Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 13:38)
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including the animated anarchy of “Coyote VS Acme,” the dystopopian “The Dog Stars,” the fresh rom com “Finding Emily,” the silly smarts of “Idiots” and the supernatural slasher “Buddy.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
CAST: Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, Guy Pearce, Benedict Wong. Directed by Ridley Scott.
REVIEW: Like many dystopian/pandemic movies, “The Dog Stars” has several large-scale action sequences where survivors defend their land from feral intruders. They’re big, loud and exciting and entirely not the point of the film.
Set nine years after a flu pandemic and blood disease ended almost all life on earth, former mechanic Hig (Jacob Elordi) lives in an abandoned Colorado airport with his dog Jasper and tough-as-nails former neighbor Marine Bangley (Josh Brolin). “The world that was doesn’t exist,” says Hig. “Here it’s just us… trying to hold on to what was.”
Together they guard against outside threats, other desperate survivors willing to use lethal force to gather supplies and food. “Out there, it’s kill or be killed,” Bangley says. “The only thing left to fear… survivors.”
The new world order sits uneasily on Hig’s mind. “This world fits you, Bangley. Wake up, defend, survive,” he says. “I think you were ready for it 10 years before it hit. I was a mechanic. When I wasn’t doing that, I was kissing my wife and playing with my dog, wondering every day how I got so lucky.”
Still grieving the loss of his wife, Hig holds out hope that there is a better world out there somewhere. His source of hope stems from a faint radio signal from years ago, a voice that pushes him to search for a new life in a new world. “There’s gotta be something better than this,” he says.
Director Ridley Scott, working from a screenplay by Mark L. Smith, certainly knows how to stage big action but “The Dog Stars” isn’t exactly an action movie. Instead, it’s a bittersweet story of lost and found relationships that works best when it isn’t trying to fill the screen with fireworks.
After a slow start Scott begins to develop his themes when Hig, on his way to a better world, connects with father and daughter duo Jack (Guy Pearce) and Cima (Margaret Qualley). It’s here the movie begins to differentiate itself from other end-of-the-world/survival films and shows like “The Road” or “The Walking Dead.” In its quieter moments, such as the look of happiness tinged by a sense of what has been lost that spreads across Cima’s face as she hears music for the first time in years, that the movie finds something new to say within the dystopian genre.
The picture “The Dog Stars” paints a grim picture of the post-apocalyptic world but it also understands that all is not lost if the plague survivors hold on to their humanity.
SYNOPSIS: In “The Shrouds,” a new film from David Cronenberg, and now playing in theatres, a grieving businessman is drawn into a world of jealousy and conspiracy when he markets a new, high-tech kind of interment designed to console those left behind.
CAST: Diane Kruger, Vincent Cassel, Guy Pearce, and Sandrine Holt. Written and directed by David Cronenberg.
REVIEW: Technology has invaded every aspect of our lives, and now, in the new David Cronenberg film “The Shrouds,” it invades death as well.
Vincent Cassel plays Karsh, a wealthy businessman still reeling from the death of his wife Becca. “When they lowered my wife into the coffin,” Karsh says, “I had an intense urge to get in the box with her.” In response he invents GraveTech, essentially a service that allows grieving loved ones see inside the graves of their dearly departed family members as they decompose in their shrouds.
Located next to a theme restaurant called The Shrouds, the cemetery features the latest in boneyard tech. Controlled by an app, the graves come complete with a monitor on the headstone. “It’s basically kind of a camera in her grave,” says Karsh. “It comforts me.”
As Karsh makes plans to expand his business to Iceland and Budapest, a group of activists desecrate nine of the high-tech graves, including Becca’s final resting spot. That attack becomes the catalyst for the film’s action, sending Karsh into a murky world of conspiracy, jealousy, hallucination and obsession.
“The Shrouds” may be the very definition of a movie that is not for everyone. “How dark are you willing to go?” Karsh asks at one point, and the answer is pitch black. A study in grief without a whiff of sentimentality, this is an uneasy, and occasionally queasy, representation of the pain of loss.
Cronenberg, who lost his wife Carolyn to cancer after 38 years of marriage, says he was inspired to write “The Shrouds” by his own experiences with grief. And while the movie bears his trademarked fusion of psychological and physical elements, of technology and flesh, and his clinical approach to the material, the movie still pulsates with vulnerability. The setting is surreal, but the story’s underlying motivation is personal, motivated by the thorny act of grieving.
“The Shrouds” is Cronenberg’s most personal film and is as complicated, and occasionally confounding, as the act of grief itself.
