YOU TUBE: THREE MOVIES/THIRTY SECONDS! FAST REVIEWS FOR BUSY PEOPLE!
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Posts Tagged ‘Dagmara Domińczyk’
CTV NEWS AT 11:30: MORE MOVIES AND TV SHOWS TO STREAM THIS WEEKEND!
I appear on “CTV News at 11:30” with anchor Andria Case to talk about the weekend’s best movies and shows including the Anthony Bourdain biopic “Tony,” the Kristen Stewart stoner comedy “The Wrong Girls” and the Prime Video series “Sterling Point.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 11:37)
CTV ATLANTIC: RICHARD AND TODD BATTIS ON NEW MOVIES IN THEATRES!
I join CTV Atlantic’s Stephanie Tsicos to talk about the biopic “Tony,” the dino drama “The End of Oak Street,” the kid’s flick “PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie” and the stoner comedy “The Wrong Girls.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
CTV NEWS TORONTO AT FIVE WITH ZURAIDAH ALMAN: RICHARD ON WHAT TO WATCH!
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about the biopic “Tony,” the dino drama “The End of Oak Street,” the kid’s flick “PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie” and the stoner comedy “The Wrong Girls.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 15:06)
CFRA IN OTTAWA: THE BILL CARROLL MORNING SHOW MOVIE REVIEWS!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with guest host Andrew Pinsent to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including the biopic “Tony,” the dino drama “The End of Oak Street,” the kid’s flick “PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie” and the stoner comedy “The Wrong Girls.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SHANE HEWITT & THE NIGHT SHIFT: “After the third sip, it’s, ‘Where are my pants?’”
I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift” to talk about the blues and Morgan Freeman, Judge Judy and the passing of the gavel, more “Hacks” and on Booze & Reviews I review “Tony” and suggest a cocktail Anthony Bourdain noted will make you wonder what happened to your pants after drink number three!
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
TONY: 4 STARS. “a reminder and eulogy of a fascinatingly confounding character.”
SYNOPSIS: In “Tony,” a new biopic of late author, television star and chef Anthony Bourdain, a nineteen-year-old Bourdain spends one life-changing summer working at a restaurant in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
CAST: Dominic Sessa, Emilia Jones, Dagmara Domińczyk, Rich Sommer, Stavros Halkias, Leo Woodall, Antonio Banderas. Directed by Matt Johnson.
REVIEW: Long before Anthony Bourdain was Anthony with a capital “A,” author of the bestselling memoir “Kitchen Confidential” and host of “Parts Unknown,” he was a self-described, “a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking,” who preferred to be called Tony (“The Holdovers” star Dominic Sessa).
It’s 1975, he’s a nineteen-year-old Vassar student convinced he’s about to be awarded a writing fellowship for a novel he admits is more of an “idea for an idea” than an actual book. When the fellowship falls through, he licks his wounds with a trip to Provincetown, Massachusetts to track down his high school crush Nancy (Emilia Jones) who’s working there at a pizza joint for the summer.
Still trying to pass himself off as a writer, he ends up broke, with a black eye and no prospects until he takes a job as a dishwasher in a seaside restaurant called The Flagship in return for a place to stay with the Chef (Antonio Banderas).
In the kitchen he finds a community of misfits, like the reckless Sal (Leo Woodal), who show him the ropes, as in how to shuck oysters and chase away hangovers with a morning beer or a line or two of cocaine.
A coming-of-age story with a little Sex, Drugs and Oyster Shucking mixed in for good measure, “Tony” is not an imitation of Bourdain’s worldly television persona. As played by Sessa, he’s a self-absorbed hothead, with a loose relationship with the truth, still trying to make his way. Sessa captures Bourdain on the rough edge of adulthood. Out of his depth, personally and professionally, he’s a teenager desperate to be a grown up in the face of one humbling experience after another.
He’s a complex character, equal parts intellect, hubris and underdog energy, a lump of clay not yet molded into the man he would become. Sessa captures him in a soulful performance that doesn’t shy away from the unsavory or obsessive parts of Bourdain’s personality, one that run parallel to the film’s opening quote—”spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout,” etc—but adds in just enough charm to make us care about what happens to him.
Unsurprisingly, he is the movie’s beating heart—it is a biopic after all—but director Matt Johnson populates his world with interesting characters to add color to the tale. From the chaos and camaraderie of the kitchen, provided by Woodall, Stavros Halkias as the big-mouthed Stavros, Michael Jibrin as the steady-handed Tyrone and Antonio Banderas as the Chef who changes Bourdain’s life with tough love and buckets of water (you’ll know what I mean when you see the film) to the love interest Nancy, played by Emilia Jones, the film creates an interesting community with a nice dollop of Ptown’s 1970s boho vibe thrown in.
Johnson’s trademark energy and play fulness are fully on display, particularly in the kitchen scenes.
This isn’t like five-star vibe of “The Bear.” With no hope of ever getting reviewed or being awarded a Michelin Star, this kitchen is a home for odd ducks cranking out food for tourists. Johnson’s intimate style paints a vivid picture of the controlled chaos that goes into a lunch or dinner service. He even stages an oyster shucking scene that, for anyone who’s ever been handed a sharp knife and an oyster, will play like a scene from a horror movie.
