenes, like the aforementioned Julliard sequence. Shot in one take, the scene is a show stopper for both Blanchett and cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister. That the beautiful one-shot take is later snipped into shards and reassembled, like pieces of a video puzzle, is a clever in-joke, and very effective.
The best part of “Tár” is an Oscar-bound Blanchett. In her hands Tár is an intimidator, whether it’s in her job, or at the playground as she browbeats her stepdaughter’s bully. She uses her power like a weapon to get what she wants and in Blanchett’s hands she is a character study of monster, a person cut loose from polite society. She says artists must “sublimate and obliterate” themselves for the art, and yet she is too much of a narcissist to take her own advice.
“Tár” has rewards for viewers patient enough to navigate the film’s poorly paced first hour. The revelation that power can breed monstrous behaviour isn’t new, but it is brilliantly brought to life by Blanchett.
Don’t go to “Nightmare Alley,” a remake of the 1947 Tyrone Power film noir, now playing in theatres, for the warm fuzzies. Guillermo Del Toro’s new movie is as cold and icy as the season in which it is being released. Any movie that begins with the burning of a corpse and ends, well, you’ll have to buy a ticket to find out, isn’t exactly geared to make your season bright, but film fans should find this to be a gift.
Set in the days leading up to World War II, the story begins as drifter-with-a-dangerous-past Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) takes a job at a travelling carnival. Paid a dollar a day plus a hot meal, he does grunt work, putting up the big top tent and doing physical labor.
His gift of the gab soon earns him a promotion, working as a barker for the theatrical mystic Zeena (Toni Collette) and her magician husband Pete (David Strathairn). Stan is a quick study, and becomes an expert on how to bilk folks out of their hard-earned cash.
Longing for something bigger, he takes his own mentalism act on the road with the help of assistant and love interest Molly (Rooney Mara). It’s all fake, the two communicate through a series of veiled verbal clues, but audiences eat it up. They are making money performing at upscale nightclubs, but the offer of doing private readings for prominent people comes with a price tag Stan can’t resist.
Del Toro is known is creating intricate worlds populated by amazing people and creatures but don’t expect a replay of “Pan’s Labyrinth” or his Best Picture Oscar winner “The Shape of Water.” There are no supernatural elements in “Nightmare Alley.” The monster here is Stan’s cold hard ambition.
Cooper is in slickster mode here, playing Stan as a smooth-talking manipulator whose bad deeds stack up like some sort of ethically challenged Jenga game. He is an enigma. Willing to do whatever it takes to survive. He is a flawed but coldly ambitious man whose eyes are always trained toward the future. It is his biggest asset and, ultimately, his downfall.
Cooper does a good job at exposing Stan’s layers. He’s a complicated character, an amoral seducer with a seemingly charming disposition and Cooper only allows brief peaks at his desperation and brutality.
As good as Cooper is, it’s Cate Blanchett as the femme fatale psychiatrist Lilith Ritter who steals the show. From her overpainted red lips and seductive nature to her quick intelligence and vulnerability, she is the film’s most interesting and dangerous presence. Nice office too. It’s an Art Deco lover’s paradise.
Above all though, “Nightmare Alley” is Del Toro’s film. He doesn’t need one of his trademarked creatures like the Pale Man or The Asset to shock. Here he takes a methodical, detailed approach to the story, gradually building to some shocking violence and psychological horror. His interest here is the sinister, not the supernatural, and while the first hour gets bogged down with set-up and a major plot point is telegraphed (NO SPOILERS HERE!), his ability to create atmosphere is singular. Nobody casts a shroud of menace like Del Toro.
“Nightmare Alley” takes its time to set up its dark pleasures, but emerges as a memorable tribute to film noir whose images will stick in your mind long after the theatre’s lights are switched on.
