I sit with host Deb Hutton on NewsTalk 1010 to talk about to the recent Tony Award winner “Giant,” Rush’s triumphant return to the stage, Glenn Close’s honorary Oscar, and I review the alien thrills of “Disclosure Day,” the spoof “Stop! That! Train!” and the supernatural “The Voice Of Our Mother.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to brush your teeth. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the alien thrills of “Disclosure Day,” the spoof “Stop! That! Train!” and the supernatural “The Voice Of Our Mother.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Disclosure Day,” the new Steven Spielberg alien thriller now playing in theatres, a television meteorologist’s on-air possession reveals verifiable proof of extraterrestrial intelligence, triggering a worldwide awareness.
CAST: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Colman Domingo. Directed by Steven Spielberg.
REVIEW: “Disclosure Day” delivers aliens and thrills in equal parts to sentimentality and spectacle. A high-stakes conspiracy thriller, it plays like Steven Spielberg directed an elaborate episode of “The X-Files.”
Emily Blunt plays Margaret Fairchild, a former journalist now working as a Kansas City television meteorologist. When she experiences an on-air possession and spouts a strange jumble of clicks, pops and grunts, cybersecurity expert Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) identifies the sounds as an alien language.
“I can see them,” Margaret says. “What’s happening to me?”
As clips of her possession go viral, evidence of extraterrestrial life emerges, despite the best efforts of government organizations and Wardex corporation head Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) to cover up any and all revelations.
Working together, Margaret and Daniel fight for full transparency; a disclosure day when the truth is finally revealed. “Full disclosure to the whole world,” says Daniel. “All at once.”
Spielberg’s other alien films—“Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and “War of the Worlds”—are more intimate than this one, respectively focusing on family stories of connection, friendship and survival. Here the focus is widened to ask a simple question in a complicated, overstuffed film: What will happen when humankind discovers we’re not alone in the universe?
It’s an ontological point of view, pondering the world’s reaction to alien life, wondering if mutual acceptance is possible as it weaves together a world-changing revelation, shadowy government conspiracies, thrills and lens flares. In many ways it feels like classic Amblin, but the perspective is different. It’s not simply about acceptance; it’s about optimism in the aftermath of first contact.
It is also, in almost equal measure to the alien story, a chase film that allows Spielberg to stage a wild action set piece that sees Margaret and Daniel jumping between cars and a speeding train. It’s a big and brash sequence that brings together Spielberg’s technical mastery, John Williams’ exciting score, brilliant cinematography courtesy of longtime collaborator Janusz Kamiński and loads of practical effects.
It’s a highlight in an overlong film is otherwise a mixed bag.
On the upside are terrific performances from the leads.
From the tense, four-minute possession scene, to taking on the bulk of the film’s emotional and physical weight, Emily Blunt impresses.
It’s also fun to see Colin Firth and Colman Domingo as former colleagues now acting as avatars for secrecy vs. truth. As Scanlon, Firth plays against type, embracing his character’s villainy in ways that, were this a pantomime, would turn the audience into a sea of boos every time he appears on screen. An interrogation scene between Scanlon and Jane (played by a terrific Eve Hewson) a former nun who happens to be Daniel’s girlfriend, is a highlight.
Domingo balances the equation as the film’s moral core. It’s a difficult role, one that requires him to spout loads of exposition, but his calming presence grounds the film’s otherworldly action.
On the downside, as Spielberg, working from a screenplay by David Koepp, explores modern concerns like fear of AI and tech, faith, misinformation and Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, the film becomes repetitious and unfocussed.
Add to that useless government operatives who create plot holes big enough to fly a spaceship through, and you’re left with a movie that grows ever more frustrating as the end credits approach. The movie’s desire for us to believe in aliens is easier to take than some of the logic lapses Spielberg wants us to buy into.
Still, “Disclosure Day” offers enough Spielbergian treats—like a cool shot of an intended victim’s face reflected in the blade of the knife that may, or may not, be used to kill them— to cover some of the script’s plot holes and clichés.
