Richard joins CTV NewsChannel and anchor Jennifer Burke to have a look at new movies coming to VOD and streaming services, including Johnny Knoxville and the unnatural acts of “Jackass Forever,” the reboot of “Scream,” the unhappily ever after fairy tale “The King’s Daughter” AND the great punk rock doc “Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Not even Julie Andrews, the resourceful and determined Maria von Trapp can solve a problem like “The King’s Daughter,” a new fantasy-adventure flopping into theatres this week.
Shot eight years ago, this Pierce Brosnan movie has languished on the shelf waiting to see the light of day. Andrews, and her dulcet tones, came on board in 2000 as narrator in a last-ditch attempt to add some semblance of order to the slapdash story.
Set in 17th century France, the action get underway with King Louis XVI (Brosnan) concerned with his mortality. He has immortality on his mind–“My immortality secures the future of France.”—even if his adviser Pere La Chase (William Hurt) finds the idea distasteful, if not blasphemous. “The only thing God gives as immortal is your soul,” he says, “and you only have one of those to lose.”
Tossing aside any thoughts of sacrilege apothecary Dr. Labarthe (Pablo Schreiber) tells the king of a sea creature, a mermaid (Fan Bingbing) with an essence that will keep death from knocking at the door, but only if the mermaid is sacrificed during a solar eclipse.
Captain Yves (Benjamin Walker) captures the mermaid just as the King’s illegitimate daughter, Marie-Josephe (Kaya Scodelario), is brought to the palace. She’s been tucked away at a convent since she was a child, studying music, and doesn’t know her father is the King.
Marie-Josephe hears the mermaid’s siren song and is drawn to her watery prison. She’s also drawn to Captain Yves, despite her father’s wish that she marry Labarthe.
Meanwhile, the solar eclipse and possible mermaid dismemberment loom.
Not even the film’s backdrop, Versailles, the world’s most expensive movie set, can raise enough interest—visual or otherwise—for me to give “The King’s Daughter” a pass. The story has all the elements of a fun adventure but it appears that director Sean McNamara ran the entire thing through the Un-Fun-Omatic before shipping it off to theatres.
Brosnan is overshadowed by his silly wig. You can see Hurt reaching for the pay cheque and poor Fan Bingbing is rendered almost unrecognizable by the worst computer effects this side of Donkey Kong. Add to that a script heavy on lackluster fantasy clichés, light on actual French accents and loaded with unintentionally funny moments, and you’re left with a royal mess.
“The King’s Daughter” is a fairy tale, but there is no happily-ever-after here for anyone, especially the audience.
James Schamus, a producer best known for his Oscar winning work with Ang Lee, makes his directorial debut with “Indgination.” The story of a young man’s coming-of-age isn’t a case of style over substance—it has both in spades—but of character over plot.
Based on Philip Roth’s novel of the same name, “Indignation” is the story of Marcus Messner (Logan Lerman), a young working class Jewish man who earns a scholarship to the WASPy Winesburg College in Ohio. It’s 1951 and his enrolment in school keeps him from being drafted to fight in Korea and out from under the thumb of his over protective father.
A studious young man—his roommate says, “He’s a scholar who doesn’t have time for frivolities like the theatre.”—he immerses himself in his classes to the exclusion of almost everything else. The only break in his concentration comes in the form of Olivia Hutton (Sarah Gaddon), a beautiful classmate whose charms, both physically and intellectually, distract him from his work.
On their first and only date something happens (NO SPOILERS HERE) that plunge Marcus into previously uncharted personal territory. Eventually his intensity toward his schooling and Olivia draws the attention of Dean Caudwell (Tracy Letts), which threatens his place within the school and provides the film with its best scene.
Like other adaptations of Roth’s work “Indignation” is filled with richly drawn characters. Where it falls down is in the storytelling. Roth’s novel is a personal piece of work loosely based on his own 1950s college experience. It’s a look at life’s decisions and their consequences, intellectual purity and sexual discovery, all themes touched on in the film but without the benefit of Roth’s investigative, haunting prose.
What does shine through are the characters. In a break-out role Lerman holds the center of the movie, doing formidable work in scenes opposite Gaddon and Letts. His scenes with Gaddon brim with sexual attraction touched with longing and sadness but it is with Letts that Lerman does his best work. A mid-movie tour-de-force sees the two showdown in the moralistic Dean’s office, arguing everything from baseball to Bertrand Russell. The verbally jousting is the film’s high point; a lovely bit of acting that could stand on its own as a short film.
“Indignation” is about truth and consequences, unspoken love and inexperience, but mostly its about great acting from a fine cast.
