CTV NEWSCHANNEL: RICHARD’s MOVIE REVIEWS FOR SUNDAY APRIL 12, 2026!
I join CTV NewsChannel to talk about a modernized “Hamlet,” a reflective “Outcome” and an old-fahsioned rom com “You, Me & Tuscany.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Posts Tagged ‘Halle Bailey’
CTV NEWSCHANNEL: RICHARD’s MOVIE REVIEWS FOR FRIDAY APRIL 10, 2026!
I join CTV NewsChannel’s Scott Hirsch to talk about a modernized “Hamlet,” a reflective “Outcome” and an old-fahsioned rom com “You, Me & Tuscany.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
YOU, ME & TUSCANY: 3 STARS. “relentlessly upbeat rom com with all that entails.”
SYNOPSIS: In “You, Me & Tuscany,” a new rom com starring Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page now playing in theatres, a directionless twenty-something woman crashes at an empty Italian villa and is mistaken for the owner’s fiancée.
CAST: Halle Bailey, Regé-Jean Page, Lorenzo de Moor, Isabella Ferrari, Aziza Scott, Marco Calvani, Nia Vardalos. Directed by Kat Coiro.
REVIEW: Coming hot on the heels of subversive romantic comedies like “The Drama,” “Anora,” “Materialists” and “Pillion” comes an old-school rom com that, for better and for worse, embraces the genres tropes.
“The Little Mermaid’s” Halle Bailey stars as Anna, an aimless twenty-something who gave up on her dream of becoming a chef after her mother died. When she loses her house-sitting job, and finds herself with nowhere to live, she impulsively decides to change her life after a chance encounter with Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor), handsome Italian man with a villa in sun-drenched Tuscany.
“It’s not about him,” she tells BFF Claire (Aziza Scott). “He doesn’t even live there anymore, but he told me about his big old villa just sitting there… Empty.”
Uninvited, she plans on spending one night in the empty villa, but the plan is thrown into chaos when Matteo’s mother Gabriella (Isabella Ferrari) drops by without warning. Panicked, she poses as Matteo’s fiancée.
“You can pretend to be his fiancée or you go to prison,” says cab driver Lorenzo (Marco Calvani). “Either way, it’s very romantic.”
The situation gets even more complicated when Matteo’s cousin, Michael (Regé-Jean Page) arrives. As he encourages her to rediscover her passion for food and life, romance blossoms. “You belong here,” he tells her.
Pure escapism, “You, Me & Tuscany” is a glossy return to the formulaic rom com that offers no surprises, just cheesy, sweet-natured feel-good laughs tinged with romance.
It’s comfort food that doesn’t ask much of the audience. It’s enough to sit back and watch the rom com clichés as they fly to the air.
There are both the standard rom com New York setting and loads of HGTV Tuscan lifestyle porn, a brash best friend, a meet cute, misunderstandings and appealing leads who (A SPOILER BUT ONLY IF YOU’VE NEVER SEEN A ROM COM BEFORE!) you know will eventually end up together. These movies aren’t about the destination, one glance at the movie poster on the way into the theatre will let you know how the story ends, they are about the journey.
The key element is the cast and here both leads, Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page, exude enough warmth and charm to keep things interesting despite the familiarity of the story. They’re the story’s heart and are surrounded by a cast of wacky characters
The beauty of “You, Me & Tuscany” is that it is, loudly and proudly, a slick and frothy, relentlessly upbeat rom com with all that entails. It’s a story of forgiveness, family, and food for fans of the genre. All others needn’t apply.
THE COLOR PURPLE: 4 STARS. “sure to entertain and inspire in equal measure.”
The glitzy new musical version of “The Color Purple” maintains the talking points of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Stephen Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated film adaptation, but adds in a touch of old Hollywood glamor and rousing gospel, blues and jazz songs.
Set in Jim Crow era rural Georgia, Fantasia Barrino reprises her role from the Broadway stage to play Celie Harris, a timid young woman whose life is marred abuse and separation from loved ones. Impregnated by her father when she was just a teen, her baby is given away. Later, when she is shipped off to live with the abusive Albert Johnson (Colman Domingo), a man she is forced to call “Mister,” she is disconnected from her beloved sister Nettie (Ciara).
The cruel and overbearing Mister tells his terrified wife she’ll never see her sister again and blocks any communication between the two. “Whatever I say, go,” he tells her.
Isolated from everything she has ever known, she perseveres through strength of will, the power of imagination and the friendship of the indomitable Sofia (Danielle Brooks) and flamboyant blues chanteuse Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson).
