CTV NEWSCHANNEL: RICHARD ON THE BIG CHRISTMAS DAY RELEASES
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Scott Hirsch to talk about the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” and the vampire drama “Nosferatu.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Posts Tagged ‘Edward Norton’
A COMPLETE UNKNOWN: 4 ½ STARS. “a rich vein of history, personal and otherwise.”
SYNOPSIS: Timothée Chalamet stars as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” an intimate portrait of four tumultuous years in the life of the “Blowin’ in the Wind” singer.
CAST: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Scoot McNairy, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz, P. J. Byrne, Will Harrison and Eriko Hatsune. Directed by James Mangold who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks.
REVIEW: From the surreal “Rocketman,” that turned Elton John’s life into pop art and the self-congratulatory “Bohemian Rhapsody” to the monkey business of the Robbie Williams biopic “Better Man” and Brian Wilson’s introspective “Love & Mercy,” music bios come in all envelope pushing shapes and sizes.
So, it’s a surprise that “A Complete Unknown,” the new film chronicling four years in Bob Dylan’s eventful life, from Greenwich Village newbie to the enigmatic superstar who was booed off the stage at the Newport Folk Festival for playing an electric guitar, is so straightforward.
A story about the man who wrote, “The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face,” could reasonably be expected to take some stylistic risks à la “I’m Not There,” Todd Haynes’s metaphoric retelling of the “Like a Rolling Stones” singer’s life.
Instead, “A Complete Unknown” is more “Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story” than “I’m Not There” or “Inside Llewyn Davis.” The storytelling is efficiently linear (although not all together factual) without the kind of flourishes that Dylan regularly applies to his songs.
But the back-to-basics approach benefits the movie, allowing Timothée Chalamet’s tour de force performance to shine.
Dylan is one of the most documented people of the twentieth century, a man who has inspired a million nasally impressions, and influenced generations of musicians, and yet remains somewhat unknowable.
As a result, “A Complete Unknown” lives up to its name. When we first meet Dylan, he’s an unknown commodity. Four years later he’s the voice of a generation, the most famous export of the folk scene, but in many ways, he remains an enigma.
Chalamet captures the voice and the physicality of young Dylan but isn’t weighed down by the superstar’s legend. Despite his documented life, Dylan, the man, the myth, the legend, is basically unknowable. He’s a cipher; a dancer to a song only he can hear. Chalamet plays him as a mysterious, sometimes imperious guy and most importantly, gets the essence of what made Dylan the voice of a generation. It’s the It Factor, the Rizz, the elusive quality that is impossible to define, but easy to spot.
Instead of attempting to unwind Dylan’s mystique director James Mangold, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks, wisely opts for a portrait of the time, the America and, in microcosm, the Greenwich Village folk era, that produced the singer. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the battle for civil rights indirectly hang heavy over the film, completing the portrait of the time that fuelled Dylan’s early work.
The songs, and there are plenty of them, most performed by Chalamet, are the product of these influences and act as a commentary on that chaotic period.
“A Complete Unknown” may not be revelatory in terms of its biography of Dylan, but it places the singer in context of his times, revealing a rich vein of history, personal and otherwise.
ASTEROID CITY: 3 STARS. “whimsy has finally replaced storytelling.”
For better and for worse, there is nothing quite like a Wes Anderson film. The director’s unique production design is all over his new sci fi comedy “Asteroid City,” but with this film it is clear that whimsy has finally replaced storytelling on his to do list.
This is a twisty-turny one. Like a set of nesting dolls, it’s a film, within a play, within a show hosted by a Rod Sterling-esque talking head (Bryan Cranston), within a teleplay written by playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton).
The bulk of the “action” takes place in Asteroid City, a remote New Mexico desert town—population 87—where Steve Carell’s motel manager hosts a Junior Stargazer convention. Gifted kids and their parents from all over the state convene to showcase their incredible, and often outlandish, inventions.
It’s an interesting group that includes recently widowed war photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman), father to “brainiac” Woodrow (Jake Ryan) and son-in-law to Stanley (Tom Hanks), movie star Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) and the rough-n-tumble J.J. Kellogg (Liev Schreiber). Along for the ride are singing cowboy Montana (Rupert Friend), teacher June (Maya Hawke), Dr. Hickenlooper (Tilda Swinton) a scientist from the local observatory and the fast-talking Junior Stargazer awards judge, General Grif Gibson (Jeffrey Wright).
When the convention is interrupted by a visiting alien, the whole thing is locked down for a mandatory government quarantine.
