I sit in with CKTB morning show guest host Karl Dockstader to have a look at movies in theatres and streaming including the sequelitis of “Moana 2,” Angelina Jolie in “Maria” and the bad assery of “The G.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
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 the sequelitis of “Moana 2,” Angelina Jolie in “Maria” and the bad assery of “The G.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Maria,” a new psychological biopic now playing in theatres before moving to MUBI on December 11, Angelina Jolie stars as Maria Callas, the world’s greatest opera singer, as she lives the last days of her life in 1970s Paris, after a glamorous yet tumultuous life spent in the public eye.
CAST: Angelina Jolie, Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Haluk Bilginer, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Directed by Pablo Larraín.
REVIEW: “Maria” finishes director Pablo Larraín’s trilogy of films about iconic women of the 20th century. Having already examined Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Diana, this third, and final film features a commanding performance by Angelina Jolie as the temperamental opera star Maria Callas, a woman who no longer performs but admits, “There is no life off the stage.”
She may feel the absence of her voice, of performing for adoring crowds, but her life provides a dynamic backdrop for this ornate, hypnotic film. “There’s a point where self-confidence becomes a kind of insanity,” she says.
In Jolie’ hands the opera singer is every bit a diva. She is now a pill popper whose gift, a voice that once mesmerised the world, has left her, but she remains a diva nonetheless. Regal and occasionally ridiculous, she spends her days barking orders at her loyal staff (Alba Rohrwacher and Pierfrancesco Favino)—”Book me a table at a café where the waiters know who I am,” she says. “I’m in the mood for adulation.”—reminiscing about her life with an imaginary interviewer (Kodi Smit-McPhee) named Mandrax after her drug of choice and refusing to return an important call from her doctor because he said she “must” call him.
Even when there’s not much is happening in “Maria,” Jolie is captivating, emanating the larger-than-life star power that made “La Divina” beloved personally and professionally. In one playful moment Mandrax asks, “What would you say if I told you I was falling in love with you?”
“That happens a lot,” she replies with a smile.
Character study aside, the film itself is more of a mixed bag. Stunning work from cinematographer Edward Lachman and production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas create a beautiful canvas for Jolie’s work, but it feels incomplete. There are flashbacks (mostly shot in black and white) and some paparazzi style footage that provide a sense of Callas’s elevated place in the opera world, but director Pablo Larraín, working from a script by Steven Knight, is more interested in her struggles and foibles than her triumphs. It provides Jolie the dramatic space to give the crowning performance of her career so far but doesn’t allow the character the privilege of a fulsome portrait.
Richard sits in on the Talkback Toronto feature on the CTV News at Noon with Michelle Dubé and Ken Shaw.
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 29:08)
Richard and Marcia MacMillan have a look at the Oscar nominations, including the snubs, and predict the winners and losers.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Less a biopic than an intimate character study, “Jackie,” sees Natalie Portman play one of the most famous women of the twentieth century, first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. DirectoPablo Larraín personalizes the reaction to assassination of John F. Kennedy, presenting a portrait of grief that values rawness over slick sentimentality.
Focussing on the events immediately following November 22, 1963, the film cuts through the carefully constructed image Jacqueline Kennedy presented to the world. Instead it shows her as a grieving widow struggling to fulfil her personal responsibilities under the scrutiny of the American people and White House staff.
Larraín employs a standard biopic starting point—an interview with a journalist (Billy Crudup)—to frame the tale, but then throws all other familiar biographical approaches out the window. Kennedy’s story is a tragic one played out on the world stage and yet the film is never mawkish. It is a look at the end of “Camelot”—the musical and the ideological state of mind it personified for the Kennedy administration—as a psychological portrait of the woman at the very centre of it all.
Portman plays Kennedy not from the point of view of history—she is remembered for her grace and dignity—but as a woman fraying around the edges as she ponders the gravity of her situation and the legacy that will be left behind. She doesn’t look like Kennedy but, in a performance largely captured in close up, creates a portrait that seamlessly blends the poised, public Kennedy persona with a woman on the verge of a breakdown. It is often harrowing and certainly shows a different side of Kennedy than any other look at the subject.
“Jackie” is a bold film that values visceral feelings over glossy convention. It presumes much in its efforts to peer into the cracks of history, taking abundant artistic licence with what some will see as an intrusive look into Kennedy’s life. This is not “Camelot,” it’s the flipside of that romantic fairy tale.
