I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with host Sean Leathong, to talk about the musical psychological drama “Joker: Folie à Deux” and the comedy bio “Saturday Night.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 15:51)
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres and streaming including the musical psychological drama “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the comedy bio “Saturday Night” and the drama “White Bird.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Saturday Night,” a new show business biography from director Jason Reitman, and now playing in theatres, tensions run high as producer Lorne Michaels and his not ready for prime-time gang of young comedians count down the minutes until the first broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” on Oct. 11, 1975.
CAST: Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun, Cooper Hoffman, Andrew Barth Feldman, Kaia Gerber, Tommy Dewey, Willem Dafoe, Matthew Rhys, and J. K. Simmons. Directed by Jason Reitman.
REVIEW: “Saturday Night” captures the anxiety, the humor and the sheer nerve it took to get the first episode of “SNL” off the ground. Chaos reigns for much of the movie’s run time as producer Lorne Michaels attempts to wrangle an unruly cast, a drug addled host (a terrific Matthew Rhys as George Carlin), indecision and a network executive (Willem Dafoe) who may, or may not, order a Johnny Carson rerun to air instead of Michaels’s disorganized counterculture circus.
Reitman captures the behind-the-scenes action with a restless camera that never seems to stop moving, rat-a-tat-tat Arron Sorkin style fast talking dialogue and meticulous recreations of the iconic “SNL” set and sketches.
Reitman’s biggest storytelling accomplishment, however, may be that he imbues the film with a sense that everything may come crashing down at any second. We know it won’t, of course—“SNL” celebrates 50 seasons this year—but the threat of imminent collapse hangs over frame.
Michaels’s high wire act is the film’s engine, but it’s the insights into the cast that provide the key to deciphering what made the original 1975 cast so compelling.
Cory Michael Smith captures “SNL’s” first superstar Chevy Chase’s comic ability, fueled by talent, ego and bluster. Dylan O’Brien’s take on Dan Aykroyd is eerily accurate vocally and physically, and Matt Wood puts John Belushi’s troubled genius routine front and centre. Lamorne Morris plays Garrett Morris, the lone Black performer in the original cast, as a searcher, looking for purpose in a show that appears to be rudderless.
The women in the boy’s club, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman, and Kim Matula as Jane Curtin, are given less to do, but each has a moment amid the chaos. Hunt gets Radner’s buoyant, sunshiny personality, Fairn is all eagerness as Newman and Curtain’s one-on-one backstage chat with Morris is a funny, yet poignant, conversation about her place in this cast. Cumulatively, they are at their best in a recreation of a sketch where the women, as construction workers, ogle and objectify Aykroyd.
The large ensemble cast is rounded out by a scene-stealing J.K. Simmons as Hollywood legend Milton Berle and “Succession’s” Nicholas Braun in the dual roles of Andy Kaufman and Muppet master Jim Henson.
The film’s soul comes courtesy of the pairing of Gabriel LaBelle and Rachel Sennott as Michaels and his wife and “SNL” writer, Rosie Shuster. “We may be married,” she says, “but I’m not your wife,” and it is their bond, in whatever form it takes, that grounds Michaels as everything appears to spin out of control.
“Saturday Night” is a love letter to show business. It’s high energy nostalgic fun, told in almost real time, that captures the tenacity of the creative mind and the beginnings of a cultural institution.
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!
Kevin Smith has long been thought of as a renegade, a movie director who has never played by Hollywood’s rules. As such his life and career are a natural for the documentary treatment.
Films like “Clerks” and “Mallrats” made him an avatar of indie filmmaking and his early adoption of the internet made him the Methuselah of geek culture. So, it is surprising that “Clerk,” a look at Smith’s legacy now on VOD, doesn’t have any of the rebel spirit that make his story, from “Clerks” to “Tusk” to his popular podcast SModcast, so compelling.
Near the beginning of its chronological look at Smith, director Malcolm Ingram shows a video the young filmmaker made as he prepared to leave home to attend the Vancouver Film School. A thank you to his parents for instilling in him a passion for movies, it’s lovely found footage that displays Smith’s heart and his devotion of his chosen industry.
If the rest of the movie struck the same tone as this footage, “Clerk” might have the depth to make it feel like something beyond an entertaining, but shallow, DVD extra.
Smith is an intriguing character. From DIY filmmaker (“Clerks”) to studio outsider (“Cop Out”) to self-distributor of his movies to podcast superstar and Geek God, he has forged an unlikely but prolific career.
