Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to do a high five! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about “Young Werther’s” study of complicated friendships, the end of life drama “The Room Next Door” and the audacious “Nickel Boys.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CP24 to talk about the big movies hitting theatres and streaming this week, including “Young Werther’s” study of complicated friendships, the end of life drama “The Room Next Door,” the audacious “Nickel Boys” and the diamond heist movie “Den of Thieve 2: Pantera.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I joined CP24 Breakfast to have a look at new movies coming to theatres, including the audacious “Nickel Boys” and the diamond heist movie “Den of Thieve 2: Pantera.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the CTV NewsChannel to talk about “Young Werther’s” study of complicated friendships, the end of life drama “The Room Next Door,” the audacious “Nickel Boys” and the diamond heist movie “Den of Thieve 2: Pantera.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: Set in 1962 Florida, “Nickel Boys,” a new drama from visionary director RaMell Ross now playing in theatres, sees Elwood, a young African American man sentenced to the brutal Nickel Academy reform school after being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Inside he survives with a guidance and friendship with the cynical Turner.
CAST: Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. Directed by RaMell Ross.
REVIEW: Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, “Nickel Boys” uses a unique style to tell the story of oppression, trauma and resilience.
Director RaMell Ross shoots the film in the first person, from the perspective of his characters. In other words, we see what Elwood is seeing, but only catch a glimpse of him in the odd mirror or reflective surface he may encounter. The perspective changes from time to time, depending on who is the focus of the action.
It takes a moment to get used to, but once acclimatized the POV camera immerses the viewer in the story, allowing them to take note of the details that create the character’s situational awareness. It is a beautiful and audacious method that generates understanding and empathy through observation.
A sensory experience as well as a narrative one, “Nickel Boys” captures and even heightens the themes of its Pulitzer Prize winning source material. Racism hangs like a shroud over the reformatory scenes, and there are some vicious examples of inhumanity on display, but Ross makes sure to highlight Elwood and Turner’s humanity in the face of adversity.
“Nickel Boys” is an emotional work of art that bends the form to create an audacious and powerful film.
SYNOPSIS: “Kraven the Hunter,” a new superhero flick now playing in theatres and starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, follows the Marvel Comics character of the same name from his teen years to his emergence as the world’s most skillful and feared hunter. “Once you’re on his list, there’s only one way off.”
CAST: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott, and Russell Crowe. Directed by J. C. Chandor.
REVIEW: There are three bad guys in “Kraven the Hunter,” a toxic father (Russell Crowe), the enigmatic assassin The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott) and the thick-skinned Rhino (Alessandro Nivola) but the real villain here is the lazy script.
The idea of The Hunter as an antihero, a bad guy who kills even worse guys (think “Dexter”), is a solid, if slightly shopworn idea. Even when you add a mystical potion that give him a Doctor Dolittle style connection with animals and the ability to stalk and kill using the methods of all the creatures of the jungle, the character is no more absurd than a physicist who transforms into a giant green monster when he gets mad or a half-Atlantean, half-human superhero.
With some suspension of disbelief, “Kraven the Hunter” and its lore is no more outlandish than any other superhero movie. It’s the execution, not the kills but the handling of the material, that sinks the movie.
Origin movies are tough. The script must introduce characters, motivations and backstories, and do so in an expedient, entertaining manner. “Kraven the Hunter,” scripted by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, manages neither. Talky and repetitive, the script never met a cliché it wouldn’t embrace, or a story element it couldn’t reiterate to the point of numbness.
Granted, one of the fight scenes uses a bear trap in a grimly unique fashion, but the other action scenes, while nicely choreographed, suffer from wonky CGI and frenetic editing.
Taylor-Johnson is suitably buff to play Kraven but he is saddled with clunky dialogue in several unintentionally hilarious scenes that undercut the character’s menace. Kraven is a classic example of, “fight not with monsters, lest you become one,” but, despite his piercing eyes, chiseled abs and parkour skills, he’s simply not compelling enough to maintain interest.
Worse, the stakes don’t appear to be very high.
As Nikolai Kravinoff, gangster, and father to Sergei, a.k.a. Kraven and Dmitri (Fred Hechinger), Crowe is reduced to a mouthpiece for the script’s ideas of manhood. “Man who kills legend,” he says in his best Boris Badenov accent, “becomes legend.”
