“What’s Love Got to Do with It,” starring Lily James, fresh off “Pam and Tommy,” and Shazad Latif, and now playing in theatres, is a rom com that examines the customs surrounding arranged marriages.
James plays Zoe, an award-winning British documentary filmmaker focussed on her work. She swipes right from time to time, but says, “I’m still interviewing. I haven’t met the one yet.”
“I’m fine without a boring old prince,” she says.
Her childhood next door neighbor, Kaz (Latif), now a handsome and successful doctor, doesn’t use dating apps, because he’s agreed to follow the example of his traditional Pakistani parents.
“I’m going old school on this one,” he says. “I’m getting an arranged marriage. Well, ‘assisted marriage.’ That’s what we’re calling it these days.”
“What,” Zoe jokes, “like assisted suicide?”
When he spouts data that suggests the divorce rate is lower among those with arranged marriages, she proposes that she follow the process, from introduction to marriage, with camera in hand. Her bosses go for the idea, even if they jokingly call the planned documentary, “Love Contractually.”
Zoe interviews other British couples with arranged marriages until Kaz gets engaged via Skype to Maymouna (Sajal Aly), a law student from Pakistan. “Love at first Skype,” says Zoe. Travelling to Lahore for the wedding, Zoe focuses her camera on Kaz as he “walks into love.”
“What’s Love Got to Do with it?” refreshes the usual rom com formula while still hewing the line enough to be recognizable within the genre. Director Shekhar Kapur, working with a script from Jemima Khan, embraces most, but not all, of the tropes of the genre. They forgo the most obvious—and often most odious—rom com conventions, in favor of something deeper. It’s still a rom com, but the absence of the usual meet cutes and airport runs are welcome omissions.
Kapur tugs at the heartstrings in the film’s closing moments, amping up the melodrama to provide an unexpectedly emotional finale, even if the actual ending of the film is completely expected. Much of that impact is due to the chemistry between James and Latif. An easy charm exists between them, the kind of vibe that makes the audience feel like they really did grow up next door to one another. That relationship goes a long way to adding dimension to their story, both platonic and possibly even romantic.
“What’s Love Got to Do with It?” is an elevated rom com which challenges the idea of love as a sweet old-fashioned notion.
Richard joins Ryan Doyle and Jay Michaels of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show to talk about the history of 007’s other favourite drink, the Vesper, some Oscar news and reviews of “Cruella” and “Moby Doc.”
Richard Crouse makes a Salty Dog, the perfect cocktail to enjoy while paying tribute to animal actor stars of “Cruella,” the latest Disney live-action reboot. Come have a drink and a think about “Cruella” with us!
“Cruella,” now available in select theatres and on Disney+ with Premier Access, is an origin story that explains the reason why one of Disney’s greatest villains hates Dalmatians.
One eventful day defined Estella’s (Tipper Seifert-Cleveland) life. In less than twenty-four hours, the precious preteen with the distinctive mop of black and white hair, got kicked out of an upscale private school, snuck into a fashion show and thought, “for the first time in my life, I feel like I belong,“ and developed a lifelong hatred of Dalmatians. I won’t say why, but she does have a good reason to harbor animosity toward the spotted dogs. Most tragically, she lost her mother that same day.
Cut loose and alone, she lands in 1964 London. Falling in with petty thieves Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser), Estella (now played by Emma Stone) forms an impromptu family, pulling off scams using disguises designed and made by her own hand.
Still, she’s not satisfied. “I want to be a professional designer,” she says, “not a thief.”
Securing an entry level job at an upscale department store, she gets the attention of The Baroness (Emma Thompson), a cruel, imperious clothing designer who says things like, “Gratitude is for losers.” She is the undisputed matriarch London fashion and will crush anyone who gets in her way.
As Estella rises through the ranks, she becomes aware of a connection between The Baroness and the death of her mother. Until then, she believed she was responsible for her mother’s passing and had gone through the five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Now she adds a sixth stage, revenge.
“I’m starting to remember that you have an extreme side,” says Estella’s old friend Anita Darling (Kirby Howell-Baptiste).
Determined to ruin The Baroness, break her spirit, her confidence and her business. Estella creates an alter ego, the disruptive Cruella. In a series of staged public stunts Cruella humiliates The Baroness and becomes the darling of the fashion world. “Some call her a designer,” a TV talking head breathlessly reports, “some call her a vandal.”
As the “mad, bad and just a little bit sad” Cruella’s antics escalate, Estella’s personality grows fainter. “I’m not sweet Estella, try as I might. I’m Cruella.”
“Cruella” has lots going for it. Great costume design, a rippin’ soundtrack and arch attitude, but by the time the end credits roll, it is all about the dueling Emmas, Stone and Thompson.