Despite the quirky tone and Anderson’s trademarked stylistic choices, “Asteroid City” is a serious film, albeit one laced with a healthy dose of absurdism. A study in how people deal with grief, and the true nature of love, Anderson’s characters experience existential dilemmas, angst born of loss and dissatisfaction. Threats are posed by nuclear bombs and life from other planets unexpectedly dropping by to say hello and children wonder aloud what happens when we die. A shroud of melancholic anxiety hangs over the film, like a shroud, but Anderson’s staging of the film, the meta story within a story structure, obscures the movie’s deeper meanings under layers of style.
The cast, particularly Johansson and Hanks, bring focus to Anderson’s unfocussed story, and Carell, Cranston and briefly Goldblum are having fun, but it sometimes feels the surfeit of characters are there more to decorate the screen than to forward the story.
“Asteroid City” may delight long-time fans, but casual moviegoers or newcomers to the director’s oeuvre may find the film’s mannered obtuseness off kilter and off putting.
CTV NEWSCHANEL: Janelle Monáe ON MURDER MYSTERIES AND “GLASS ONION.”
I speak with “Glass Onion” star Janelle Monáe about working with Daniel Craig, playing murder mystery games with the film’s cast and more.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY: 4 STARS. “truly delightful.”
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” the sequel to the popular Daniel Craig detective movie “Knives Out, now playing in theatres before moving to Netflix in late December, is a satire of old school Agatha Christie with a modern sensibility.
Craig returns as detective Benoit Blanc, “The Last of the Gentlemen Sleuths.” He’s the American Poirot, with a honied Southern accent and a Jessica Fletcher-esque knack for being present when people are murdered.
In the new film he finds himself, post COVID lockdown, at a lavish private estate on a Greek island owned by billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton doing Elon Musk). Invited by a mysterious third party, it is just the tonic he needs to shake his post COVID lockdown blues.
“I lose it between cases,” he drawls. “I may be going insane. My brain is a fuelled up sportscar, with nowhere to go. I need a great case.”
Bron has invited “my dear disrupters, my closest inner circle,” like former business partner Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe), scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.), man’s rights YouTube star Duke Cody (Dave Bautista), fashion designer and unapologetic loudmouth Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) and politician Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn) among other glamourous types, to play a very special game.
“I’ve invited you all to my island,” says Bron, “because tonight, a murder will be committed. My murder.”
With clues hidden all over the island, Bron encourages his guests to “closely observe each other. If anyone can name the killer, that person wins our game.”
It’s all fun and games until a real dead body shows up and everyone on the island is a suspect in the crime.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” says Blanc. “You expected a mystery. You expected a puzzle. But for at least one person on this island, this is not a game.”
Cue the whodunnit. The characters are all connected, and all have a motive for murder. “This is a case that has confounded me like no other,” Blanc says as he peels back the layers of the mystery.
There is a lot of talk of disrupters in “Glass Onion.” Each of the guests have caused radical change in their industries, a fact pointed out by Bron as the reason they are all friends. It also applies to writer/director Rian Johnson. He pays homage to a well-worn format, the Agatha Christie ensemble cast and elaborate crime reveal, but breathes new life into the tried-and-true format, updating and disrupting the structure.
Johnson uses all the same stylistic—flourishes, flashbacks, red herrings and diversionary tactics—as Christie did, in books and on screen, but adds a spark, juggling the story’s twists, turns and reveals with great aplomb and humour. The result is a swiftly paced thriller that is equal parts silly and suave.
It’s become trendy to skewer the rich and ridiculous in film. Recent movies like “Triangle of Sadness” and “The Menu” lay waste to entitlement and privilege, and “Glass Onion” is no different. Bron and his crew of influencers and desperadoes are presented as self-serving, uncaring and absurd—“What is reality?” shrieks Birdie Jay when the going gets rough—providing a juicy blast of raucous moral ambiguity as an undercurrent to the murder mystery.
As a sequel that improves on the original, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” is a rarity. It may follow a template formatted by Agatha Christie, but like the titular “Glass Onion” itself, Johnson is transparent in his desire to make the mystery deeper, the characters more extreme and the thrills more thrilling. As Blanc says in the in the film, “This is truly delightful.”
MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN: 3 ½ STARS. “ambitious, overstuffed movie.”
Edward Norton spent twenty years trying to bring Jonathan Lethem’s bestselling novel “Motherless Brooklyn” to the big screen. Lethem set his detective story in the 1990s but Norton takes liberties, adding new characters and moving the action to the 1950s, lending a retro “Chinatown” vibe to the proceedings.
