I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with anchor Zuraigah Alman to talk about the playful “Toy Story 5,” the grim historical drama “The Death of Robin Hood” and the supernatural horrors of “Leviticus.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 14:42)
I join CTV Atlantic’s Bruce Frisco to talk about the playful “Toy Story 5,” the grim historical drama “The Death of Robin Hood” and the supernatural horrors of “Leviticus.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join “CP24 Breakfast” hosts Nick Dixon and Jennifer Hsiung to talk about the playful “Toy Story 5” and the grim historical drama “The Death of Robin Hood.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I review “Toy Story 5” for ctvnews.ca: “By the time a franchise gets to the fifth instalment it’s usually a case of diminishing returns. The further you get from the source, the worse the movie. Luckily, “Toy Story 5” defies traditional wisdom, delivering a movie for the whole family that brims with heart and humour…” Read 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 playful “Toy Story 5,” the grim historical drama “The Death of Robin Hood” and the supernatural horrors of “Leviticus.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Toy Story 5,” the new Pixar animated film now in theatres, eight-year-old Bonnie shifts from tradition toys to a newfangled tablet.
CAST: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Tony Hale, Annie Potts, John Ratzenberger, Wallace Shawn, Blake Clark, Keanu Reeves, Bonnie Hunt, Kristen Schaal, Ernie Hudson, Melissa Villaseñor, Greta Lee, Conan O’Brien, Craig Robinson, Shelby Rabara, Matty Matheson, Bad Bunny. Directed by Andrew Stanton.
REVIEW: By the time a franchise gets to the fifth instalment it is usually a case of diminishing returns. The further you get from the source, the worse the movie. Luckily, “Toy Story 5” defies traditional wisdom, delivering a movie for the whole family that brims with heart and humor.
The story revolves around lonely eight-year-old Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), the only kid on the block who still plays with toys, like the cowgirl rag doll Jessie (Joan Cusack) and superhero action hero Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen). The other kids spend their time on their screens and don’t have time for a girl who still plays with dolls.
Hoping to help her fit in, Bonnie’s parents (Lori Alan and Jay Hernandez) buy her a Lilypad (Greta Lee), a frog-shaped smart tablet that comes complete with games, chat rooms, social media and a very assertive attitude.
“Once tech enters your home,” says tech-phobic toy Dr. Nutcase (voiced by Matty Matheson), “it’s over.”
As Bonnie plays games and joins chat rooms on the device she spends less and less time with Jessie and the other toys.
“Extinction!” yelps Rex the dinosaur (Wallace Shawn). “Not again!”
With the help of a team of Buzz Lightyears and cowboy ragdoll Woody (Tom Hanks), who returns from rescuing abandoned toys, Jessie sets off to make sure Bonnie makes new friends, without forgetting about her toy pals.
“Playing games isn’t play,” Woody says.
“Toy Story 5” isn’t the old man of the franchise, yelling at tech to get off their lawn. Nor is it a story about the evils of tech. Instead, it’s a testament to the power of imagination.
It’s about screens vs. imagination and the joys that come when an unstructured young mind is allowed to run wild, to create and learn. But the screenplay, by Andrew Stanton and Kenna Harris, doesn’t dismiss the place of passive tech in the modern world, it simply favors playtime over screen time.
As a movie, “Toy Story 5” has a sense of play about itself. Like the best of Pixar, it tackles real world issues like on-line bullying, insecurity (“What if am I just no good at being a toy?” asks Jessie.), the value of childhood memories and what true friends are but does so in a way that never feels maudlin. Director Stanton keeps things lively, pulling fun voice work from the returning cast, plus new additions like Conan O’Brien who has a blast voicing Smarty Pants, a toilet training tablet, and inserting some self-aware jokes, like depicting Woody, presumably the oldest of the toys, with a bald spot.
Add to that, beautiful cinematic visuals, with state-of-the-art 3D computer animation embellished with a lovely, handcrafted look for the imagination scenes, and you have a fine addition to the “Toy Story” franchise, rich in timely themes of the effects of tech on blossoming minds but never preachy or pedantic.
I join CHUM-FM’s Marilyn Denis and David Corey to talk about “Toy Story 5,” “The Odyssey” and why people are going back to the movies!
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
See video HERE!
SYNOPSIS: The third installment in the “Tron” series and the sequel to 2010s “Tron: Legacy,” “TRON: Ares” follows a super-intelligent AI soldier named Ares (Jared Leto) sent from the digital Grid to Earth on a dangerous mission. “Since time began, man has gazed at the stars and he has wondered, ‘Am I alone?’ So much talk of AI and big tech today,” says Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters). “Virtual worlds. What are they going to look like? When will we get there? Well folks, we’re not going there. They are coming here. I would like you to meet Ares, the ultimate soldier.”
