I usually avoid movies with titles that rhyme. For every “Be Kind Rewind” or “Chop Shop,” which I liked, there’s a “From Prada to Nada” or “Good Luck Chuck” that remind me that some of the time, a rhyme equals grime.
OK, that was lame, but you get the idea.
Cutesy titles are often the first warning sign of what is to follow. A new film, “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris,” commits the name game sin, but Academy Award nominee Lesley Manville brings the poetry to the movie.
Set in 1957, Manville plays Ada Harris, an optimistic London house cleaner. “Today’s my lucky day,” she says. A self-described “invisible woman,” she is also a dreamer, a person who hangs on to the belief that her husband Eddie will finally come home from war, and that something better is always around the corner.
Only one of those things is true.
When Eddie is officially declared killed in action, she is devastated, but stoic. “I should have known he would have gotten back to me if he could have,” she said, holding back tears. “Well, footloose and fancy free.”
When she sees a beautiful Dior haute couture gown belonging to one of her aristocratic customers, it is an epiphany. Although the dress costs double what she makes a year, she makes it her goal to visit Paris’s 30 Avenue Montaigne, Christian Dior’s namesake boutique, and treat herself to a dress.
Through a series of unlikely happenstances, Mrs. Harris raises enough money to get to the City of Lights, pay cash for the dress and fulfil her dream, but how will she, as the snobby Dior house manager Claudine Colbert (Isabelle Huppert) asks, “give the dress the life it deserves.”
“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” is the kind of feel good-movie that seems as though it was written by an algorithm. Of course, it’s based on the 1958 novel “Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris” by Paul Gallico, which later a became TV movie of the same name starring Angela Lansbury, Diana Rigg, and Omar Sharif, but it feels as though a bot was asked, “What makes people feel all cuddly- cushy?”
How about some old school British slang, some romance, the Eiffel Tower, glittering dresses, some class warfare and even a tad of existentialism? Nothing like a movie about aspirations with a side of Jean-Paul Sartre.
The philosopher’s name is used as a prop to illustrate the intellectual prowess of the French love interests (Alba Baptista and Lucas Bravo) but Mrs. Harris appears to take Sartre’s ideas to heart.
When Sartre said, “Life begins on the other side of despair,” he may have been talking about Mrs. Harris’s rebirth after she learned Eddie wasn’t coming back to her. Sartre’s observation, “We are our choices,” applies to the title character’s indomitable spirit and her decision to find the beauty in her world, no matter how frivolous. While the movie reduces the existentialist’s theories to pop psychology, the uplift in Manville’s winning performance provides an escape to a more glamorous time (even if it takes place in Paris during a garbage strike).
“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” is predictable and overlong, but Manville brings the heart and soul.
Based on a British Second World War deception operation to camouflage the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily, “Operation Mincemeat,” now playing in theatres, moving to Netflix on May 11, is an entertaining retelling of a little-known plan to break Hitler’s grasp on Europe.
Based on historical records, the movie details a plan so outlandish it sounds as though it sprung from the fanciful mind of a screenwriter. That the plan was, in part, hatched by a young Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn), who would later go on to create the outlandish 007 spy stories, would seem to be another flight of the imagination, but even that flourish is based on fact.
The plan, nicknamed Operation Mincemeat, involved tricking Hitler into believing the Allies planned to invade Greece, not Sicily. But how to pull it off? QC-turned-Lieutenant-Commander Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) and MI5 agent Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) marshal an audacious disinformation plan to drop a dead man off the coast of Spain, where the Nazi spy chain begins. In the pockets of the corpse’s uniform are “wallet litter,” faked love letters, military ID etc. In his case are “classified” military correspondence indicating the Allies were about to invade Greece. If that information falls into German hands and distracts them, it will allow a full-scale Allied invasion of Sicily.
“Operation Mincemeat” is a spirited recreation of the meticulous planning that went into the scheme to fool the Fuhrer. Director John Madden finds the suspense, the espionage and even the romance in the situation. The first two elements work well, creating a forward momentum that builds excitement as the running time ticks by. The romance between Montagu and Jean Leslie, played by Kelly Macdonald, is less convincing and feels wedged in.
Better are the comedic aspects. While some of the dealings with the dead man evoke memories of “Weekend at Bernie’s,” most of the laughs come from the absurdity of the situation, and feel organic to the story.
