By the mid-1990s Beanie Babies, the heart-tagged, soft plush toys with names like Princess Bear and Bubbles the Fish, were not only collected for the fun of it, but also as a financial investment. The world’s first Internet sensation, the rarest of the $5 stuffies could fetch upwards of $500,000 in the collector’s market.
Before the Beanie consumer craze bubble burst, a lot of people got rich, including creator H. Ty Warner, the subject of “The Beanie Bubble,” a new true crime movie starring Zach Galifianakis and Elizabeth Banks, now on Apple TV+ and in select theatres across Canada.
Loosely based on real events and adapted from Zac Bissonnette’s book “The Great Beanie Baby Bubble,” the film zips back-and-forth between the 1980s and 1990s to tell the story of the three unsung heroes largely responsible for the success of the Beanie Babies.
The story of greed, betrayal and power begins with Warner (Galifianakis), a college dropout looking for the next big thing. He found it with the Beanies, plush toys with cute names, under-stuffed for maximum “pose-ability.” “Genius,” he says with more than a hint of self-congratulation ion his voice, “is 1% inspiration and 99% presentation.”
The cute toys are not, however, an immediate hit. Enter the real focus of the story, executive Robbie (Banks), Ty’s love interest Sheila (“Succession” star Sarah Snook) and innovative tech genius Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan). Here the film splinters, telling the tale of how these three women in three timelines, helped fuel the thermonuclear success of the Beanie Babies.
In each case Warner lured these talented women into his orbit, only to deny them the profits and power their work generated. “Ty will tell you he did it all,” Robbie says. “Which is as crazy as believing stuffed animals are gold.”
Structurally, this breezy look at the inequity women sometimes experience as part of the American Dream, is occasionally confusing as the broken timeline jumps from decade-to-decade, seemingly randomly. But the intercutting between storylines does effectively emphasize Warner’s ongoing abuse, and paints a vivid portrait of how his narcissism shaped not only his life and career, but the lives and careers of those around him.
Galifianakis steps away from his trademarked broad, awkward comedy to play Warner with a certain amount of pathos. That innate sadness, usually masked by a loud bravado, brings some humanity to the character, and prevents him from feeling like an un-filmed subplot from “Horrible Bosses.”
He is the catalyst for the action, but the real story here is one of resilience. The three female characters are discriminated against and struggle for credit and recognition, but each draw on a deep well of determination to create the lives they want. It’s a success story, but not just of the Beanie Babies. The real success here are Robbie, Sheila and Maya who discover their agency.
“The Beanie Bubble” isn’t a business story. The phenomenal success of the stuffed animals is the engine that keeps the story moving forward, but this is really a character-driven tale about people who find a way to balance the inequity in their lives.
“You Hurt My Feelings,” a new Julia Louis-Dreyfus relationship dramedy now playing in theatres, is about the little lies we tell one another that can balloon into much bigger deals.
Louis-Dreyfus is Beth, a memoirist and writing teacher, struggling with the reactions to her second book. As a first reader, her therapist husband Don (Tobias Menzies) has studied each of the drafts of the book, and always told her how much he loves the writing.
Her agent Sylvia (LaTanya Richardson Jackson), however, thinks the novel needs to touch on more hot button topics and needs a complete rewrite. “There’s lots of new voices,” she says. “Refugees, cancer, murder, abuse.” Feeling she is an “old voice” in a rapidly changing world, Beth is devastated.
Meanwhile Don is having trouble connecting with his patients and their 23-year-old son Elliott (Owen Teague) is having a crisis of confidence.
Into this maelstrom of self-doubt comes a cutting remark that sends Beth into a deeper funk. By accident she overhears Don talking to a friend about her book, and he doesn’t like it. “It’s no good,” he says.
“I’m never going to be able to look him in the face again,” Beth says.
Written and directed by Nicole Holofcener, “You Hurt My Feelings” has a very “Seinfeld-ian” co-dependency premise. It often feels like nothing is happening—“A show about nothing!”—but within the carefully observed interactions are thought-provoking ideas about how relationships work.
So often, relationship dramas are about infidelity. This one is about a fidelity of a sort, the kind broken with good intentions.