Norton, wrote, produced, directed and also stars as Lionel Essrog, a gumshoe with Tourette syndrome and an obsessive-compulsive eye for the little details that solve cases. “It’s like I got glass in my brain,” he says. When Frank Minna (Bruce Willis), his mentor and only friend, is killed while investigating a case no one is surprised. His colleagues, Tony (Bobby Cannavale), Gilbert (Ethan Suplee) and Danny (Dallas Roberts), accept that death is an almost inevitable part of the job but Lionel thinks there is more to the story. He is convinced Frank was about to blow the lid off a conspiracy involving Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin), a ruthless politician who clears out African American communities to make way for redevelopment. “There’s something going down,” says Lionel, “and it’s big, and they were not happy about what he found.” His sleuthing leads him to Randolph’s hinky brother (Willem Dafoe), community activist Laura Rose (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), and a tale of corruption, lust and power where everyone is at risk.
Norton has created a detailed noir with “Motherless Brooklyn” that, while engaging, overstays its welcome in a long, drawn out conclusion. Terrific performances (there is some capitol A acting happening here), effective dialogue and anxiety-inducing music plus great 1950s era flourishes (even if Baldwin does smoke a recent vintage American Spirit cigarette in closeup) entertain the eyes and ears but as Lionel uncovers clues we are drawn further into a rabbit hole of murky motives, many of which are left dangling by the time the end credits roll. It’s an ambitious movie that feels meandering and overstuffed with plot.
It does, however, have its high notes. Norton is careful in his portrayal of a person with Tourettes and while he may have an extreme case of the syndrome it is never used as a gag or a gimmick. Instead it’s a sympathetic representation of a person with neurological tics making his way through life.
As for Baldwin, it’s hard to not see echoes of his Donald Trump impression in Moses Randolph. He’s an aggressive anything-to-win type who plays the power game to the disadvantage of anyone who gets in his way. It’s a big, blustery performance and one of the film’s pleasures.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw brings both vulnerability and steel to Laura, elevating her from a plot device to a living, breathing character.
“Motherless Brooklyn” is frustrating. It contains many interesting, thought provoking ideas on gentrification, some nicely rendered scenes and fine acting but errs on the side of self-indulgence to the point where the audience loses interest in its machinations.
Metro In Focus: Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs a labour of love and patience.
Imagine the painstaking process that goes into making stop-motion animated films like Isle of Dogs. Instead of using computer-generated imagery, animators meticulously manipulate little puppets a centimetre or two at a time, shoot a frame or two and repeat the process until the film is done. On average, working at a good clip, a stop-motion animator can complete one or two minutes of film per week.
According to whom you speak, the process is either a labour of love or pure torture.
“People think it’s monotonous and tedious, but I think stop motion creates a dream quality,” said legendary animator Ray Harryhausen. “I never found it tedious or monotonous.”
Others, like The Boxtrolls producer Travis Knight, say “It’s the worst way to make a movie. It makes no sense.”
However you feel about the method, the results are beautiful. At its best, stop motion has a timeless quality and otherworldly charm born from the old-fashioned process that brings it to the screen. It’s handmade with a level of craftsmanship and soul that not even the most skilled programmer working on an advanced computer can imitate.
“There’s a strange quality in stop-motion photography, like in King Kong,” says Harryhausen, “that adds to the fantasy. If you make things too real, sometimes you bring it down to the mundane. In Kong, you knew he wasn’t real, but he looked like a nightmare, you know? He acted real, and the dinosaurs looked real. But there was something about them that had a magic that you don’t quite get yet in CGI.”
Director Wes Anderson says Harryhausen’s work and the stop-motion animated holiday specials of Rankin/Bass Productions inspired Isle of Dogs.
“I really liked these TV Christmas specials in America,” he said. “I always liked the creatures in the Harryhausen-type films, but really these American Christmas specials were probably the thing that really made me want to do it.”
A film still from Isle of Dogs Behind the Scenes (in virtual reality) by Paul Raphael, Felix Lajeunesse and the Isle of Dogs Production Team.
Isle of Dogs, which became the first animated film to ever open the Berlin Film Festival in February, tells the story of the exile of the dogs of Megasaki City to a vast garbage dump, and a 12-year-old boy who sets off to find his lost pet.
The film’s handmade technique is already earning rave reviews. Slate said that Anderson’s stop-motion animations, including 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, “are the warmest, the most emotionally accessible, the most real” of all of Anderson’s films.
That’s the magic of stop motion. From its earliest usage in 1897’s The Humpty Dumpty Circus, to the pioneering work of Harryhausen and Willis O’Brien, to the advanced visions of Aardman’s Wallace and Gromit movies, the exquisite Coraline from Henry Selick, and Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer, who mixes stop motion with live actors, all stop-motion films have one thing in common — a humanity that shines through the technology. It isn’t perfect, it’s primal.
Animation, as Pixar’s Brad Bird says, is about creating the illusion of life. Stop motion, with its reliance on the animator’s hands-on skills, presents an imperfect but organic image that can ignite imaginations.
Harryhausen told me it was the stop motion of the original 1933 King Kong that changed his life. “I saw it when I was 13,” he said, “and I haven’t been the same since.”
