I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift” for Booze & Reviews! This week we have a look at the sword and sandal epic “Gladiator II” and the drink that made real life gladiators fit to fight!
Listen to Booze & Reviews HERE! (Starts at 21:08)
Listen to the entertainment headlines, including the details on Netflix’s deal with Beyoncé HERE! (Starts at 10:48)
SYNOPSIS: In “Gladiator II,” director Ridley Scott’s long-gestating sequel to his 2000 blockbuster of almost the same name, Paul Mescal plays Lucius, former heir to the Roman Empire, now forced to battle in the Colosseum after his home is invaded by General Marcus Acacius on the orders of Rome’s syphilitic, power-hungry emperors Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) and Geta (Joseph Quinn).
CAST: Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger, Lior Raz, Derek Jacobi, Connie Nielsen, and Denzel Washington. Directed by Ridley Scott.
REVIEW: Come to see a man bite a monkey, stay for Denzel Washington’s deliciously devious villain.
The follow-up to Best Picture Oscar winner “Gladiator” is long on spectacle—Lucius not only battles giant monkeys, but also sharks and a huge, bloodthirsty rhino—but short on soul. It is loud and proud but the emotional connectivity offered by the original film, and specifically Russell Crowe’s performance, gets lost in this new translation.
The story of corruption, loyalty, birthright, vengeance and angry fighting animals is lavish and epic, but it isn’t much fun.
The set pieces in the Colosseum deliver big CGI action, there’s a fake severed head (a practical effect that makes the infamous rubber baby in Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper” look photorealistic) and throngs of soldiers for as far as the eye can see. It is epic filmmaking on a grand scale, but it’s missing adrenaline, that hit of dopamine that gives you a rush.
The opening battle scene and the abovementioned monkey bite are rousing, but after that the movie gets bogged down, not with plot—that’s relatively simple—but with heroic banter and political intrigue.
Paul Mescal, as Lucius, son of Russell Crowe’s character Maximus Decimus Meridius from the first film, takes pains to differentiate himself from Crowe’s Oscar winning performance. His gladiator is pensive, weighed down by the death of his warrior wife at the end of an arrow fired by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal). Mescal is charismatic but in his quest for vengeance, he’s tasked with delivering a series of heroic speeches, none of which are as memorable as Crowe’s “Are you not entertained?” declaration.
Pascal’s gets the job done as the conflicted Roman general Marcus Acacius. He’s a warrior, but fears Rome is headed in the wrong direction under the sadistic twin emperors, Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) and Geta (Joseph Quinn).
Both hand in fine performances, but then, into the mix, comes Denzel Washington. It’s a supporting role, but he’s here for a good time, not a long time. As Macrinus, a wealthy former slave with a plan to control Rome, he gives the film some bounce, some real personality.
As the villain of the piece, his cunning would put Machiavelli to shame. He’s a master chess player, moving everyone around as though they are pawns in his devilish game. His scenes are the film’s most memorable, and remember, this is in a movie where the lead character bites a monkey!
Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II” has sword and sandal sequelitis. It’s bigger, louder and longer than the original film, but more, in this case, doesn’t mean better.
I join the “Vassy Kapelos Show,” with guest host Stefan Keyes, segment “The Explainer” on the iHeartRadio Network to talk about Denzel Washington’s recent retirement announcement.
Liusten to the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 32:26)
For an avenging angel, a righter-of-wrongs, it seems the work is never done. Take the world-weary Robert McCall, (Denzel Washington) former government assassin turned protector of the exploited and oppressed in “Equalizer 3,” for instance. After taking a bullet on the job, he takes time out to recuperate in a Southern Italian village. As he ponders his own salvation over a cup of tea in a local cafe, he tells people he’s retired from “government work,” and settles in to enjoy a quiet life in his new home.
Trouble is, violence seems to follow this guy around like a trained puppy.
The trouble comes in the form of Vincent (Andrea Scarduzio), a mafia kingpin looking to take over the town and establish a base for his operations.
“What happens here,” says McCall’s new friend Enzo (Remo Girone), “happens in many towns. The mafia. They’re a cancer. No cure.”
Not one to accept threats and extortion as a way of life, McCall sends a warning.
“Whatever it is you and your friends do,” he says, “do it somewhere else.”
“You warning me?” says Vincent’s brother, mafia tough guy Marco Quaranta (Andrea Dodero).
“I’m preparing you.”
Meanwhile CIA agent Emma Collins (Dakota Fanning) is hot on McCall’s trail, trying to figure out the question at the heart of the movie: Is Robert McCall a good guy or a bad guy?
“The Equalizer 3” is a revenge story, plain and simple, tarted up with some talk of salvation, but let’s face it, this is “Death Wish” with nicer scenery. McCall slices and dices his way through the mafia crime family, a vigilante on a mission.
When director Antoine Fuqua, working with a script by Richard Wenk, isn’t staging homages to “Spartacus” and “Godfather 3,” he’s setting the stage with stock characters. The Italian villagers are good, honest salt-of-the-earth types. The baddies aren’t memorable, just extra evil, with no redeeming features. You don’t need white hats and black hats to tell who is who in this movie.