A welcome addition to the stranger-than-fiction genre, “Operation Mincemeat” is a well-appointed, well-crafted period piece that avoids the stoicism of other war time espionage thrillers.
Richard and CTV NewsChannel morning show host Jennifer Burke chat up the weekend’s big releases including the relentless return of Michael Myers in “Halloween Kills,” the emotional family drama “Mass” and the rock ‘n’ roll documentary “The Velvet Underground.”
The story of “Mass,” a new drama from writer-director Fran Kranz, now playing in theatres, is simple but the emotions it evokes are anything but.
A bland meeting room in an Episcopal church in Idaho is the backdrop for the meeting of two couples bound together by shared trauma. Years before, Richard and Linda’s (Reed Birney and Ann Dowd) son Hayden shot and killed eleven kids in a high school massacre, including Gail and Jay’s (Martha Plimpton and Jason Isaacs) son Evan. The intimate summit is meant to provide clarity and closure, but distrust and frustration steer the proceedings as they volley anger and recrimination back and forth.
“Mass” often feels like a stage play transposed to the screen. The bulk of the “action” takes place in one room, around a table as the four hash out the events that shaped their lives in the aftermath of the tragedy. A tempest of anguish, blame and forgiveness, it forcefully mines the emotion of the situation without resorting to sensational flashbacks or lurid recreations of the film’s defining event. Instead, director Kranz trusts the performances and the words to do the job. “I loved Hayden so much,” says Richard, “but maybe he should never have been born.”
Questions about responsibility, radicalization, gun culture and mental illness are woven into “Mass’s” fabric, but the movie is more interested in the human dynamic than answering those queries. This is about the who, not the why.
To that end the main cast members are never anything less than believable. Each explore a different avenue of grief and remembrance, and each deliver an acting masterclass. Restrained and realistic, the actors go deep, unconcerned with flashy pyrotechnics or showboating.
“Mass” is raw and real, devastating, nuanced and somber, a beautifully acted study in misery that allows for a flicker of hope.
Richard joins Jay Michaels and guest host Deb Hutton of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show The Rush to talk about the pirate who invented the Pina Colada and some movies, “Old” and the rock and roll biopic “Creation Stories,” to enjoy while sipping one of the creamy drinks.
Near the end of “Creation Stories,” the story of record industry giant Alan McGee now on VOD, a young writer promises one day to write a story that matches his ego. “That’s a very noble ambition,” he snaps back. I’m not sure if she ever wrote the story, but director Nick Moran and screenwriters Dean Cavanagh and Irvine Welsh certainly have. “Modesty gets you nowhere,” McGee says.
Ewen Bremner, best known as Spud from “Trainspotting”, plays McGee, a wannabe punk musician who put down his guitar and picked up bands like Jesus and the Mary Chain, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine and Oasis for his UK indie label Creation Records. Told in the tried-and-true biopic form of a celebrity interview, the movie is a series of flashback vignettes of McGee that illustrate his answers. The format is old hat but allows Moran to zip through the story at a break neck speed.
The pace captures the spirit and drug fuelled joie d vivre of the times, but feels disjointed. It’s a scattershot movie that packs twenty pounds of story into a ten-pound bag. According to the movie, like a Scottish Zelig, McGee is here, there and everywhere but always in the right place at the right time. He’s front and centre in every scene, it’s his life story after all, but as we careen through McGee’s chaotic life, the side characters get lost. Particularly the musicians who made Creation so successful.
It often feels like a story, as the young writer played by Suki Waterhouse promised, that plays up to McGee’s ego courtesy of a constant stream of platitudes.
Luckily at the centre of it all is Bremner. His charismatic performance is the glue that prevents the disparate parts of the story from blowing a part. His likability holds our interest even as the story goes the way of so many other celebrity biographies—the dreaded time in rehab and/or involvement with politics. The rip-roaring stride of the film’s first half slows as “Creation Stories” searches for some elusive depth. Even then, Bremner is compelling, even if the skin-deep portrait of the music executive becomes less so as the movie nears the end credits.
“Creation Stories” is chirpily nostalgic for the heady days when Creation Records struck gold with records that resonated with millions of people. What it isn’t sentimental for is the actual music, McGee’s true legacy.
If action with a side of cheese is your thing then “Skyfire,” now on VOD, might be a Gouda film to put on your movie queue. If not, this is nacho thing.