SYNOPSIS: In “The Brutalist,” an epic new story of the American Dream starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones and Guy Pierce and now playing in theatres, a Jewish Hungarian-born architect survives the Holocaust, only to struggle to find success in the United States. His life changes when a wealthy patron recognizes his talent.
CAST: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaach de Bankolé, Alessandro Nivola. Directed by Brady Corbet.
REVIEW: At three-and-a-half hours with a fifteen-minute intermission, “The Brutalist” is the kind of sweeping, personal epic we don’t see very often. Think “There Will Be Blood” and “Oppenheimer” and you’ll get the idea.
Spanning 33 years, the film begins with Hungarian Holocaust survivor and Bauhaus-trained architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody), separated from his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and his niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy) in Budapest during World War II. Once in the United States, alone, save for his cousin and his wife (Alessandro Nivola and Emma Laird), László’s life is up and down. Once a celebrated architect, he now dabbles in drugs, does menial jobs and lives in the basement of a church. It isn’t until his previous work in Europe is noticed by wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pierce) that his fortunes change.
Hired by Van Buren to design a community centre as a monument to his late mother, László creates an ambitious design, complete with a library, a theater, a gymnasium and chapel, quietly incorporating the brutalist elements of the prison at Buchenwald where he was incarcerated. His artistic temperament leads to conflicts with the Van Burens, and his own family.
“The Brutalist” uses the broad canvas of László’s personal story to comment on themes of assimilation, iconoclasm, identity, creativity and the American Dream.
László’s refusal to compromise and his unconventional methods reverberate with echoes of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” although director Brady Corbet (who co-wrote the script with Mona Fastvold) shifts the focus from rugged individualism to the immigrant experience.
Rand’s exploration of Objectivism, her philosophy of productive achievement as the noblest activity, is filtered through László’s experience as an immigrant who is told, “We tolerate you,” by the entitled Harry van Buren (Joe Alwyn). Rand’s take in self-interest as the road to happiness is replaced by László’s bittersweet reality of assimilation as personal and professional suppression at the hands of the Van Burens.
It’s a fascinating lens with which to observe László and his family’s tainted American Dream. It is an epic story, told in epic style. Corbet shoots in high resolution, widescreen VistaVision, flooding the screen with gorgeously composed images, set to Daniel Blumberg’s mesmeric score.
Against that backdrop are Brody, in his meatiest role since his Oscar winning turn in “The Pianist,” convincingly portrays László’s broken psyche and tortured genius as roadside stops on the way to his emotional ruin. It’s an impressive performance, one that feels lived-in and weathered. Without Brody at the film’s core as a man who loses himself, “The Brutalist’s” emotional impact would be much blunted.
As Erzsébet, who plays a major role in the film’s second half, Jones displays a grit earned by years of suffering.
The film’s showiest performance belongs to the charismatic Pierce whose flamboyant performance is a grabber, particularly when he’s sparring with Brody.
These three key performances, coupled with a terrific supporting cast, are as ambitious in their personal scope as the film is in its big picture approach.
Like the architecture it showcases—large intimidating structures that feel simultaneously claustrophobic and vast—“The Brutalist” is beautiful but overwhelming in its scope.
The release of “Memory,” a new Liam Neeson action movie, now playing in theatres, makes the star’s fourteenth anniversary as an action star. 2008’s “Taken” kicked off the “special set of skills” phase of his career of usually playing tough guys shooting their way through one last job.
“Memory” continues the actor’s unbroken string of shoot ‘em ups, but with a twist. He still has a special set of skills, which he deploys to deadly effect, but this time there is a ticking clock.
Neeson is Alex Lewis, an assassin for hire who prides himself in the precision of his work. He is brutally efficient, but lately there have been slip ups. Nothing major, but his memory isn’t what it once was, and the quality of his work is suffering.
As his memory fades, Lewis finds himself in the crosshairs of an FBI agent Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce, who starred in “memento,” one of the best thrillers involving memory ever made) and Mexican intelligence. Worse, when he turns down a job from ruthless crime human trafficking boss Davana Sealman (Monica Bellucci) to kill a child, she vows to kill him. “I’ve done crazy things,” he says, “but you don’t hurt children, ever.”
To stay alive and help bring Sealman to justice, he must piece the shattered pieces of his memory back together. “We all have to die,” he says, “what’s important what you do before you go.”
Directed by veteran James Bond filmmaker Martin Campbell, “Memory” is a well-constructed thriller, but has a generic, workmanlike feel. The characters feel as though they’ve been cut-and-pasted from other, better movies, leaving the viewer with a feeling of déjà vu. We’ve been there and done that and despite the level of performances from a cast of old pros, it is sunk by a laboured script.