It’s about the fine line between lying and encouraging, sparing someone’s feelings vs. being supportive. Don explains to Beth that he didn’t lie exactly, but that he was trying to be encouraging, even though he didn’t love the book. It isn’t until Beth realizes that she has done the same thing in her relationships with her son and sister (Michaela Watkins) that she begins to understand her husband’s sentiments.
Holofcener keeps the story low-key, focusing on the intersection of honesty and ego between longtime relations. It’s a small, but very human story of the way we interact, brought to vivid life by a tremendous cast, led by a terrific Louis-Dreyfus. She is fragile and raucous, anxious and hilarious, but always relatable.
“You Hurt My Feelings” is a small movie about big topics like honesty, insecurity and how we protect the ones we love, for better and for worse.
“Showing Up,” a new dramedy starring Michelle Williams and now playing in theatres, is like a swan. At first glance, it appear calm, cool and collected, but a closer look reveals it is peddling madly underneath the surface.
Set in Portland, Oregon, the story revolves around a week in the life of Lizzy (Williams), a sculptor struggling to prepare for an important show, one that could determine her future, despite the distractions of her day-to-day life. Her frayed nerves are put to the test when her passive-aggressive landlord, and fellow-artist, Jo (Hong Chau), refuses to fix the buildings hot water tank, thus making it impossible for Lizzy to shower. On top of that, Lizzy is stuck caring for a pigeon her cat Ricky seriously injured and left for dead, her co-worker Eric (André Benjamin, aka André 3000) left a piece in the kiln too long, causing it to crack.
Even her family stresses her out. Her mother (Maryann Plunkett), is also her boss at the Oregon College of Art and Craft, and her sculptor father (Judd Hirsch) is less than enthusiastic about her work and ambition. Her brother (brother (John Megaro) suffers with mental illness and spends his days digging a giant hole in his backyard.
“Showing Up” features the slow moving, leisurely pacing that has become writer/director Kelly Reichardt’s trademark. Lizzy’s world is revealed bit by bit, each obstacle adding to the growing anxiety as her opening night approaches.
It feels like watching a slow-motion car crash, but instead of the expected smash-up, the film gently uncovers how Lizzy’s devotion to her art is her lifeline. She lives an artistic life, connected to her community in ways that feed her creativity. Even the poor, broken pigeon finds a spot in Lizzy’s heart and helps transform her life in unforeseen ways.
Williams is a model of restraint, but finds way to add some light comedy into the character. Chau is a live-wire, adding some electricity to the film, even if her role is somewhat underwritten.
It would be easy to think that nothing much happens in “Showing Up,” and it is a quiet movie, but it is loud and proud in its declaration about the miracle of making art that matters while balancing the frustrations of everyday life.
“The Lost King” is not the alternate title for Prince Harry’s recent tell-all book or a “Where’s Waldo” style game. It is the mostly true story of amateur historian Philippa Langley and her quest—some would call it an obsession—to find the remains of the last English king to die in battle, Richard “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” the III.
A lowkey dramedy, now playing in theatres, “The Lost King” stars Sally Hawkins as Langley, a divorced sufferer of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, who, becomes inspired to research the much-maligned monarch’s life and death after taking in a stage production of Shakespeare’s royal tragedy.
She reads everything there is on his life, joins a group of eccentric Ricardians, argues with historians and even converses with a vision of the King himself (Harry Lloyd). She feels he was judged unfairly in life, and is determined to find his remains and give him a proper burial.
In the course of tireless study, she determines that the King’s resting place is in a nondescript carpark in Leicester, once the home of a Franciscan Friary. Through sheer force of will (and considerable fund-raising ability) she manages to convince the naysayers, including the Deputy Registrar of the local university, to OK an excavation.
In September 2012 Langley’s theories were proved correct and the remains of the long-lost king were uncovered. “He was right where I said he’d be,” she says with amazement as the university experts scramble to take credit for her work.
“The Lost King” is a lowkey “National Treasure” style movie. Langley’s quest to rehabilitate King Richard’s dastardly reputation isn’t nearly as action packed as the Nic Cage movies, but her deep dive into history brings with it a determination that makes up for the lack of thrills.
Instead, it’s a personal story about an underdog, who, despite her intelligence, is passed over for promotions at work and treated like an outsider by academia. Langley’s journey to expose the truth about a misunderstood monarch is a lightweight human tale of empathy given heft by a compelling performance from Hawkins. Her work is grounded in reality, even during the magic realism scenes when she turns to King Richard for guidance.