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make your bed. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the legacy sequel “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” the unsettling “Hokum” and the shallow “Deep Water.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit with guest host Jim Richards on NewsTalk 1010 to talk about the robotic dogs of Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie, the return of “The Apprentice,” new emojis and I recview “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with CKTB morning show host Steph Vivier to have a look at movies in theatres including the legacy sequel “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” the unsettling “Hokum” and the shallow “Deep Water.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” the twenty-years-in-the-making sequel to the 2006 Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt hit, Andy Sachs returns to Runway Magazine as Miranda Priestly navigates the new world of media. “Well, look what TJ Maxx dragged in,” says Nigel (Stanley Tucci).
CAST: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci, Justin Theroux, Kenneth Branagh. Directed by David Frankel.
REVIEWS: The clever callbacks and echoes of the past in “The Devil Wears Prada 2” should satisfy fans of the original but may leave series newcomers with a case of the cerulean blues. (Fans will get the joke.)
The movie begins in a much different world from the 2006 movie. Journalism is under fire and the formerly high-flying world of fashion magazines has been grounded, relegated to creating “content for people to scroll past while they pee.”
Even Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), editor-in-chief of the formerly formidable magazine “Runway,” feels the pinch. She still has a beautiful corner office, longtime right-hand Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci) and a withering attitude toward her staff, but these days she is reduced to hanging up her own coat rather than tossing it one of her assistants.
Fate brings together Miranda and her former second assistant Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) in a perfect storm of journalism woes. Andy loses her job as an investigative reporter just as Miranda is accused of failing to fact check a story about a fashion company that secretly uses sweat shops to produce their clothes.
Much to Miranda’s consternation, “Runway’s” owner hires Andy as Features Editor hoping that her standard of journalistic excellence will rehabilitate the magazine’s tattered reputation. “All I have to do is bide my time until you fail,” Miranda says disdainfully, “and you will.”
Andy’s job at the magazine is to “turn on new readers without turning off old readers,” which, coincidentally, is also director David Frankel’s job with the film’s viewers.
For the most part he succeeds.
The script, by Aline Brosh McKenna, who also wrote the original, follows a similar structure to the first film, placing Andy, once again, as an eager outsider in the exotic world inhabited by Miranda, Nigel and Emily. Frankel puts the band—Streep, Hathaway, Tucci, and Blunt—back together, keeping the traits that made them popular in the first place, while allowing them to grow.
Fans will get a boatload of Miranda’s dismissive remarks, Andy’s puppy dog energy and ambition, Nigel’s quiet mentorship and Emily’s judgmental edge, but all are tweaked. Miranda has vulnerabilities, Andy is more confident, Nigel is an avatar for the changing industry and Emily is still fiercely fashionable and wants to please Miranda but has a modicum of power she didn’t have before.
Reunited, the characters fit together like puzzle pieces, but it is the movie’s macro focus that gives “The Devil Wears Prada 2” its juice.
Of course, the characters click and there are beautiful, over-the-top clothes, but that’s not the point. Amid the laughs and emotional plot turns, mixed in with the runway drama, is a timely, love letter to the importance of journalism. The gloomy picture the movie paints of the future of journalism and media outlets is unexpected, and seemingly at odds with the glamourous backdrop, but it adds a dose of maturity to the story. The audience has grown up and so have the characters and the situation.
“The Devil Wears Prada 2” has style and substance. It isn’t as light and fluffy as the original but has a modern tone that reflects where the world and the characters are today. It’s still a bit of a fairy tale, with callbacks and nostalgia, but a grounded one that fans should enjoy.
SYNOPSIS: In “The Smashing Machine,” a new sports biopic now playing on theatres, Dwayne Johnson plays former MMA and UFC champion Mark Kerr.
CAST: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten, Oleksandr Usyk. Directed by Benny Safdie.
REVIEW: Dwayne Johnson leaves his well-honed action hero schtick behind, opting to emphasize UFC champion Mark Kerr’s vulnerabilities over the character’s innate violence.
