I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Akshay Tandon to talk about the wild action of “Mission: Impossible–Dead Reckoning,” the drama “The Miracle Club” and the extreme sports doc “The Deepest Breath.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I joined CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres. Today we talk about the wild action of “Mission: Impossible–Dead Reckoning,” the drama “The Miracle Club” and SAG joining the writer’s strike.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with CKTB morning show host Tim Denis to have a look at the wild action of “Mission: Impossible–Dead Reckoning,” the drama “The Miracle Club” and the extreme sports doc “The Deepest Breath.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with guest host Andrew Pinsent to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the action packed “Mission: Impossible–Dead Reckoning,” the drama “The Miracle Club” and the extreme sports doc “The Deepest Breath.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Despite the title, “The Miracle Club” isn’t so much about miracles as it is redemption, faith and uplift.
Set in 1967, in Ballygar, Ireland, this is the story of four women. Chrissie (Laura Linney) left the seaside town for Boston under a cloud forty years before and hasn’t been back. When she returns for her mother’s funeral, she must face the demons of the past, and the people she left behind, including her former BFF Eileen (Kathy Bates) and her late mother’s passive-aggressive best friend Lily (Maggie Smith). Bitterness runs deep between the three, each harboring grudges that have bubbled for four decades.
At a church fundraiser, Father Dermot Byrne (Mark O’Halloran) the local priest and center of religious life in the small town, throws a talent show. The prize is a trip to Lourdes in southwest France. One of the most visited places by Catholics from around the world, it is a pilgrimage site where, since 1858, the faithful have flocked to pray for miracles while bathing in the healing waters where a young girl named Bernadette Soubirous is said to have witnessed visions of the Virgin Mary.
Despite their best efforts at the talent show, Eileen, Lily and new mom Dolly (Agnes O’Casey) come in second, winning a hunk of meat instead of the coveted tickets. The first-place winner, feeling sorry for them, offers his tickets to them, and soon they are boarding the bus for Lourdes. Along for the ride is Chrissie, who uses her mother’s ticket for the trip.
On site in the holy town, miracles are in short supply but the situation forces the three generations of women to confront their pasts and prejudices. “You don’t come to Lourdes for a miracle,” says Father Byrne. “You come for the strength to go on when there is no miracle.”
“The Miracle Club” isn’t about divine agency. Nothing miraculous happens, excepting the power of truth and compassion to heal the long-simmering wounds each of these women carry. Their shared trauma (NO SPOILERS HERE) overwhelms their lives, forming who they are as people. The actors imprint each of these characters with the cumulative weight of their lives, willing Eileen, Lily and Chrissie into stubborn life, despite a script that attempts to keep them as stereotypes.
It is these performances that give “The Miracle Club” much of its power to engage with the audience. It is in each of their abilities to imply the inner lives of the characters without necessarily verbalizing them, that shows how deeply they have been devastated by past events. That, and the movie’s evocative sense of time and place, create the backdrop for the more pedestrian story in the foreground.
Richard speaks to “CTV News at 11:30” anchor Andria Case about the best movies and television to watch this weekend. This week we have a look at the Apple TV+ darkly humorous series “Bad Sisters,” the Crave comedy series “Roast Battle Canada,” and the Lena Dunham coming-of-age story “Sharp Stick.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 19:35)
Richard joins CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres. Today we talk about the Idris Elba vs. angry lion thriller “Beast,” the creepy kid movie “Orphan: First Kill” and the coming-of-age story “Sharp Stick.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the Idris Elba vs. angry lion thriller “Beast,” “Sharp Stick,” the latest from Lena Dunham, the creepy kid movie “Orphan: First Kill” and the coming-of-age story “Carmen.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Frank and provocative, “Sharp Stick,” the new film written and directed by “Girls” creator and star Lena Dunham, returns to familiar ground with a sexual coming-of-age story.
Kristine Froseth stars as 26-year-old Sarah Jo. A sexually inexperienced woman who had a hysterectomy at age 17, she still lives at home with her mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and wannabe Instagram influencer sister (Taylour Paige). She scraps by, babysitting for Zach, son of Josh (Jon Bernthal) and Heather (Dunham). Heather is pregnant, and Josh has a wandering eye, which happens to land on the flirty Sarah Jo.
Their ”affair” culminates with a tryst on the floor of a cramped laundry room, setting Sarah Jo off on a journey of sexual discovery involving lots of pornography, a fixation on adult film star Vance Leroy (the ornately tattooed Scott Speedman) and carefully organized, random “educational” hook-ups.
“Sharp Stick” reverberates with echoes of the frankness of “Girls” and the edgy work of filmmakers like Larry Clark and Harmony Korine, but never rises to the level of any of those namechecks.
Dunham has woven some interesting characters to surround Sarah Jo, like her mother Marilyn, played by Leigh, a much-divorced Hollywood hanger-on and twerking sister Treina, but she hasn’t given her main character any real depth. She is thirsty for carnal knowledge, and approaches it like a job, with a check list to boot, but aside from the humor inherent in that, Sarah Jo’s arc simply isn’t that interesting. Her desperation to prove to herself and others is repetitive, her actions so naïve they suggest her emotional age is far less than her stated age of 26. Given her mother’s openness regarding sex, it doesn’t ring true that Sarah Jo is completely unfamiliar with anything to do with sexuality.
“Sharp Stick” does have a few funny scenes, an interesting character or three, and an uncomfortable but refreshing candidness about sex but, by the time the end credits roll, Sarah Jo’s journey is the film’s least interesting element.