“The Lost King” is the kind of Brit pic that is a little too black-and-white in its portrayal of the condescending bullies who tried to derail the plucky Langley, but as a portrait of a person who refused to be trampled on, who finds her voice, it is a warm and often funny feel-good flick.
“I Like Movies,” a coming-of-age story set against a background of angst, anxiety and Paul Thomas Anderson, is a period piece set in a time when local Blockbusters were shrines for suburban film lovers.
Set in 2003, in Burlington, Ontario, a small city midway between Toronto and Niagara Falls, the film centers around teenage film bro and wannabe moviemaker Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen). Arrogant and insecure, he allows his love of film, dream of attending NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and anxiety alienate the most important people in his life.
His life is changed when he gets a job at Sequels, a cheekily-named video store in his hometown. He’s there for the ten free weekly rentals available to employees and to recommend obscure art films to folks who would rather watch “Shrek.”
The job, of course, isn’t exactly what Lawrence hoped it would be. At the insistence of his manager Alana (Romina D’Ugo) he is forced to wear a sash, emblazed with the titles of movies he thinks are beneath him. And, let’s face it, learning to rotate stock in the drink cooler is about as far from movie making as you can get.
As the summer ends so does the dream of attending NYU, forcing Lawrence, with the help of his frazzled mother (Krista Bridges) and some tough love from Alana, to rethink his movie dreams and confront reality.
Part work-place comedy—think “High Fidelity” only set in a video store—part character study, “I Like Movies” is sweet-natured, funny film that digs deep to make us feel empathy for Lawrence, a socially awkward character who hides his real feelings behind a facade of bluster and pretension.
Lawrence is not a likable character, at least not when we first meet him, and yet director and screenwriter Chandler Levack—who worked in at a Blockbuster Video as a teen—inspires empathy for him. His arrogant bluster stems from insecurity, and the more we get to know about him, the more we feel for him even as he drones on about Paul Thomas Anderson or Stanley Kubrick. As Alana pushes him to reevaluate his attitudes and look at life beyond the screen, Lehtinen allows us to see the wheels turning inside the character’s head as his redemption looms.
Strong performances, particularly from Lehtinen and D’Ugo, and a genuinely heartfelt script make this take on adolescent angst (and film bros) a winning debut for Levack.
It’s pretty clear that the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns left people feeling numb and slightly disconnected. To remedy this, “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” character Maxandra Mendoza (Salma Hayek Pinault) has a plan for a show unlike anything anyone has ever seen. “We’re going to wake up [the audience] with a wave of passion they’ve never felt before,” she purrs. Trouble is, I’ve seen the movie, and I’m still waiting for the wave of passion.
When we first meet wealthy socialite Maxandra she is the soon-to-be-divorced trophy wife to billionaire philanderer Roger Rattigan (Alan Cox). When she meets Mike Lane (Channing Tatum), a former superstar male dancer, now fallen on hard times, she is smitten. Broke and saddled with a failing furniture business, Mike is now bartending in Florida, working for tips.
When Maxandra offers $6000 for a striptease, the resulting acrobatic lap dance changes both their lives. “You gave me this magical moment,” she says, “that made me remember who I really was.”
Seeking to reclaim agency after her husband’s bad behaviour, Maxandra hires Mike to move to London and take over the Rattigan, the old West End theater where she worked as an actress eighteen years before.
“I want every woman that walks into this theatre to feel that a woman can have whatever she wants, whenever she wants,” says Maxandra.
The other movies in the “Magic Mike” franchise were a mix of swivelling hips and social commentary. They essayed the Florida’s real estate bust, the downturned economy, temptation and decadence. Those themes gave the movies some depth, a reason to engage the brain before the clothes came off.
The new one touches on the pandemic as the reason for Mike’s financial woes, but only briefly. The offhand mention feels like a plot device, a throwaway. The grand statements and subtext of the first two films has been watered down into a “Pretty Woman” style rom com, with a side of swivel, about how an upscale Chippendales show can have life altering effects. We’re never really told what those effects are, nor are they particularly obvious, but Maxandra never shuts up about them, so they must be in there somewhere amid the erotic “So You Think You Can Dance” numbers.Tatum brings his trademarked likability to the character and has good chemistry with Hayek Pinault, but overall, the heat has been turned down to a simmer. Abs are exposed, groins are ground but it feels very been-there-done-that. The inspiration that made the first film such an unexpected pleasure is missing, replaced by a tepid story and aimless eroticism.
