I join the CTV NewsChannel to talk about the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” the epic “The Brutalist,” the sports drama “The Fire Inside,” the unrelenting evil of “Nosferatu,” the office romance of “Babygirl” and the wild biopic “Better Man.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with CKTB morning show guest host Karl Dockstader to have a look at movies in theatres and streaming including the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” the epic “The Brutalist,” the sports drama “The Fire Inside,” the unrelenting evil of “Nosferatu,” the office romance of “Babygirl” and the wild biopic “Better Man.”
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 Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” the epic “The Brutalist” and the sports drama “The Fire Inside.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Scott Hirsch to talk about the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” and the vampire drama “Nosferatu.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: Timothée Chalamet stars as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” an intimate portrait of four tumultuous years in the life of the “Blowin’ in the Wind” singer.
CAST: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Scoot McNairy, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz, P. J. Byrne, Will Harrison and Eriko Hatsune. Directed by James Mangold who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks.
REVIEW: From the surreal “Rocketman,” that turned Elton John’s life into pop art and the self-congratulatory “Bohemian Rhapsody” to the monkey business of the Robbie Williams biopic “Better Man” and Brian Wilson’s introspective “Love & Mercy,” music bios come in all envelope pushing shapes and sizes.
So, it’s a surprise that “A Complete Unknown,” the new film chronicling four years in Bob Dylan’s eventful life, from Greenwich Village newbie to the enigmatic superstar who was booed off the stage at the Newport Folk Festival for playing an electric guitar, is so straightforward.
A story about the man who wrote, “The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face,” could reasonably be expected to take some stylistic risks à la “I’m Not There,” Todd Haynes’s metaphoric retelling of the “Like a Rolling Stones” singer’s life.
Instead, “A Complete Unknown” is more “Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story” than “I’m Not There” or “Inside Llewyn Davis.” The storytelling is efficiently linear (although not all together factual) without the kind of flourishes that Dylan regularly applies to his songs.
But the back-to-basics approach benefits the movie, allowing Timothée Chalamet’s tour de force performance to shine.
Dylan is one of the most documented people of the twentieth century, a man who has inspired a million nasally impressions, and influenced generations of musicians, and yet remains somewhat unknowable.
As a result, “A Complete Unknown” lives up to its name. When we first meet Dylan, he’s an unknown commodity. Four years later he’s the voice of a generation, the most famous export of the folk scene, but in many ways, he remains an enigma.
Chalamet captures the voice and the physicality of young Dylan but isn’t weighed down by the superstar’s legend. Despite his documented life, Dylan, the man, the myth, the legend, is basically unknowable. He’s a cipher; a dancer to a song only he can hear. Chalamet plays him as a mysterious, sometimes imperious guy and most importantly, gets the essence of what made Dylan the voice of a generation. It’s the It Factor, the Rizz, the elusive quality that is impossible to define, but easy to spot.
Instead of attempting to unwind Dylan’s mystique director James Mangold, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks, wisely opts for a portrait of the time, the America and, in microcosm, the Greenwich Village folk era, that produced the singer. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the battle for civil rights indirectly hang heavy over the film, completing the portrait of the time that fuelled Dylan’s early work.
The songs, and there are plenty of them, most performed by Chalamet, are the product of these influences and act as a commentary on that chaotic period.
“A Complete Unknown” may not be revelatory in terms of its biography of Dylan, but it places the singer in context of his times, revealing a rich vein of history, personal and otherwise.
Director Martin Scorsese has always been torn between the scared and the profane. His greatest work has always grappled with sin and redemption, populated by characters like “God’s lonely man,” truth seeker and psychopath Travis Bickle.
Over forty years ago he did a voice over in “Mean Streets” that could inserted (with certain modifications) into his latest film, a seventeenth century epic based on Shūsaku Endō’s 1966 novel “Silence.”
“You don’t make up for your sins in church,” he says. “You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bull**** and you know it.”
In this case “the streets” are a foreign land, but the spiritual journey is not that different.
“Silence” begins in 1633 with the disappearance of Father Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson), a Portuguese Jesuit priest who has gone missing while on mission in Japan.
Christianity is an outlawed religion and those who hide Christians are tortured and killed. Two young priests, Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garrpe (Adam Driver), acolytes of Ferreira, convince Father Valignano (Ciarán Hinds) to allow them to travel to Japan to locate their mentor. “How can we abandon our mission?” asks Rodrigues. “How do we neglect the man who shaped our faith? We have no choice but to save his soul.”
The year is 1640 and they are the last two priests to go to Japan. “An army of two,” says Valignano. An arduous journey leads them to a country more dangerous and complicated than they anticipated. Christians are desperate for their word but live in fear. Officials insist, “Your doctrine is of no use in Japan. We have concluded it is a danger.” If caught by colonels of the country’s inquisitor Inoue Masashige (Issey Ogata) Christians are first asked to committed apostasy—step on an image of Jesus Christ—to denounce their faith or be killed.
As the bodies pile up around them on heir search the question must be asked, are they helping or are they foreigners who bring disaster with them? “Think of the suffering you have inflicted on these people,” says Masashige, the cheery faced inquisitor with a squeaky voice, “just for your vision of a church.” If the priests die the Japanese church dies with them but will the suffering of their people be enough to compel them to make the painful act of love ever performed, apostasy?
“Silence” is a meditative movie about the strength of faith and the limits to which it can be stretched. It is a physical and sacred journey à la “Heart of Darkness.” A look into obsession, colonialism and martyrdom, it is a deliberately paced—i.e: a slow, almost glacial tempo—film unafraid to submerge the viewer in the suffering of its characters. Make no mistake, this is no “Passion of the Christ” with its love of violence and blood. This is a 160 movie that examines the intersection of agony and ecstasy, but does so as an exercise of the mind. There are uncomfortable images, but Scorsese plays it straight, presenting the instances of torture as expressions of the power of belief not merely physical agonies. The movie may start with a beautifully composed shot of the dismembered heads of two priests but the violence here isn’t glamourized, it is organic to the story and even more chilling as a result.
Also, anyone expecting the usual Scorsese stylistic flourishes may be disappointed. There are no Rolling Stones songs or slow motion. There are a few overhead shots but nothing as showy as the long, uninterrupted tracking shot in “Goodfellas.” Instead it’s a classically made film with some serious Kurosawa mojo.
As the Jesuits Garfield and Driver convey divine confidence and yet, as their faith is tested and doubt seeps in, they play their characters as priests battling to do the right thing in the face of suffering and insurmountable odds. Both must make the choice between their beliefs and the stark reality of the consequences of their belief. Both bring humanity to characters who could have been simply portals for some kind of celestial message.
Most memorable is Issey Ogata as the grinning inquisitor Inoue Masashige. The very definition of the ordinariness of evil, he is a cruel man with a smile on his face and a scar on his heart. Think “Inglorious Basterds’s” Hans Landa with the faux gentility of Auric Goldfinger and you get the idea.
“Silence” is a rarity, a big, epic film that values introspection. It’s a companion piece to Scorsese’s other religious offerings—“The Last Temptation of Christ” and “Kundun”—but a more complicated film than either of those. It is about faith but more importantly, also about the distinction between religion and spirituality and Scorsese does not back away from diving into those murky theological waters.