ISLE OF DOGS: 4 ½ STARS. “cinematic & inventive, it’s a fairy tale with a bite.”
Ever wondered what would happen if stop motion master Ray Harryhausen and Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa went to see “Benji” and then decided to make a movie? With the release of “Isle of Dogs” Wes Anderson, director of live action wonders like “Rushmore” and “Moonrise Kingdom” and the stop motion hit “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” offers up an idea of what that might have been like.
Once again working in stop motion, Anderson creates a fictional world, the Japanese city of Megasaki, twenty years from now. An epidemic of dog flu prompts the fear mongering Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura) to forewarn that snout fever is about to spread to humans and order all dogs deported to a toxic wasteland called Trash Island.
Dog-zero is Spots (voiced by Liev Schreiber), the beloved pet of the mayor’s orphaned ward 12-year-old Atari (Koyu Rankin). When he is deported the boy makes the dangerous journey across the river in a prop plane to look for his dog. With the help of newfound mongrel pals, including the good-natured Rex (Edward Norton), former baseball mascot Boss (Bill Murray), King (Bob Balaban), the gossipy Duke (Jeff Goldblum), Chief (Bryan Cranston) and Nutmeg (Scarlett Johansson), Atari takes on the corrupt government.
“Isle of Dogs” is a fairy tale with a bite. Anderson, one of the most distinctive directors working today (or any day for that matter), brings a child-like wonder and unfettered imagination to bring this boy-and-his-dog story to vivid life. Gorgeous, soulful stop motion animation and Anderson’s trademarked banter combined with a timely story of deportation and exile makes for an unforgettable film.
The usual complaints about Anderson’s work, that it’s too detailed, too eccentric, will be levelled at this movie but I’d argue it is his obsessiveness that brings the creative magic. Subplots and flashbacks take the viewer on a wild journey but Anderson’s attention to every element, visual and narrative, guarantees the rambunctious story never loses itself in its own elaborate style.
There jokes throughout—even the title is a playful take on “I love dogs”—but just as important are the messages of tolerance. You will not see another film like “Isle of Dogs” this year. So effortlessly cinematic and inventive, it’s best in show.
Metro Canada: Will Smith gets his way in a tale of death, love and grief
Collateral Beauty had a long Hollywood history before director David Frankel came on board. Hugh Jackman was attached at one point and Rachel McAdams had been approached to play a part.
The long development came to an end when Will Smith signed on to play Howard Inlet, a charismatic advertising kingpin who becomes despondent after the death of his six-year-old daughter.
“When I came on it, it felt like it was written in stone,” says Frankel. “Everybody loved the screenplay and we were going in three months and then people started whispering, ‘I wish we could fix that.’ So it turned out to be a pretty normal development process where we tried a lot of stuff.
“Once the actors got involved, Professor Will Smith, Professor Edward Norton and Professor Kate Winslet, there was a lot more writing. Mostly condensing. Edward had this brilliant vision of the movie as a screwball comedy, which I think was really smart. Will always said, ‘We have to make the first half of the movie as funny as possible so that we don’t kill people.’ We worked on that.”
The changes continued into the shooting. In the story Howard spends his nights practising self-therapy, writing angry letters to the abstractions of Time, Love and Death demanding answers as to why his child was taken. In the original script he met the abstractions, personified by Jacob Latimore, Keira Knightley and Helen Mirren, in a different order than in the finished film.
“It was written where he first ran into Love, then Time then Death,” says Frankel. “We shot them in the order, Death, Time, Love so as we were approaching Love Will and I were still arguing about whether Love should be first or last in the sequence.
“We had prepped for six months up to that moment thinking Love was first. He came to me the day before and said, ‘I think Love should be last.’ I fought him tooth and nail about it because I really thought that moment on the train when he confronts Death was the pivotal moment and then it rained and because of the weather (the shots) wouldn’t have matched. The sequence wouldn’t have made sense.
“Of course Will said, ‘God works in mysterious ways.’ But Will Smith got his way. Big surprise.”
The movie details the anguish Howard feels and the steps his friends take to help him reconnect with the world.
“I have seen some pretty profound grief,” says Frankel. “My wife lost her mom six years ago and grief really can distort someone’s connection to the universe. I learned you don’t just get over it. That’s why the line Helen (Mirren) has, I think is the most profound line in the movie. ‘Nothing is really ever dead if you look at it right.’
“That I thought was really beautiful. That is how we all live on, in memory, not in fact.”
It may seem like an odd subject for a Christmas film but Frankel says, “In holiday movies you always want a sense of hope. That’s ultimately what we dreamed of for this movie.
“I know when Will saw it for the first time he ran to hug Willow who was in the audience with him. People want to connect and realize the fragility of our time here.”