“Wow,” says Cruella. “You really are a psycho. “How nice of you to say,” The Baroness snaps back.
Both hand in flamboyant performances that capture the wickedly humorous tone of the story.
Stone’s performance straddles the line between her two characters as Estella’s attempts to fit into the regular world fade, as bits and pieces of Cruella’s anything goes mentality filter through until she goes full-on baddie. The punk rock-glam inspired clothes help in the transformation, but the heart comes from Stone, who does something difficult, bring a tragic heart to a villain.
As The Baroness, Thompson is the is the Queen of the Side Eye. It’s a wonderfully comedic performance, equal parts disdain, evil and ridiculous, she redefines arrogance. Think “The Devil Wears Prada” with a sharper edge. It’s the kind of work you want to watch at least twice to catch all the small bits of business she weaves into the performance.
Propelled by the performances and a music-heavy soundtrack featuring everything from The Doors and Nina Simone to Iggy & The Stooges (this must be the first Disney film to feature the proto-punk tune “I Wanna Be Your Dog”) and Tina Turner, “Cruella” rocks along at a clip until it loses steam near the end as it prepares itself for the sequel.
Until then, however, “Cruella” is the most audacious of the recent live action reimaginings of a classic Disney character.
Another franchise, another eccentric genius. Robert Downey Jr. laves Tony Stark behind to return to the big screen in a reboot of a remake of a classic story of a man who could talk to animals.
When we first meet Dr. John Dolittle (Downey) he’s at the Howard Hughes recluse stage of his life. The passing of his wife has left him despondent, unable to enjoy the company of humans so he lives in seclusion with only a menagerie of animals for company.
To pass the time he plays chess with a timid gorilla named Chee-Chee (voice of Rami Malek) and in conversation with the various animals who crowd his home, including his trusted macaw advisor Polynesia (voice of Emma Thompson) and Jip (voice of Tom Holland), a bespectacled dog.
“I don’t care about anyone, anywhere, anymore,” the doctor says.
Of course, that’s not true. When animal lover Tommy Stubbins (Harry Collett) shows up at Dolittle’s gate with an injured squirrel (voice of Craig Robinson)—“I’m too beautiful to die,” the squirrel says.—on the same day the doctor is summoned to Buckingham Palace to see the ailing Queen Victoria (Jessie Buckley), he is brought back into the human world. Her Majesty is gravely ill and if she dies the treasury will take the animal sanctuary Dr. Dolittle calls home. Worse, all his animals will be thrown out into the world during hunting season.
To save the Queen‘s life he must embark on a journey to find the Eden Tree and its magical, healing fruit. It’s trip fraught with danger and is the same journey that cost his beloved wife her life. Add to that some palace intrigue, an island of misfits and thieves, turbo boosting whales, a vengeful squirrel and even a dragon and you have a new chapter in the life of the man who can talk to animals.
Kids will likely find “Dolittle’s” chatty animals amusing but this isn’t simply a movie about wise cracking beasts. At its beating heart it is a movie about pain, but, as one character says, not the kind of hurt inflicted by a bullet or a knife. It’s about the agony of losing someone. Dolittle’s heart is broken by the death of his wife, and that ache is the engine that propels the entire movie. So, while the young’uns may giggle at the animals but the movie’s underlying downer vibe and generic approach suggests that Dolittle’s wife isn’t the only lifeless part of this movie.
Downey plays the character with a sense of bemused confusion, topped with a mealy-mouthed Billy Connolly impression that changes from scene to scene. It’s a pantomime performance that makes the best of his finely tuned comic timing but feels sloppy and needlessly mannered.
“Dolittle” contains some good pop psychology for children about working together—”Teamwork makes the dream work!”—and facing their fears but overall a movie featuring talking animals shouldn’t be this banal.
This week “The Avengers,” well, at least one of them, aren’t saving the world. Instead Thor portrayer Chris Hemsworth sets his sights a little lower, breathing new life into the flailing “Men in Black” franchise. Twenty-two years after the original hit film and a few years after a cancelled third sequel he’s joined by Marvel Universe citizens, “Avengers: Endgame’s” Tessa Thompson and “Iron Man” writers Matt Holloway and Art Marcum. The question is, Can the mighty Marvel alumni bring some of their magic to a different universe?
This reboot keeps the basics of the franchise. There are still loads of chatty aliens, Emma Thompson returns and the Men in Black remain a nattily dressed but top-secret organization that monitors and polices alien activity on Earth. They’ve managed to stay undercover for decades by the use of a neuralyzer, a device that erases the memories of those who witness their efforts to keep the world safe from alien attack. It’s a failsafe but in at least one case it isn’t entirely effective. In a flashback we see a family, including a young girl named Molly (Mandeiya Flory), neuralyzed after an incident.