Reimagined as a period drama with a healthy dose of magic realism, the new “The Color Purple” is a journey of self-discovery and triumph over adversity as Celie opts to take agency over her life and not be a docile victim. Despite her trauma, she has an eye to the future, hope and, above all, resilience.
Barrino plays Celie as soft-spoken, allowing the songs, like the moving “Superpower,” to stand out, fuelled by cathartic, powerhouse performances. The role is a weighty one, a stand-in for the evolution of many marginalized people, but this version of “The Color Purple” is an emotional Broadway-style crowd pleaser that turns Celie’s ordeal into a journey of empowerment.
The addition of musical weaves joy into the story.
Director Blitz Bazawule allows Celie’s flights of imagination to temper the story’s built-in oppressive tone. The film’s opening scene, featuring Mister playing banjo, while his horse’s hoof clomps keep time, is subtle, while a scene in which Shug, (a terrific Henson), takes Celie to the movies, becomes a luscious Art Deco fantasy reimagination of the song “What About Love?” It is lavish and lovely.
In terms of staging, one show stopping scene sees Celie sing to Shug while perched atop of spinning gramophone record. It’s a blast of old-school Hollywood glamour that cleverly demonstrates Celie’s use of imagination as a coping mechanism.
This isn’t the “The Color Purple” of old. Boldly stylized, it embraces humor, music, imagination and leaves some space for Mister’s redemption and a slightly more explicit depiction of the relationship between Celie and Shug than in the previous film version. More than anything, though, it is a tuneful, joyful journey from powerless to empowered, from heartbroken to healed that is sure to entertain and inspire in equal measure.
THE LITTLE MERMAID: 3 STARS. “underwater scenes gives your eyeballs a workout.”
Disney takes you back under the sea with “The Little Mermaid,” the latest of their photo-realistic, live action remakes of classic animated movies. Based on the 1837 Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name, the new film places the titular mermaid in an undersea world that brings to mind your work computer’s aquarium screensaver.
Singer-songwriter and actress Halle Bailey stars as Ariel, the mermaid daughter of the Kingdom of Atlantica’s ruler King Triton (Javier Bardem). She is a free spirit, fascinated by the human world. Unlike his daughter, the overprotective King is no fan of humans and has forbidden her from visiting the “above world.”
But, like the song says, she “wants to be where the people are,” despite her father’s warnings. “I want to see them dancing,” she sings. “Walking around on those… what do you call them? Oh feet!”
Her dry land dreams are fulfilled when she rescues the human Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) from drowning. She is immediately smitten, and determined to live above sea level.
“This obsession with humans has got to stop,” scolds King Triton.
“I just want to know more about them,” she says.
Following her heart, Ariel makes a deal with Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), an evil sea witch with glow-in-the-dark phosphorescence tentacles, who grants the mermaid’s wish to be with Eric in trade for her “siren song,” i.e. her voice.
“Here’s the deal,” she says. “I’ll whip up a little potion to make you human for three days. Before the sun sets on the third day, you and Princey must share a kiss, and not just any kiss. The kiss of true love. If you do, you will remain human permanently. But if you don’t, you’ll turn back into a mermaid and you belong to me.”
Ursula’s “premium package” comes at a high cost, however. A steep price tag that could cost King Triton his crown and Ariel her life.
You can’t shake the feeling, while watching the new “The Little Mermaid,” that it is competing with itself.
The 2023 photo-realistic animation is very good, presenting beautiful, fluid images, buoyed by theatrical flourishes from director Rob Marshall and strong performances from Halle Bailey and Melissa McCarthy. The new songs, by Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda, are good too, particularly the fun “Scuttlebutt.”
But it feels like something is missing. That’s the magic that made the ink and paint “Little Mermaid” an enduring classic.
There is plenty of razzmatazz. Marshall, a veteran of big musical extravaganzas like “Chicago” and “Into the Woods,” is at his best when applying a Broadway style gloss to the musical numbers. “Under the Sea,” a holdover from the first film, is a knockout. The psychedelic underwater cinematography will give your eyeballs a workout and it has a good beat and you can dance to it.
But for every Ziegfeld Follies style dancing sea slug number—super cool—there is yet another movie-stopping scene of Ursula’s endless exposition where she explains her nefarious plot or a padded action scene. Those slow spots give the storytelling a choppiness that would capsize a lesser vessel but Bailey’s strong, emotional vocals and star-making performance coupled with a fun turn from Daveed Diggs as the “educated crustation” Sebastian keep the ship from sinking.
“The Little Mermaid’s” message of a young person giving up their voice so they could be heard, is unchanged, and is still powerful, but feels waterlogged by comparison to the original.