The story of a man trying to undo the bad he has done in his life as his memory fades is a compelling one, but unfortunately, in the end, “Memory” is a forgettable action flick.
If you took all the gun play out of “Without Remorse,” the new Michael B. Jordan thriller on Amazon Prime Video, the movie would only be about 10 minutes long. The Tom Clancy adaptation is a bullet ballet that plays like a throwback to 80s matinee action movies.
When we first meet John Clark (Jordan) he’s leading an elite team of US Navy SEALs on a dangerous top-secret mission in Syria to liberate a CIA operative taken hostage by ex-Russian military forces.
Cut to three months later. Back in the United States, the quiet life Clark and his pregnant wife Pam (Lauren London) have created for themselves is shattered by Russian assassins who invade their home. Looking for revenge, the Russian hit team kill Pam before Clark is able to off three of the four hitmen. The fourth gunman fires back, leaving Clark for dead, riddled with bullets.
As Clark recuperates in hospital, his colleagues, SEAL Lt. Commander Karen Greer (Jodie Turner-Smith), CIA agent Robert Ritter (Jamie Bell) and Secretary of Defense Thomas Clay (Guy Pearce), determine how to best respond to a Russian attack on U.S. soil.
Not satisfied with the official way of doing things, Clark becomes a one-man army, seeking revenge and answers. He is the very definition of a man you don’t want to mess with. He’s a killing machine, especially when you take away the only thing he had to live for. He tracks down a Russian diplomat he thinks is responsible for the murder of his wife and coerces information out of him in a spectacular and completely illegal way. “They brought the war to my house,” he says. “The contract is broken. They’re going to play by my rules now.”
His act of retribution lands him in prison but he’s able to trade the sensitive information he garnered in his one-man mission for a second chance at revenge. This time with the cooperation of the CIA and military.
One secretive flight to Russia later, cue the carnage and conspiracy.
“Without Remorse” is an extremely violent movie with more bullets than brains.
Director Stefano Sollima stages intense action scenes and isn’t afraid to let the bodies fall where they may. Unfortunately, it’s in the handling of the other stuff, the intrigue, that the movie comes up short. In between bullet blasts a conspiracy slowly comes into focus, but it is never developed. Buried beneath an ever-increasing body count is the broader and more interesting picture of governmental tampering with world politics. Countries need outside enemies, it is suggested, or people will turn on their neighbors looking for someone to hate. It’s a timely message, a bit of debatable ideology, that could have been the underpinning for a rich subplot. Instead, “Without Remorse” is a standard issue shoot ‘em up.
Jordan brings charisma and physicality to the role, but is saddled with Steven Seagal-level dialogue. “Death follows me around,” he says in a line that could be from any number of direct-to-DVD action films from the last thirty years.
“Without Remorse” starts off with a bang—many of them in fact—but ends as a regression to cold war paranoia fuelled by bullets and brawn.
Father Peter (Guy Pearce) is a priest with a past I the new exorcism drama “The Seventh Day,” now on VOD.
The rough-and-tumble holy man comes complete with Sonny Crockett stubble, a fistful of smokes and a muscle car. He’s a badass who says, “An exorcist doesn’t hide from evil. He runs TOWARD it, feels the evil in his bones and can sense when it’s close.”
He stands in stark contrast to his latest protégé, novice priest Father Daniel (Vadhir Derbez). The trainee does not have his mentor’s swagger and Father Peter is less than impressed with Daniel‘s “two grueling weeks of exorcist nursery school.”
Nonetheless, the duo are a team, buddy exorcists off in search of evil to expunge. After a run in with the devil at a homeless encampment they come across Charlie (Brady Jenness), a pre-teen who murdered his family with an axe. Is he a bad kid or is he possessed by the devil?
“The Seventh Day” starts strong with the exorcism gone wrong that formed Father Peter’s hardened exterior. “The evil was the strongest I’ve ever seen,” he says. Unfortunately, after that it goes downhill faster than you can say “Father Karras” three times fast. The mix-and-match of “Training Day” with “The Exorcist” could have offered up some edgy thrills but instead falls prey to clichés borrowed from dozens of other devil movies dating back to when Father Merrin first bellowed, “The power of Christ compels you!”
Pearce, who also co-produced, attempts to inject some life into “The Seventh Day” with a big hammy performance but his flamboyance is counter-balanced by flat work from Derbez whose work mimics the film’s listless pacing.
“The Seventh Day” seeks to reinvent the exorcism movie via the buddy cop genre but succeeds only in combing the most hackneyed bits of each.