“Magic Mike’s Last Dance” is essentially a Mickey and Judy, “Let’s put on a show” movie, but with more underwear and less enthusiasm.
No one can play unlikable-with-a-hidden-heart-of-gold like Tom Hanks. Now in theatres, “A Man Called Otto,” is a sentimental Mean Old Man redemption movie that showcases the actor’s ability to transcend even the most predictable material.
When we first meet Otto Anderson (Hanks) he is the epitome of a grumpy old man. Recently retired, he spends his days making sure his neighbours in their suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania cul de sac obey community rules. According to Otto, his neighbours are idiots who don’t recycle properly and never display their parking passes. “The whole neighbourhood is falling apart these days,” he grumbles.
The recent passing of his life-long love, wife Sonya (Rachel Keller), has made him bitter, angry at the world. “Nothing works,” he says at her grave site, “now that you’re gone.”
Lost and despondent, he makes several attempts to take his own life and join Sonya in the after world, but is interrupted by circumstance or the loud knocking on his front door by his new neighbours, a young, vivacious Mexican-American family, parents Marisol (Mariana Treviño) and Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and their adorable kids.
With new life on the street, Otto slowly lets his guard down, opening up to the possibility of living life without Sonya.
A mix of sadness and hope, of tears tempered by laughs, “A Man Called Otto’s” path is predictable, but elevated by its two central performances.
As Otto, Hanks is a man damaged by life. Hard knocks have dented him, tamping down his true nature. What is left is a hard shell, dinged by circumstance, but rather than go full-grump, Hanks allows his softer side to seep through. That’s the thing that makes Otto human and not a caricature, and Hanks’s well-established nice-guy reputation goes a long way to keeping us on Otto’s side.
The film’s beating heart, however, is Treviño as Marisol. As a counterbalance to Ottos’s curmudgeonly behaviour, she is empathy and kindness personified. She radiates warmth, and eventually melts Otto’s icy façade.
“A Man Called Otto,” a remake of the Swedish film “A Man Called Ove” from director Hannes Holm, is a tearjerking story of redemption that tries a bit too hard to strum the heartstrings, but, thanks to the performances, still manages to find resonate, emotional moments.
The main characters of “Raymond & Ray,” played by Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke, pack a great deal of emotional baggage on the trip to their father’s funeral.
The leads play estranged half-brothers reunited after five years, on the occasion of their abusive father’s death.
Ray is a clean-and-sober widower and former trumpet player with a temper. His life has been colored by his father’s abuse, and that fractious relationship has been a burden to him for decades.
Raymond, equally scarred by his upbringing, is outwardly more successful, but the cracks are beginning to show. He’s not allowed to drive because of a recent DUI and his marriage is in tatters.
They are not close, but are bonded by the bad treatment suffered at the hand of their father.
The funeral is the next day, hours away in Richmond, Virginia, and Ray is reluctant. “Are you really going to go, after the things he did to you?” he asks Raymond. “We don’t have to go,” says Ray. “He’s dead. He’ll never know.”
On the subsequent trip they rehash the sins of their father, and later confront the many surprises that await in Richmond. There are more half-siblings, an ex-lover Lucía (Maribel Verdú) and, most surprising of all, everyone speaks warmly of the man they feared.
This tragicomic story of suppressed rage, of confronting the past, healing and facing the future, is wonderfully brought to life by the leads.
The easy-going pacing allows McGregor and Hawke to bite down hard and make a meal of the characters of Raymond and Ray. McGregor hides a simmering rage under Raymond’s button-down façade, while Hawke gives Ray a world-weary roughness to the free-spirited former musician and addict. They bring a winning combo of frustration and humor to the movie, while Verdú provides real warmth in this existential look at life.
“Raymond & Ray,” now streaming on Apple TV+, is a low-key dramedy with a high-level ensemble cast that elevates the story of family trauma.
Richard joins CTV NewsChannel and anchor Angie Seth to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including the latest from your friendly neighbourhood crimefighter in “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the dark carnival of “Nightmare Alley” and the ex-porn star drama “Red Rocket.”