Into this mix comes McCall, an unwieldy mix of ruthlessness and benevolence. He’s there to give the bad guys what they’ve got coming, and it is the promise of his handiwork—decapitations, impalement, broken bones etc—that gives the movie its forward momentum.
But it’s Washington who delivers the satisfaction in the film’s scenes of gory revenge. There’s lots of revenge movies out there, but they usually don’t have the special set of skills that Washington brings to the brutal character. From his soft-spoken threats and wisecracks to his carefully timed fights and search for solace, Washington and his trademarked movie star magnetism make the character far more complex than he actually is. McCall is essentially a serial killer, a violent fantasy of justice at any cost, but Washington’s charisma makes it feel cathartic rather than exploitive.
At a sleek 1 hour and 43 minutes, “The Equalizer 3” is an entertainingly efficient finale to the franchise that goes out with a bang. Literally.
Sidney Poitier, who passed away in January 2022, led a remarkable life, one vividly portrayed in the Oprah Winfrey-produced documentary “Sidney,” now steaming on Apple TV+. “He doesn’t make movies, he makes milestones,” says U.S. President Barack Obama in the film, “milestones of America’s progress.”
In an interview shot with Winfrey in 2012, the “To Sir with Love” actor, staring directly into the camera, tells of his childhood in Nassau. A master storyteller, he recalls how he almost died as a baby, shares wonderful stories about his loving parents, recalls seeing a car for the first time, and marvels at his first glance into a mirror.
His move to the United States from a predominantly Black community in the Bahamas, is fraught with racism and threats of violence from the Ku Klux Klan, but tempered by kindness from a waiter who helps him learn to read, using the newspaper as a textbook.
Landing in Harlem, he is introduced to the world of acting, and has the good fortune to go on as an understudy in a New York City stage production on the same night a big-time Broadway producer is in the house. That leg up set on a path that would see him become the first Black man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor (for 1963’s Lilies of the Field), a civil right activist and diplomat.
It is a comprehensive, linear look at Poitier’s life, one that brings Winfrey to tears, and in the retelling of a pivotal scene in “In the Heat of the Night,” where Poitier, as detective Virgil Tibbs responds to being slapped by a white redneck, by slapping him back, brings a delightful response from Morgan Freeman.
Director Reginald Hudlin assembles a mix of archival footage, new interviews with Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Winfrey and others, and plenty of film clips, to present a well told story of a well lived and influential life. The result is an entertaining and informative doc about an extraordinary life. “When I die,” Poitier said, “I will not be afraid of having lived.”
Richard joins CTV NewsChannel and anchor Lois Lee to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including the virtual reality of “The Martrix Resurrection,” the coming of age dramedy “Licorice Pizza” and Denzel Washington in “The Tragedy of Macbeth” and the jukebox musical “Sing 2.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Austere and theatrical, “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” in theatres on December 25, streaming on Apple TV+ on January 14, feels like an up-scale horror film in its examination of ambition and violence.
The plot is familiar from high school English class. Three witches (all played by Kathryn Hunter) prophesize that Macbeth (Denzel Washington), a heroic general in King Duncan’s (Brendan Gleeson) army, is bound for glory. He will be named Thane of Cawdor, they say, and one day, if he has the backbone, King. It’s welcome news for the ambitious warrior and his ruthlessly Machiavellian wife, Lady Macbeth (Frances McDormand), who helps kickstart her husband’s rise to power by devising a plot to kill the King.
Their bloody coup sees the well-liked Duncan murdered, triggering Macbeth’s ascent to the throne. The couple’s lust for power leads to a reign of terror, which includes the wholesale slaughter of King Duncan loyalist Macduff’s (Corey Hawkins) family and a civil war.
The crown sits heavily on their collective heads. The new power couple are soon overwhelmed by insomnia, festering paranoia and guilt. “By the pricking of my thumbs,” says one of the witches, “something wicked this way comes.”
Adapted for the screen by director Joel Coen, working for the first time without his brother Ethan, “The Tragedy of Macbeth” blends theatre and cinema in a seamless and powerful way. The expressionistic sets and minimalist soundtrack feel transported in from the theatre, while the beautiful stark black-and-white photography and charismatic performances are pure cinema.
Washington is quietly powerful as his immorality grows. His entrance, a bold walk straight up to the camera out of the fog, establishes his movie star cred. His letter-perfect line readings, imbuing meaning and emotion into even the most intimidating of Shakespeare’s passages proves he was born to say these words.
McDormand plays Lady Macbeth as her husband’s equal. She captures her ambition, but tempers the performance with notes of desperation.
Also striking is legendary stage actress Kathryn Hunter. She plays all three of the prophetic weird sisters in a physically transformative way that sees her bend into shapes that look almost supernatural.
All are ably supported by an exemplary cast, including Gleeson, Corey Hawkins as Macduff, the Thane of Fife, Bertie Carvel as Macbeth ally Banquo and Harry Melling as Malcolm, the King Duncan’s eldest.