Set on an island in the Pacific Rim, smack dab in the middle of the Ring of Fire, an area known for volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, the story begins with vulcanologist Meng Li (Hannah Quinlivan) building an early warning system. Her boss, entrepreneur Jack Harris (Jason Isaacs), is a mirror image of Hammond from “Jurassic Park.” Hammond built a theme park where cloned dinosaurs ran amok. Harris’s vision is for an opulent resort at the base of an active volcano.
What could possibly go wrong?
When Harris and his wife JiaHui-Dong (An Bai) invite influencers and investors to luxuriate in the amenities offered in this tropical paradise, Mother Nature kicks up a fuss, spewing red hot lava over Harris’s best laid plans. On top of that, Meng Li’s estranged father shows up just in time to dodge the fireballs falling from the sky.
“Skyfire” is unapologetically cheesy. In best queso scenario (OK, I know these puns are not so grate so I’ll stop now) it should be watched with no expectation except the promise of good, mindless fun. It’s loud and proud, a movie that fills the screen with implausible action and character reactions. By the time it gets to the underwater marriage proposal it’s a contender for the 2021 Special Achievement in Silliness award.
And that’s OK. Veteran action director Simon West, he of “Con Air,” “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” and “The Expendables 2” among others, keeps things lively as giant Styrofoam boulders fly through the air and lava carpets the earth.
Imagine the rumble of 70s disaster flicks like “Earthquake” with the nature-gone-wild plot of “Jurassic Park” and you’ll get the idea.
“Skyfire,” China’s first big-budget disaster movie, is by no means a disaster. It’s an unabashed popcorn flick that revels in its melting pot of clichés, a fondu of clichés if you will, as much as it does its preposterous storytelling.
“From the director of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Con Air, we bring you Skyfire – a Chinese disaster action mega-production.
“Tianhuo Island, located in the world-famous Pacific Rim volcanic belt, is as beautiful as a paradise.
“The idyllic location almost makes people forget that it’s in the area also infamously called the “Ring of Fire.” When the volcano erupts, the fate of the people on the island is in the hands of a geologist and her father.
“The film has Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter series, Peter Pan, The Death of Stalin), Chinese superstars and is filled with action shots. So, get yourself some popcorn, maybe a good drink or two and enjoy some giant explosions. Because what else is there to do in life?”
Don’t let the word ‘hotel’ in the title of Dev Patel‘s new film trick you into thinking it’s another entry in his lighthearted “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” series. “Hotel Mumbai” is a harrowing retelling of the terrorist attacks on the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in November 2008.
The film begins with 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic terrorist organisation based in Pakistan arriving in Mumbai. They split into small groups and soon reports of armed gunman rampaging through the city hit the news. They shoot up Mumbai’s main rail terminal, a café and other hotspots, guided by an ideologue who has convinced these young jihadists that paradise awaits if they do the job by spreading terror.
Director Anthony Maras builds tension by cutting between the chaos in the streets and the measured, elegance, of Taj Mahal Palace Hotel where Arjun (Patel) and Chef Hemant Oberoi (Anupam Kher) work among the 500 staffers who keep the place running like a fine tuned watch. It’s the kind of place where the bathwater is always exactly 48° and, as the staff says, “the Guest is God.”
Soon a small group of the terrorists invade the “otherworld luxury” of the Taj, indiscriminately slaughtering guests and staff alike. Inside the strong willed Chef and Arjun help the guests survive the siege, which lasted almost three days. With the closest Special Forces army 800 miles away in New Delhi the understaffed and unprepared local police must take action. “If we stay in here and wait,” says one cop (Nagesh Bhonsle) looking at the carnage from the street, “there will be no one left.“
There are many moving parts in “Hotel Mumbai.” We follow the sprawling cast—including Armie Hammer and Nazanin Boniadi as an upscale couple staying at the hotel—in various parts of the hotel as they fight for their lives. Despite some boiler-plate flourishes—cell phones that run out of juice at the worst possible time etc— Maras crafts an edge-of-your-seat thriller that puts you in the middle of the action. With so many characters it can be hard to stay invested in them all but the horror of the situation becomes more visceral with every loud gunshot on the soundtrack.
“Hotel Mumbai” is a nicely executed thriller that looks beyond the terror to focus on the resilience of the human spirit in the face of surreal adversity.
