Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk about Ryan Gosling’s giant leap as Neil Armstrong in “First Man,” the star studded “Bad Times at the El Royale” and a nasty take on “Home Alone” called “Knuckleball.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard and CP24 anchor George Lagogianes have a look at the weekend’s new movies, “Silence” from director Martin Scorsese, Hidden Figures” starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe and “A Monster Calls” with Liam Neeson.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the big weekend movies, “Silence” from director Martin Scorsese, Hidden Figures” starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe and “A Monster Calls” with Liam Neeson.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Director Martin Scorsese has always been torn between the scared and the profane. His greatest work has always grappled with sin and redemption, populated by characters like “God’s lonely man,” truth seeker and psychopath Travis Bickle.
Over forty years ago he did a voice over in “Mean Streets” that could inserted (with certain modifications) into his latest film, a seventeenth century epic based on Shūsaku Endō’s 1966 novel “Silence.”
“You don’t make up for your sins in church,” he says. “You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bull**** and you know it.”
In this case “the streets” are a foreign land, but the spiritual journey is not that different.
“Silence” begins in 1633 with the disappearance of Father Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson), a Portuguese Jesuit priest who has gone missing while on mission in Japan.
Christianity is an outlawed religion and those who hide Christians are tortured and killed. Two young priests, Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garrpe (Adam Driver), acolytes of Ferreira, convince Father Valignano (Ciarán Hinds) to allow them to travel to Japan to locate their mentor. “How can we abandon our mission?” asks Rodrigues. “How do we neglect the man who shaped our faith? We have no choice but to save his soul.”
The year is 1640 and they are the last two priests to go to Japan. “An army of two,” says Valignano. An arduous journey leads them to a country more dangerous and complicated than they anticipated. Christians are desperate for their word but live in fear. Officials insist, “Your doctrine is of no use in Japan. We have concluded it is a danger.” If caught by colonels of the country’s inquisitor Inoue Masashige (Issey Ogata) Christians are first asked to committed apostasy—step on an image of Jesus Christ—to denounce their faith or be killed.
As the bodies pile up around them on heir search the question must be asked, are they helping or are they foreigners who bring disaster with them? “Think of the suffering you have inflicted on these people,” says Masashige, the cheery faced inquisitor with a squeaky voice, “just for your vision of a church.” If the priests die the Japanese church dies with them but will the suffering of their people be enough to compel them to make the painful act of love ever performed, apostasy?
“Silence” is a meditative movie about the strength of faith and the limits to which it can be stretched. It is a physical and sacred journey à la “Heart of Darkness.” A look into obsession, colonialism and martyrdom, it is a deliberately paced—i.e: a slow, almost glacial tempo—film unafraid to submerge the viewer in the suffering of its characters. Make no mistake, this is no “Passion of the Christ” with its love of violence and blood. This is a 160 movie that examines the intersection of agony and ecstasy, but does so as an exercise of the mind. There are uncomfortable images, but Scorsese plays it straight, presenting the instances of torture as expressions of the power of belief not merely physical agonies. The movie may start with a beautifully composed shot of the dismembered heads of two priests but the violence here isn’t glamourized, it is organic to the story and even more chilling as a result.
Also, anyone expecting the usual Scorsese stylistic flourishes may be disappointed. There are no Rolling Stones songs or slow motion. There are a few overhead shots but nothing as showy as the long, uninterrupted tracking shot in “Goodfellas.” Instead it’s a classically made film with some serious Kurosawa mojo.
As the Jesuits Garfield and Driver convey divine confidence and yet, as their faith is tested and doubt seeps in, they play their characters as priests battling to do the right thing in the face of suffering and insurmountable odds. Both must make the choice between their beliefs and the stark reality of the consequences of their belief. Both bring humanity to characters who could have been simply portals for some kind of celestial message.
Most memorable is Issey Ogata as the grinning inquisitor Inoue Masashige. The very definition of the ordinariness of evil, he is a cruel man with a smile on his face and a scar on his heart. Think “Inglorious Basterds’s” Hans Landa with the faux gentility of Auric Goldfinger and you get the idea.
“Silence” is a rarity, a big, epic film that values introspection. It’s a companion piece to Scorsese’s other religious offerings—“The Last Temptation of Christ” and “Kundun”—but a more complicated film than either of those. It is about faith but more importantly, also about the distinction between religion and spirituality and Scorsese does not back away from diving into those murky theological waters.
Richard and CP24 anchor George Lagogianes have a look at the weekend’s new movies, the Harry Potter prequel “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” the coming-of-age story “Edge of Seventeen” and Miles Teller as real life boxer Vinny Paz in “Bleed for This.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the weekend’s new movies, the Harry Potter prequel “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” the coming-of-age story “Edge of Seventeen,” Miles Teller as real life boxer Vinny Paz in “Bleed for This” and “Nocturnal Animals” with Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
The Miles Teller boxing film “Bleed for This,” like most sports movies, isn’t really about the sport. Sure there are TKOs and the smack of glove against skin, but really it’s about the indomitable human spirit with one of the greatest real life comebacks in sports history as a backdrop.
Teller plays Vincenzo Pazienza, a.k.a. Vinny Paz a.k.a. the Pazmanian Devil, a championship boxer in lightweight, light middleweight and super middleweight categories. At the beginning of the film he is a wild card, a talented pugilist, but an undisciplined one. The night before a big fight he hits the town, gambling. The next day Roger Mayweather (Peter ‘Kid Chocolate’ Quillin) pummels him in the ring, soundly thrashing the former champ.