Cut to present day. Now grown up Molly (now played by (Thompson) is about to realize her life-long dream, to become part of the best kept secret in the universe. “It took me twenty years to find you” she says to Agent O (Emma Thompson) head of MIB’s US branch. “I found you which makes me perfect for this job.” Dubbed Agent M, she is assigned to the UK branch, headed by High T (Liam Neeson) and teamed with Agent H (Hemsworth), her mission is to root out the biggest MIB threat yet, a mole in the organization. “We are the Men in Black,” says Agent H, “errr, the men and Women in Black.”
Unless there is a mass neuralization of audiences “Men in Black: International” will not make us forget the charms of the first “MIB” film. Director F. Gary Gray’s take on the film delivers actors with sparkling chemistry—Hemsworth and Thompson first lit up the screen in 2017s “Thor: Ragnarok” and continue to do so here—who elevate an otherwise unremarkable reboot of a well-loved franchise.
It has the earmarks of the original but, aside from Kumail Nanjiani as a tiny Marvin the Martian-esque alien named Pawny, there is nothing extra special about the extraterrestrials. For a movie about the “scum of the universe,” that seems like a missed opportunity. Nanjiani is provides some much need comic relief in the film’s last section but where is the creativity in the creature design?
Having said all that, despite the predictability of the plot, the chemistry on display makes “Men in Black: International” a fun, lightweight romp.
Anyone who has read Bill Carter’s behind-the-scenes-tell-all “The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy” already knows that the happy, smiling faces you see on your television after midnight aren’t always happy or smiling. That premise is the starting point for “Late Night,” a new comedy written by and starring Mindy Kaling.
Emma Thompson is Katherine Newbury, star of the long-running “Tonight with Katherine Newbury,” a once powerful nighttime chat show. Now the cracks are showing. Ratings are falling off, her all male writing staff are out of touch and worse, the show feels old fashioned compared to the competition. While the Jimmy’s—Kimmel and Fallon—are doing stunts Newbury features Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” and signs off with the decidedly unhip, “That’s our show everyone. I hope I earned the privilege of your time.”
Facing cancellation—” The show is a relevant,” says network head honcho Caroline Morton (Amy Ryan). “The ratings reflect that.”—Newbury is pressured into hiring Molly Patel (Kaling), a TV newbie whose only job experience comes from working in Quality Control at a chemical plant. She soon discovers the dangerous chemicals she worked with at the plant have nothing on her new toxic work situation. “You’re hired. If it doesn’t work out, which it probably won’t, you’ll be gone.” The other writers consider her unqualified, a “diversity hire,” and don’t even give her a chair in the writer’s room.
Still, Molly, who honed her comedy chops telling jokes on the loudspeaker at her former job, perseveres. Sitting on an overturned trash can (still no chair) she eagerly suggests ways to make the show better, to make her comedy idol more appealing to a younger audience. “I will not be marginalized by the white fist of oppression that prevails around here,” she says.
Her “never give up” mantra doesn’t play well with the boys’ club, particularly head monologue writer Tom (Reid Scott), but, after a rocky start—”Don’t take this the wrong way,” Newbury says to Molly, “but your earnestness can be very hard to be around.”—the new writer’s spirit gradually wins over the host. “I need you, Molly, to help me change this show.”
Molly may help “shake some dust off the [fictional] show” but “Late Night” doesn’t exactly do a deep clean on its genre. The movie is basically a romcom about platonic female relationships. The plotline may be predictable, never zigging or zagging too far off the straight line starting with Molly’s outsider status and ending with the warm embrace of those who once shunned her, but sharp writing and engaging performances from Kaling, Thompson and John Lithgow as Newbury’s ailing husband, keep it on track.
It is a showcase for Thompson’s ability to elevate any movie she appears in—she puts a nice spin on Newbury’s “The Devil Wears Prada” persona—and for Kaling’s sensibility both as a writer and performer. Together they guarantee “Late Night” is more than a “Working Girl” update.
The new animated film from Laika, the folks behind beautiful stop motion movies like “Coraline,” “Paranorman” and “Kubo and the Two Strings,” is an odd couple, historical adventure that brings to mind “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Planes, Trains & Automobiles.”
Hugh Jackman voices Victorian-era explorer Sir Lionel Frost. Dressed head to toe in houndstooth, he’s an anthropologist of sorts, scouring the world in search of mythical beasts. He tries to lure the Loch Ness Monster with bagpipes. “They do say music soothes the savage beast.“
Despite his adventurous spirit his peers at London’s Optimates Club don’t take him seriously. Desperate to secure his legacy, he follows the lead of an anonymous letter about Bigfoot sightings in America. “He’s neither ape nor man,” he says, “but something in between.” If he can track down the elusive beast he hopes the snobby Lord Piggot-Dunceby (Stephen Fry) will be won over and offer membership into the exclusive club. Trouble is, Piggot-Dunceby is an old racist who doesn’t actually want progress in the form of new biological discoveries or anything else. “We have brought good table manners to savages of the world over,” he says proudly, “Now, they all tinker with changing the world and soon there will be no room left for me.” He’s so dead set against Frost’s mission he hires Stenk (Timothy Olyphant), an assassin to make sure the missing link goes unfound.