Focused on three years in Mark Kerr’s life, “The Smashing Machine” begins in 1997 during the beginning of the wild and wooly mixed martial arts era. Former wrestler Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) is an up-and-coming UFC star nicknamed The Smashing Machine for his no-holds-barred fighting style. “When you win,” he says, “nothing else in the world matters.”
When he’s not sticking his fingers in his opponent’s open wounds or pulverizing a rival’s face with his fists, he’s soft spoken and tender and likes to look at sunsets. His love life with girlfriend Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt) also thrives. “My big strong man,” she says, “I love you.”
As his fame blossoms on the Japanese Pride FC circuit, the work takes a toll on Mark physically and on his relationship.
As his body aches, he finds a high greater than winning through the abuse of painkillers. “A day without pain,” he says, “is like a day with sunshine.”
As growing dependence on painkillers pushes his relationship with Dawn to the edge and affects his performance in the ring, a shocking loss in Pride FC pushes him further into drugs, leading to an overdose. With Dawn’s help, Kerr looks for personal and professional redemption.
A cautionary tale of addiction wrapped in a sports movie, “The Smashing Machine” reunites Johnson and Blunt, who have previously co-starred in “The Jungle Cruise” and “Red One,” but the tone here is much different. The action comedy of their earlier films is replaced with family drama, but their chemistry is very much intact. Dawn and Mark’s relationship is rocky, but they have the vibe of a couple who have experienced ups and downs.
It’s too bad that the movie doesn’t spend more time with them, or, generally, enough time with most of the major events in their lives. It’s a story full of drama, but director Benny Safdie chooses to skim through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Safdie attempts to mine emotion from the tribulations of Kerr’s life, but through a chatty, repetitious script that uses talk not action. The fight scenes are brutal, but brief (until the end) but the real fireworks happen off camera. It hard to shake the feeling that the movie’s depictions of Kerr’s drug use and time in rehab would have benefitted from more show-me and less tell-me.
On the plus side, Johnson delivers the best work of his career. As Kerr he delivers a real dramatic turn, aided by a terrific performance from Blunt and real life American mixed martial artist Ryan Bader who plays Kerr’s best friend and trainer.
“The Smashing Machine” is a step forward for Johnson but doesn’t really connect as a sports drama.
A love letter to the folks who jeopardize their lives so actors can look cool taking risks on the silver screen, “The Fall Guy,” based on the Lee Majors’s TV show of the same name, is an action romance that is easy to like, but hard to love.
Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers, stuntman for pompous Hollywood action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). He’s jumped out of tall buildings, crashed countless cars, been lit on fire and jumped through who knows how many breakaway windows in the name of making Ryderlook brave on screen and catching the eye if camera person Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt).
When a stunt goes horribly wrong, Seavers disappears, leaving the business and his relationship with Jody behind.
A year of isolation and recuperation later he goes back to work. But this time around the stunts aren’t the most dangerous part of the job. Moreno, now a director of a big budget action flick called “Metal Storm,” is pissed with him and to make matters worse, Ryder has gone missing mid shoot.
“The Fall Guy” delivers a crowd-pleasing mix of action, romance and high wattage performances from Gosling and Blunt. It is their chemistry that makes this as much fun as it is.
Set to a recurring musical motif of KISS’s “I Was Made for Loving You Baby,” their scenes provide good, old fashioned star power, with charisma to burn. The twinkle in Gosling’s eye, even as he is repeatedly brutalized on and off set, is a perfect foil for Blunt’s warmth and dead-on comic timing.
Together they help smooth over the film’s rough patches. A bit overlong, it gets unnecessarily convoluted in its last act, and loses some of its charm, but the whiz bang action and funny moments—like a fellow stuntman who helps Severs beat up the baddies as he calls out the various fighting styles from movies like “The Bourne Identity”—showcase what the movie does best, and that is deliver a sugar rush.
A cotton candy confection, light and airy, “The Fall Guy” is a bit of fun that leaves you with a sweet taste in your mouth, but not much else.