Despite his manager insistence that he retire, Vinny lumbers on, working out with Kevin Rooney (Aaron Eckhart), Mike Tyson’s former trainer. Pumped up, he jumps two weight classes and becomes a champion in the light middleweight category before tragedy strikes.
Flush with cash after his win, he buys a sports car. Within hours of owning it he’s involved in an accident that leaves him with a broken neck. “How much time till I can fight again?” he asks his doctor. “I can’t say with certainty you’ll ever walk again,” comes the grim response. His doctor wants to fuse the bone, Vinny instead opts for a halo procedure that involves screwing a circular metal brace into his head for six months to stabilize the injury. During his recuperation Vin secretly works out, preparing himself for a return to the ring. Within thirteen months the halo is gone, and he’s on the comeback trail.
“Bleed For This” aims to be a bigger-than-life tale of resilience and perseverance over adversity but plays like a gritty television movie. Pazienza overcame great odds and proved a lot of people—including his doctors and trainers wrong—but he’s not a particularly likeable champ. Teller emphasizes the character’s never-say-die spirit, but instead of wining us over his cockiness comes off a caricature of chutzpah. Ditto the portrait of Pazienza’s hard-scrapple family. They fight, they argue and worship at a home altar so loaded with Catholic iconography it looks like a page out of the Italian Stereotypes 101 textbook. If the Order Sons of Italy in America were outraged by “The Sopranos” wait till they get a load of this bunch.
Writer-director Ben Younger is a muscular filmmaker, all macho posturing and turbo-charged momentum which may not do his characters any favours but works well when the movie is in the boxing ring.
The final fight scene hits hard with stylish flourishes, like dropping out all the sound safe for the smack of clubs against skin and a pep speech with flashbacks, but it is more compelling than anything that came before it.
As a retelling of one of the most unlikely comebacks in sports history “Bleed for This” succeeds in getting across its predictable ‘never-say-die’ lesson. It’s a shame Younger settle for a made-for-TV-movie sentiment instead of digging deeper to dins a subtext that would really knock the audience out.
“Hitman: Agent 47” is about murder, mayhem, car chases and bullets but really, at the core of its dark little heart, it’s about family.
Based on the videogame series of the same name, the story begins in 1967 with the establishment of a top-secret government program to create the perfect killing machine agents with no fear, no remorse or humanity.
Cut to many years later.
A trio of three people are on the hunt. Katia (Hannah Ware) is searching for a man she sees in haunting, strange visions, while the genetically modified Agent 47 (“Homeland’s” Rupert Friend) and John Smith (Zachary Quinto) are looking for Katia. As it turns out, all are interested in the same end game, locating the father of the Agent program, Dr. Litvenko (Ciarán Hinds in a paycheque role). As their paths and allegiances crisscross the trio fight their way through a convoluted plot to contribute to cinema’s body count and come to a bloody climax
“Hitman: Agent 47” has all the assets you expect from a videogame movie. It’s the kind of film where the “hero” fights against seemingly insurmountable odds and walks away without breaking a sweat. It’s also the kind of movie where it is not enough for someone to get shot, they must also fall from a great height hitting things on the way down. There is stylized action and bad guys with sub dermal body armour.
Unfortunately there’s also enough bad dialogue for any two Ed Wood Jr. movies—it’s the kind of movie were people say, “What the bleep is happening?” as an excuse to forward the story with exposition—a non-twist—(BLAZINGLY OBVIOUS SPOILER) Litvenko is Katia’s father! OMG!—and a main character that makes Jason Voorhees seem like a barrel of laughs.
The whole idea of Agent 47 is that he’s a cipher, a relentless and lethal killer—imagine a human Terminator without the accent or bulging muscles and you get the idea—and the ironically named Friend pulls that off, but that is a big part of the problem here. It’s difficult to build a movie around a personality-free title character. It’s been done—think anything starring Taylor Lautner—but first time director Aleksander Bach doesn’t have the chops to keep a movie based on a blank slate interesting. “Hitman: Agent 47” has a few stylish moments and some big action scenes, but not enough to add enough personality to push this dull affair over the top.
Helen Mirren seems to be in a new phase of her career. The English actress, best known for her Oscar winning portrayal of her majesty in The Queen and for recently taking top honors in the L.A. Fitness body of the year poll at age 66 is now also an action star. In “Reds” she was an ex-CIA agent alongside Bruce Willis, wearing pearls and shooting AK47s and this weekend she’s an ex-Mossad agent with a secret.
When the movie opens it is 1997. Retired Mossad agents Rachel, David and Stefan (Helen Mirren, Ciarán Hinds and Tom Wilkinson) are heroes, acclaimed for their brave capture and execution of a notorious war criminal in 1966. But when new information about the case turns up, it threatens to expose a long held secret. Cut to an extended flashback sequence detailing the real details of the operation (with Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas, and Sam Worthington as the younger versions of the trio), including the romantic entanglement that complicated the mission. Back in 1997 Rachel comes out of retirement to uncover the truth and repay an emotional debt.
The flashback sequence makes up the bulk of the film so it’s fair to say this isn’t Helen Mirren’s film, but her character Rachel’s. Dame Helen and Chastain (in her third film this year) provide the movie’s emotional core. Unusual for an espionage movie, the story is told through the eyes of a woman. Rachel is as tough as the men, but adds depth to what is essentially a pulpy spy story with a twist.
Performances are top notch (although some dodgy accents appear) but Sam Worthington, last year’s it boy, underwhelms. Luckily Mirren, Chastain and the film’s powerful sense of suspense pick up the slack.