“The Tragedy of Macbeth” is accessible without ever playing down to the audience. Masterful filmmaking mixes and matches the text with compelling images and wonderful performances to create a new take on the Scottish Play that is both respectful and fearlessly fresh.
Go see it, “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…”
“The Little Things,” a Los Angeles-set crime drama now available in select theatres and on PVOD, features a trio of Oscar winners in a dark story that shows the soft underbelly of the glamour capitol.
Set in 1990, pre-DNA testing, this is a story of old-fashioned police work. Wits, stakeouts, payphones and bleary eyes are their tools. Obsession and black coffee fuel them.
Oscar winner number one Denzel Washington is Joe Deacon, a deputy sheriff in small town California, whose job as a big city detective is long in the rearview mirror. When he joins strait-laced LAPD detective Sgt. Jim Baxter (Oscar winner number two, Rami Malek) on the hunt for a serial murderer, they focus on Albert Sparma (Oscar winner number three, Jared Leto) an off-kilter character they suspect is the killer. Turns out, their case reverberates with echoes from Deacon’s troubled past.
“The Little Things” sets up an interesting mystery. The SoCal setting resonates with an eerie Golden State Killer sun-dappled vibe and there are enough cryptic clues to keep you—and Deacon and Baxter—guessing. Washington and Malek play an odd couple, brought together by their shared obsessions, and Leto is suitably sideways to lend an aura of menace to his character. But, taken as a whole, the elements feel let down by the climax of the story. No spoilers here, but Baxter’s behavior in the minutes leading up to the film’s resolution don’t feel authentic, as though they are not driven by the character and what he would do in the situation. Instead, the ending feels informed simply by the need to wrap up the story in a dramatic way.
It’s too bad because most of what comes before is quite good. Deep characterizations, worthy of the trio’s Oscar wins, help set the scene. Writer and director John Lee Hancock avoids the visual clichés of most Los Angeles sets dramas; there’s palm trees, but no Hollywood highlights, just rundown motel rooms and skid row streets. It all adds up, until Baxter’s inexplicable decisions (AGAIN, NO SPOILERS HERE) take the viewer out of the story.
As Deacon says several times in “The Little Things,” life and, in this case, storytelling are all about the little things, the details that come together to tell the tale. Hancock gets most of the little things right, but not all.
It’s hard not to watch “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” the vibrant adaptation of August Wilson’s play of the same name, now streaming on Netflix, without feeling a sense of loss. It’s Chadwick Boseman’s last performance and the life he brings to the role of ambitious trumpet player Levee acts as a poignant reminder of a career cut tragically short.
Set in the roaring 1920’s Chicago, Viola Davis plays the titular character, a real-life musical trailblazer known as “Mother of the Blues.” On a sweltering day in a dank basement recording studio, the band, pianist Toledo (Glynn Turman), trombonist Cutler (Colman Domingo), and string bassist Slow Drag (Michael Potts) and Levee, rehearse as they wait for the fashionably late Ma to arrive.
The heat, claustrophobia, frayed egos and twitchy Levee’s insistence on changing tried-and-true musical arrangements, fuel a war of words and wills as they attempt to put Ma’s signature “Black Bottom” song to disc.
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” theatrical roots are very much on display in director George C. Wolfe (a five-time Tony winner) and screenwriter Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s adaptation. The presentation is energetic but simple; a showcase for the performances. Like bandleader Cutler says, “a-one, a-two, a-you know what to do.”
And they sure do. The core cast is uniformly excellent.
Domingo is understated but powerful as the bandleader, heading off interpersonal crisis with a few well-chosen words. Turman, recently seen as the stately Doctor Senator, consigliere to Chris Rock’s crime boss, on “Fargo,” is the sage of the group, gives Toledo’s monologues gravitas as he speaks of racial pride and personal sovereignty.
Davis is flamboyant, a diva who uses her demands to maintain control over her band and respect from her white producers (Jeremy Shamos and Jonny Coyne). “They don’t care nothin’ about me,” she says. “All they want is my voice. I learned that and they are going to treat me the way I want to be treated no matter how much it hurts them.” It’s a bravura performance that’s almost as loud and proud as the garish make Ma has slathered on her face.
Ma Rainey’s name may be on the marquee but the most memorable character is Boseman’s Levee. Ambitious, he wants to leave behind the sideman gigs and form his own band, Levee Green and His Foot Stompers, but his bluster hides a deep well of pain that overflows during the steamy afternoon recording session. Levee is a tragic character, a classically flawed man straining against the weight of personal trauma, hoping that his talent will bring him the respect he needs to survive. The distressing effects of racial discrimination are written large on Boseman’s expressive face, informing every twist and turn in his character’s journey. It’s a skillful and heartbreaking performance that doesn’t just hint at his great talent, but lays it bare. It’s the kind of performance, filled with fury and frustration, that makes you hungry for more. Sadly, it’s his swan song.
Although set in the 1920s and written in the 1980s, the ideas and the anger in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” feels of the moment and indispensable. The dialogue crackles and the context resonates because Wilson’s source material has not only stood the test of time, but transcends it.