Meanwhile, it turns out the elusive Sasquatch (Zach Galifianakis) isn’t so elusive. The 8-foot-tall beast introduces himself almost as soon as Frost arrives in the Pacific Northwest. Mr. Link, as Frost calls him, can speak, has opposable thumbs and, most poignantly, is lonely. “Your world gets bigger every day as mine gets taken away.” He wrote the letter in hopes that Frost would “discover” him and escort him to his ancestral homeland, the Himalayan mountains, where he hopes to meet others like him, his long-long Yeti cousins. “I need someone who knows the wild places of the world,” he says. “Who won’t shoot me.” Together, along with Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana), the widow of Frost’s ex-partner, they set off to Phileas Fogg-it around the world,
In search of adventure and Mr. Link’s long-lost relatives.
“Missing Link” is beautiful looking with the special animated feel that only comes with the stop motion technique. The visuals feel organic, handmade in a way that slicker, computer generated movies simply don’t. In fact, the visuals held my attention even when the story didn’t.
Woven into the script are timely messages about British colonialism, sometimes earnest—“The world,” says The Elder (Emma Thompson) to Frost, “is something to be claimed as a symbol of their worth.”—sometimes funny—they find Shangri-La or in the Yeti language, “Keep out, we hate you.”—that are timely and make a good argument for personal evolution. “Do we shape the world,” asks Frost, “or does the world shape us?”
It’s good stuff and Galifianakis’s Mr. Links is also a treat. An innocent with an imposing physical presence is a classic cartoon trope and with equal amounts of slapstick and poignancy, he livens up the proceedings. Galifianakis does great, understated voice work from the heartbroken—”I don’t want to have to spend the rest of my life alone. Won’t you take me there?”—to the hilarious—”Your utopia sucks!” It’s a wonderful performance that provides the movie with a great deal of heart.
Galifianakis aside, “Missing Link’s” over-all story misses the mark. Fight scenes make up much of the running time but (BIGTIME SPOILER ALERT) it’s Mr. Link’s assimilation into the human world that seems to run counter to the story’s overall anti-colonialist subtext. It puts a pretty bow on the tale and even sets it up for a sequel but makes absolutely no sense given the spirit of the film. Add to that a supporting role for a woman that isn’t quite as evolved as I‘m sure the filmmakers assumed and you have a film that will engage the eyes—it’s beautiful looking—but not the brain.
Fans of Adam Sandler’s patented man-child character will be pleased to note he revives it for his newest film “The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected).” But those not enraptured with his childlike alter ego shouldn’t write this movie off. For the most part Sandler’s new one leaves the lowest-common denominator jokes behind in favour of highbrow (ish) humour. In other words, this is more “Punch Drink Love,” less “Billy Madison.”
Dustin Hoffman is Harold Meyerowitz, embittered sculptor, former art professor and walking, talking embodiment of New York neurosis. He’s also father to Danny (Sandler), Matthew (Ben Stiller) and Jean (Elizabeth Marvel). Harold is a crusty old man, self-centered and very aware of his lack of legacy. Newly divorced Danny has moved into the Greenwich Village home Harold shares with his fourth wife, Maureen (Emma Thompson).
The film studies the strained relationships between Harold and his kids but spends much of the movie detailing the half brothers Danny and Matthew. Danny stayed home to raise his daughter, has never had a job and now feels like a failure compared to the younger Matt, a Los Angeles hot shot with his own financial management company.
When Harold takes ill his children have to reassess their feelings for their difficult dad and each other.
“The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected)” doesn’t have the guffaws that Sandler at his best can deliver. Instead it is dusted laughs derived from the situations and characters. At its heart it’s a story of family dysfunction populated by people who never dip into self-pity. Marvel makes the best of her few moments but it is Sandler and Stiller who deliver the goods. Both hit career highs playing toned down versions of their carefully crafted comedic characters. Adding real humanity to Danny and Matthew elevates them from caricature. By not going for the broad strokes they are able to create tender and stinging moments that are some of the best in both their careers.
Hoffman is a hoot, perfectly complimented by Thompson who has some of the film’s best lines. Of the supporting cast Grace Van Patten, Danny’s loving daughter, is a standout.
“The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected)” could have been maudlin but when filtered through director Noah Baumbach’s sensibility is a smart and heartwarming.