Through interviews with friends—like Ben Affleck, Richard Linklater and BFF Jason Mewes—fans and family—his mother Grace, wife Jennifer Schwalbach Smith and daughter Harley Quinn all appear—a portrait emerges of a man who created a world for himself.
We’re told about his drive to create, how he has rolled with the punches and health scares, and also rolled thousands of joints, to become a cultural touchstone who has turned his love of pop culture, into a career. “I didn’t want to be a footnote,” he says.
The most revealing part of the film comes midway. Smith calls a scene in “Clerks II” the moment where he learned who he was “through the art.” The characters, Quick Stop (the convenience store the action revolves aorund) store manager Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and slacker Randall (Jeff Anderson), are in jail.
Dante says, “What would the great Randall Graves do if he was the master of his own destiny?” The answer? “I’d buy the Quick Stop and reopen it myself.”
In that moment, Smith says, this character, once defined by his cynicism and disappointment with the world, is laid bare. That scene tells “the story of my life,” the director says. “The day I realized you could just buy the Quick Stop and reopen it yourself. That’s how you’d be happiest. That was me going, ‘I’m never going to be what other cats would like me to be. The only reason you like me in the first place is because I was me. So, I’m going to go and be me for the rest of my life now.’”
It is a teary moment—Smith wells up several times during the almost two hour run time—that sums up an epiphany for Smith that appears to have influenced much of his career moving forward from that moment.
Self-acceptance is a great message—”I want to be the Smithiest Kevin Smith I can be.”—and it is one of the things that has made Smith so popular with his rabid fans. But by the end of the “Clerk” it’s clear that, despite that life lesson, the documentary is more fan service than deep dive. Smith devotees—that is, anyone who knows what “Snoochie Boochies” refers to—will enjoy revisiting the movies that made the charismatic director famous, but holes—Mewes’ drug addiction for instance—in the storytelling and hagiographic interviews prevent it from being a definitive portrait.
Richard joins CTV NewsChannel and anchor Lois Lee to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including the rebooted “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” the fourth film in “Ghostbusters” franchise, the inspirational new Will Smith movie “King Richard” and Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Power of the Dog.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
With the release of “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” the supernatural comedy now playing in theatres, the Reitman family proves they ain’t afraid of no sequels. The fourth film in the franchise sees Jason Reitman, son of the original director Ivan, reinvent the series, this time for a younger audience.
The reboot begins with single mother Callie (Carrie Coon) inheriting a rundown old house from her estranged OG (Original Ghostbuster) father Egon Spengler. Located just outside the tiny town of Summerville, Oklahoma, it’s “worthless aside from the sentimental value,” but Callie is desperate. She’s been evicted from her city apartment and sees the move as a way to start a new life for her two teenage kids, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace).
“We’re completely broke,” Trevor tells a friend. “And the only thing that’s left in our name is this creepy old farmhouse my grandfather left us in the middle of nowhere.”
Summerville is far from New York City, the original epicenter of Ghostbuster’s supernatural activity, “human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together and mass hysteria,” but it turns out the sleepy little town is also haunted. Phoebe, who takes after the grandfather she never met, is sensitive to the ghostly goings-on and with the help of her grandad’s old ghost traps, new mentor Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd) and some familiar faces, she will attempt to get to the bottom of the paranormal problem.
Despite the Reitman name front and center, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” doesn’t really feel like a “Ghostbusters” film. There is plenty of fan service and call backs to the original movie but the humor is muted and the anarchy of the first film is replaced by family drama. Modelled after the kid led adventure movies of the 1980s, it feels more like a coming-of-age indie grafted onto a big studio premise.
Reitman populates the film with likable characters. Grace nails the nebbish Phoebe, creating a deadpan wise-beyond-her-years character that blends seamlessly into the “Ghostbusters” world and as her sidekick Podcast, Logan Kim is a scene stealer. The adults, Coon and Rudd, acquit themselves well, and Dan Ackroyd’s first scene is the best role he’s had in years.
But despite the characters the story takes too long to get to the ghostly stuff. Once there, it delivers a proton blast of nostalgia and an epic CGI supernatural showdown, but at twenty minutes longer than the original it feels stretched.
“Ghostbusters: Afterlife” attempts to pay tribute to the franchise while moving it forward in a different direction but despite a couple stand out performances, it is a ghost of the original.