CAST: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, Gillian Anderson, Jeff Bridges. Directed by Joachim Rønning.
REVIEW: Given the attitude in Hollywood toward AI, it’s no surprise “TRON: Ares” can be boiled down to one basic premise: Humans, great; AI, bad.
The story of rival tech companies, Dillinger Systems, whose megalomaniacal CEO Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) has his eyes on writing “his name on the face of time… in blood,” and Encom, run by the idealist Eve Kim (Greta Lee), the movie is an old-fashioned story of good and evil dressed up with a bunch of high-tech jargon.
As Dillinger unveils his latest project to an assembled group of military leaders, it seems like he has invented the ultimate fighting machine, an AI warrior named Ares (Jared Leto). He’s the most sophisticated security code ever written, completely controllable, virtually unbeatable, and, if anyone does manage to kill him, Dillinger brags, we’ll just create another version of him.
What Dillinger fails to mention is that his creation can only stay “alive” for 29 minutes before collapsing in a pile of digital dust.
Meanwhile, Kim has discovered the secret “permanence code,” a bit of programming that allows digital creations to survive and thrive in the real world. Dillinger wants the code and sends his fighting machines Ares and Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith) to retrieve it by any means necessary.
There’s more, mostly about Ares and his decision to embrace humanity and Kim’s grief over the loss of her sister to cancer but this movie is more about the whiz-bang special effects and trippy trip into the Grid than it is about Ares’s Pinocchio-esque transformation into a real boy.
As deep as a lunch tray, the story, such that it is, is mostly an excuse to set the AI creations into action with cool, neon-lit Light Cycles and menacing bat wings.
Also a vehicle for large dollops of pop psychology—”I guess that’s the thing about life,” Ares muses as he searches for the permanence code, “there’s nothing permanent about it.”—and even some rom com flourishes—“Can I trust you?” Ares asks Eve a couple times in the film. “Probably not,” replies Eve coyishly. —“TRON: Ares” tells its simple story with a blur of digitized gloss.
Worse, the script by Jesse Wigutow, treats the audience as though they’re not paying attention. For instance, mid-chase Eve pulls out the hard drive with the permanence code she’s carrying to remind us why the chase is happening in the first place. Need to get caught up non information you already have? Check out Ares’s high-tech exposition dump that looks cool but adds nothing new.
“TRON: Ares” will make your eyeballs dance (and you may even want to dance to the dynamic Nine Inch Nails soundtrack) but it won’t engage your brain.
After sitting through all two-and-a-quarter hours of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” the latest animated adventure of the universe jumping superhero, your spidey senses won’t be the only thing left tingling.
A wild pop culture pastiche of visual styles that jumps off the screen in ways that will give your eyeballs a Charles Atlas style workout, it is a full-body experience on the big screen.
Gwen Stacy (voice of Hailee Steinfeld) and Miles Morales (voice of Shameik Moore) return from 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Both are he off-spring of police officers, and both have secret identities as Spider-Woman and Spider-Man, respectively.
When Gwen becomes estranged from her father, she disappears into the Spider-Verse, a series of connected but independent universes, each with its own brand of Spider-People. As The Spot (voice of Jason Schwartzman), a villain covered in portals that allow him to transport from place to place, threatens to shred the very fabric of the Multi-Verse, Gwen and Miles go interdimensional to fight the new threat.
There they find Spider-HQ, sore of a Quantico for all various and sundry Spider-Folks, like Spider-Woman (voice of Issa Rae), Spider-Punk (voice of Daniel Kaluuya) and alpha arachnid Miguel O’Hara (voice of Oscar Isaac). When Mile inadvertently disrupts the Spider-Verse he learns an important lesson about the sacrifice required to be a Spider-Man.
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” is a spider web of Marvel mythology, relationship drama, action and some very funny moments, combined with extraordinary, state-of-the-art visuals. In the action scenes, co-directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson pull out all the stops to create a singular experience that has more to do with the anarchic spirit of the original comic books than the recent spate of superhero movies. Stylish and frenetic, the action scenes are so colourful they often look like an artist’s paint-palette exploded on the screen.
When the film isn’t in motion, it takes the time to explore the relationships between parents and kids, with the added twist of superheroes trying to figure out their place in the world (or should that be worlds?), while trying to navigate their teens. It adds themes of loneliness, responsibility vs. obligation and having autonomy over one’s own life. Through Gwen and Miles, and a heaping helping of action, the importance of writing one’s own life story is the focus of the story.
Ultimately, the success of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” isn’t simply about the eye-popping nature of the visuals or the humour or the emotional aspect of the story. All are great, but what makes it special is that it feels fresh. It’s a superhero movie, with all the world saving tropes you expect, but it feels more like a comic book come to life than most, if any, other superhero flick.