And the other baddies, The Foreigner, whose superpower appears to be his ability to count, and the Rhino, seem like small timers when compared to previous Sony Spider-Man Universe rogues like Venom or Doctor Octopus.
If there is a sequel to this movie, and I highly suspect there won’t, but if there is, Kraven should spend his time hunting for a better script instead of new villains.
LOGLINE: In “Thelma,” a new comedy thriller now playing in theatres, June Squibb plays a 93-year-old grandmother who falls prey to a grandma phone scam. Conned out of $10,000, with the help of a friend (Richard Roundtree) and his motorized scooter, she sets out to find the scammers and get her money back by any means necessary. “What about my money?” she says. “Am I supposed to just let them have it?”
CAST: June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Richard Roundtree, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Malcolm McDowell. Written and directed by Josh Margolin.
REVIEW: “Thelma” is something you don’t see very often, a thriller starring a 93-year-old action hero. From a low-speed scooter chase and a show down with the bad guys, to the acquisition of a weapon and a high-octane heist musical score, the movie has all the elements of an edge of your seat suspense film.
But its biggest asset is Squib, who brings steely determination, vulnerability and humor to the title character. She may not exactly be Ethan Hunt, but she’s more endearing and delightful than Jack Ryan and Jason Bourne combined. She’s easy to root for, even if her high stakes mission seems impossible.
At her side is Ben, Richard Roundtree, a.k.a. Shaft, in his final role. His presence is a cool callback to action movies of years gone by, but here he’s a charismatic sidekick, allowing Squibb to mostly take matters into her own hands.
There are also subplots involving Thelma’s grandson Daniel (Fred Hechinger) daughter Gail (Parker Posey) and son-in-law Alan (Clark Gregg), but at the film’s core is an exploration of old age, and how, as Ben says, “People these days don’t care about old things.” “Thelma” confronts that idea, dismissing it with panache, humor and some genuine excitement.
In adapting “The Woman in the Window,” a new thriller starring Amy Adams, now streaming on Netflix, director Joe Wright borrows liberally from the Hitchcock playbook, paying visual tribute to everything from “Foreign Correspondent” and “Psycho” to “Vertigo” and, of course, “Rear Window.” There are so many Hitch lifts in the look of the movie it makes Brian DePalma’s myriad Hitchcock homages look like petty thievery.
Adams plays child psychologist Anna Fox who lives alone in a rambling brownstone on 124th Street in Manhattan. Agoraphobic, she gets panic attacks at the idea of going outside, let alone actually stepping over her front threshold to the big bad world. Her only regular contact with the outside comes with her weekly visit from her therapist (Tracy Letts) and a downstairs tenant (Wyatt Russell).
When her new neighbors from across the street drop by unexpectedly, she reluctantly lets teenager Ethan (Fred Hechinger) in for a get-to-know-you visit. A day or so later Jane (Julianne Moore) swings by to chat, ask nosy questions and have a glass of wine.
After the visits Anna becomes voyeuristically invested in their lives, watching them from the safety of her apartment as they go about their day to days lives, exposed by two large windows that showcase their living areas.
One night, after mixing wine with her anxiety medication, she witnesses what appears to be an ugly domestic dispute that turns fatal. Trouble is, no one believes the “drunken, pill popping, cat lady.”
Question is, did she really witness a murder or was it a hallucination?
Anna is a classic unreliable narrator, a character whose credibility is questioned at every step of the way. Adams keeps her interesting, bringing a human face to trauma, anxiety and grief. We’re never sure if what we’re seeing is filtered through a haze of medication or actually happening and while Wright finds flashy visual ways to portray this, it is Adams who connects emotionally.
There are moments of supercharged filmmaking in “The Woman in the Window” but the tonal shifts and pacing get in the way of making this edge of your seat viewing. Director Joe Wright brings his trademarked visual style to illustrate Anna’s anxiety. Unusual angles and lurid colours illustrate Anna’s disconnected moments, wide shots of her empty apartment represent her isolation. It’s effectively and inventively done, but the slack pacing sucks much of the energy out of the storytelling.
“The Woman in the Window” has moments that truly work but it is dulled by its deliberate pace, repetitive nature and typical confessional ending.