Given Bourdain’s exalted stature in popular culture, “Tony” could easily have slipped into hagiography. Public sentiment for his unique brand of exploration and pop cultural philosophy still burns bright eight years after his death, but like the man himself, the movie rejects mythology and goes for authenticity over artifice to serve as both a reminder and eulogy of a fascinatingly confounding character.
BOTTOMS: 3 ½ STARS. “Unapologetically rowdy and rambunctious.”
A mix-and-match of “American Pie” and “Fight Club,” the new comedy “Bottoms,” starring “The Bear’s” Ayo Edebiri and “Shiva Baby’s” Rachel Sennot, and now playing in theatres, is a boisterous queer high school sex romp with an edge.
Edebiri and Sennot are Josie and PJ, best friends and high school outsiders desperate to catch the attention of cheerleaders Isabel (Havana Rose Liu), who also happens to be the girlfriend of the school’s star quarterback Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine), and Brittany (Kaia Gerber).
Ignored by the cool kids—there’s a rumor going around that they spent the summer in a juvenile-detention center—Josie and PJ form a plan to get cozy with their crushes. “We are literally at the bottom,” says PJ. “We have nowhere to go but up.” When the news breaks that a female student was assaulted by a rival football team member, they form a fight club.
“So, we teach a bunch of girls how to defend themselves,” says PJ. “They’ll be grateful. Next thing you know, Isabel and Brittany are kissing us on the mouths!”
Of course, an outlandish plan like this has outlandish and unexpected repercussions when a show of solidarity goes one step too far.
Unapologetically rowdy and rambunctious, but also cheerfully sweet and sensitive, “Bottoms” one of the funniest and bloodiest stories about the anarchy of adolescence to hit screens since “Heathers.” It follows high school movie tropes right out of the John Hughes handbook, but subverts each and every one of them to create something unexpected.
The idea of creating a fight club as a way to get girlfriends may be far out, but the premise is brought back to earth by Josie and PJ and their very understandable motivations. They want what every teenager wants; to be part of the crowd, to be popular and to have a special someone. In that context, “Bottoms” emulates many other teen comedies. Add some broken noses and bloodied lips and you get an off kilter, but genuine, look at life in the halls and classrooms of most every high school.
At the heart of it all are Edebiri and Sennot. Three years ago they starred in a Comedy Central digital series titled “Ayo and Rachel Are Single,” and their chemistry remains intact. Sennot (who co-wrote the script with director Emma Seligman) is brash and bold, mining the material for all its absurdity. Edebiri is more deadpan, a gentler presence who seems aware of the absurdity of the situation.
For all its bravado, attitude and heightened humor, “Bottoms” is a remarkably insightful and introspective look at high school and female friendship. That it is also an unruly good time just adds to its quirky charm.
THE ASSISTANT: 3 ½ STARS. “a timely document of abuse of power and complicity.”
She is the invisible woman. The assistant to a high-flying New York movie mogul, Jane (Julia Garner) floats around the office, silently collating papers, cleaning up mysterious stains from her boss’s casting couch—“Never sit on the couch,” her co-workers joke—wordlessly doing the jobs nobody else will do. An aspiring filmmaker with hopes of one day producing her own movies she sees the job, low level as it is, as a stepping stone.
When her boss flies in a young, pretty waitress (Kristine Froseth) he met at the Sundance Film Festival to work in his office Jane suspects it is a #MeToo situation in the making. Reporting her feelings to HR in hopes of protecting the new naive hire she is instead reminded of how power works. “I can see you have what it takes to produce,” says the appropriately named HR guy Wilcock (“Succession’s” Matthew Macfadyen). “Why are you trying to throw it all away?”
That harrowing scene lies at the heart of “The Assistant,” now on VOD. A timely study of the systemic mistreatment of vulnerable and defenceless women, Jane’s story is an account of the many slights and indignities suffered by subordinates to power.
“The Assistant” is a quiet movie. Much of the dialogue comes from Jane’s conversations with unseen limo drivers or her boss. We see her limited interaction with co-workers, but mostly we see the day-to-day drudgery that fills her hours. She arrives before dawn, stays well into the night and is treated like she should feel lucky to be there. Director Kitty Green keeps the focus tight, allowing the viewer to feel the soul-crushing drudgery of Jane’s job. She is invisible, a presence simply to absorb her boss’s bad temper and get lunch for the senor staffers.
Green never strays from Jane. We don’t meet the head honcho or learn about anyone’s backstory. It’s not that kind of movie. Instead it is a document of the degradations and power dynamic that are an accepted part of the job. The film’s chattiest scene, between Jane and HR’s Wilcock, is quiet but shattering in its impact. His smugness is the very attitude that enabled the very abuse that Harvey Weinstein is facing trial for today. The casual nature of Wilcock dismissiveness is chilling, punctuated by one last parting shot. On her way out of their meeting he ‘reassuringly’ adds, “You don’t have anything to worry about. You’re not his type.”
“The Assistant” is anchored by a subtle yet devastating performance from Garner. The hard-edged bluster she brings to her character on “Ozark” is missing, replaced by anxiety as she realizes the extent of the exploitation happening around her. It’s quiet, restrained and heartbreaking to watch how she is beaten down.
Based on hundreds of interviews with real-life assistants, this is more than just a movie, it is a timely document of abuse of power and complicity.