“Men, Women & Children” is a sprawling ensemble drama that I suppose is meant to shed some light on the widening gap between analogue parents and their iphone toting kids, but comes off more as a high tech “Reefer Madness.” Someone needs to jiggle director Jason Reitman’s cord and reboot.
The movie, based on the Chad Kultgen novel, suggests that social media, video games and texting are the root of all modern evil. Anorexia, the shameless pursuit of Kim Kardashian style fame, teen pregnancy and even adultery, it seems to say, can be traced back to a key stroke or two.
It’s a remarkably clumsy observation from a director who has treated us to a searing look at downsizing in “Up in the Air” and a satiric look at lobbyists on “Thank You For Smoking.” Leading the charge against internet interaction is Patricia (Jennifer Garner), a mom who monitors her daughter’s every text and post and hands out pamphlets on the dangers of the selfie. She’s a hardcore crusader, the Mary Whitehouse of the anti-internet crowd. You expect her to yell, “Get off my URL,” at any moment. In any other Reitman movie she’d be played for laughs, the center for the satire, but here we’re supposed to take her seriously and that decision lies at the heart of what is very wrong with “Men, Women and Children.”
Instead of mining the rich vein of satire in the disconnect between kids and parents, Reitman pitches the tone in the area of an afterschool special. The listless direction and inability to answer any of the questions it raises, coupled with the tiresome cliché of texts and posts popping up all over the screen, overshadows some engaging work by the actors—particularly Judy Greer as a momanger to a teen wannabe, and Ansel Elgort and Kaitlyn Dever as a couple struggling to cope with their mothers.
Given the film’s attitude “Men, Women and Children” might have been better off with a title like “Old Folks Just Don’t Understand.”
By Richard Crouse & Mark Breslin – Metro Reel Guys
Metro’s Reel Guys columnists Richard Crouse and Mark Breslin take a look at this year’s crop of potential crowd pleasers at the festival.
Richard: Mark, every year I look forward to covering the festival with a mix of dread and anticipation. The dread part comes from knowing how I’m going to feel once the 10 days of 18-hour shifts is finally over. The drooling anticipation part comes along with the slate of films TIFF offers up. This year the new David Cronenberg film is top of my list. In Maps to the Stars, he showcases the stupid, venal and stratospherically self-involved behaviour that goes on behind the scenes in Beverly Hills’ gated communities. The idea of debuting a jaundiced look at Hollywood at the biggest film festival in North America appeals to my rebellious side.
Mark: Can’t wait, Richard, for this or any other Cronenberg! I’m also a big fan of Jason Reitman, who consistently delivers movies that plumb the abyss of the zeitgeist. His latest, Men, Women, and Children, should be no exception. Based on one of my favourite novels by Chad Kultgen, it’s a look at how the Internet is warping families, twisting our sexuality and mediating our desires. Oh, and it’s a comedy.
RC: Mark, the sci-fi musical genre has been sadly overlooked at TIFF in past years. That changes with Bang Bang Baby, starring Jane Levy as a 1960s teenager whose dreams of rock ’n’ roll stardom are dashed when a chemical leak in her town causes mass mutations and “threatens to turn her dream into a nightmare.” Then there’s The Editor, a giallo-comedy tribute to the films of Mario Bava and Dario Argento about a one-handed film editor who becomes the prime suspect in a brutal series of murders.
MB: Sounds great, Richard! I’ll stand in line to see the new Denys Arcand film, An Eye For Beauty. Here’s a director not afraid to take a satirical look at our modern mores, but he’s never tackled a love story before. Some of it takes place in Toronto, so I’m expecting a sly gimlet-eyed view from this great Québécois director.
RC: Speaking of great Québécois directors, Jean-Marc Vallée, the Canadian Oscar nominee for Dallas Buyers Club, returns to TIFF with Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon in the story of a woman who finds an escape from her self-destructive ways on a 1,100-mile solo hike along the Pacific Crest Trail. I’m also psyched about Haemoo. With a script by Snowpiercer penner Bong Joon-ho, this movie about a fishing crew smuggling illegal immigrants from China to Korea promises wild action and unexpected thrills.
MB: Richard, do you realize all our picks inadvertently turned out to be Canadian directors? I’m looking forward to Black and White by Mike Binder. It promises to be a heartfelt drama about an interracial family with issues. Binder is from Detroit but went to summer camp in Muskoka, so he qualifies as an honorary Canuck.
