I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including Amy Adams in “Nightbitch,” the ghost story “Presence,” the sky high “Flight Risk” and the crusty drama of “Hard Truths.”
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 Amy Adams in “Nightbitch,” the ghost story “Presence” and the sky high “Flight Risk.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Nightbitch,” a new darkly funny horror film now playing in theatres, Amy Adams plays an artist-turned-stay-at-home-mom who struggles with domesticity. Her life takes a surreal turn when her maternal instincts manifest in canine form, including an affinity for howling and hunting small animals. “I am a woman,” she says. “I am an animal. I am Nightbitch.”
CAST: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Snowden, Emmett Snowden, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Ella Thomas, Archana Rajan, and Jessica Harper. Written and directed by Marielle Heller, based on the 2021 novel by Rachel Yoder.
REVIEW: “Motherhood, changes you,” says librarian Norma (Jessica Harper). “It connects you with some primal urges.”
“Nightbitch” may struggle to balance mythology, metaphor and the messiness of parenting, but Amy Adams’s fearless and ferocious performance ties it all together. “I was once a girl,” she says. “Then a woman. A bride. A mother and now I will be this.”
A blend of rebellion, confusion, horror and razor-sharp comic timing, it is an oddball examination of motherhood and the changes, physical and mental, that come along with it. “No one talks about the cellular change that happens when you become a mother,” she says.
“Nightbitch” is a combination of many elements, relies too heavily on voice over, and could have used a little harder shove toward the outer edges of good taste, but writer/director Marielle Heller finds compassion amid the chaos.
It’s a strange, sometime gross ride, driven by female rage and loneliness, but within its metaphorical approach are empowering, empathetic messages about the real-life job of parenting.
“Memory,” a poignant new drama now playing in select theatres and starring Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard, is a difficult, delicate story about how the past impacts the present.
Chastain is Sylvia, a self-reliant social worker and overprotective single mother to Anna (Brooke Timber). Sober for a dozen years and counting, she wears her emotions on her sleeve, and when she isn’t working, she’s often at AA meetings, sometimes with Anna in tow.
The story kicks in when Sylvia reluctantly attends a high school reunion with sister Olivia (Merritt Wever). Sitting alone, she’s alarmed when a bearded stranger stares blankly at her, before sitting at her table. Unnerved, she bolts, with the man in pursuit. He follows her home to her rough Brooklyn neighborhood, parking himself outside while she hurriedly goes inside and bolts the door.
The next morning it’s revealed he is a middle-aged man with early onset dementia named Saul (Sarsgaard) who lives in a fancy townhouse with brother Isaac (Josh Charles) and niece Sara (Elsie Fisher). When Sylvia takes on the job of Saul’s caregiver, a relationship blossoms, as she confronts memories of her young life, while Saul strains to remember the day-to-day.
“Memory” is a simply rendered, quiet movie with powerhouse performances from Chastain and Sarsgaard. Director Michel Franco is a fly-on-the-wall, keeping the camera at arm’s length, with no fancy cinematography to distract from the performances. Ditto the soundtrack. Or, should I say lack thereof. Franco doesn’t manipulate emotion with music, save for repeated spins of Saul’s favorite song, Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
The no-frills approach is in service to the characters and the story. With no distractions, the narrative, which details sexual abuse and trauma, unfolds in an unexpectedly warm way. That is thanks to Chastain, who plays Sylvia with emotional bluntness and Sarsgaard, who won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, who brings vulnerability to Saul, but never forgets his strength of character.
They share remarkable chemistry, and even when “Memory” drifts into implausibility, the story of two outsiders who find redemption in one another packs an emotional wallop.
Usually, it is fairly easy to pigeonhole a movie. Comedy, drama, romance, sci fi, horror, action. Those are the easy ones. It gets slightly more complicated as you branch off into hybrids like dramedy, Menippean satire, docufiction or rom com. Then, along comes a movie like “Bones and All,” a new, queasy genre buster starring Timothée Chalamet, Taylor Russell and Mark Rylance, and now playing in theatres.
Based on the 2015 novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis, it is something I’ve never seen before, a romcanrofi, ie: a romantic, coming-of-age cannibal road film.
When we first meet Maren (Taylor Russell), she is a seventeen-year-old high schooler, being raised by single father Frank (André Holland). She appears to be a normal teen, sneaking out to a slumber party with schoolmates and the like, but when her taste for human flesh reveals itself, Maren and her dad have to hit the road before the police turn up.
When Maren turns eighteen, her father disappears, tired of hiding her terrible secret. Leaving the teen to fend for herself, he leaves behind some money, her birth certificate and a tape recording describing her life, from her first cannibalistic incident when she was just three-years-old, to providing details about Janelle (Chloë Sevigny), the mother who abandoned Maren when she was an infant.
On a search for answers, Maren hits the road, landing in Ohio, where she meets Sully (Mark Rylance), an older cannibal who says he could smell a fellow “eater” from blocks away. Like Maren, Sully is a drifter, but he’s not looking to answer life’s questions, he’s on the hunt for food. “Life is never dully with Sully,’ he snorts.
Sully teaches her the tricks of the trade, how to pick victims and feed without attracting attention, but something about him makes Maren uncomfortable and she moves on to Indiana where she meets Lee (Chalamet), a fine young cannibal who becomes her partner in life and death.
“Bones and All” isn’t exactly a horror film. The subject matter might be horrifying and there are some stomach-churning sound effects that won’t easily be forgotten, but this is more a coming-of-age love story as Maren adapts to her ever-changing circumstances.
The blood and guts are kept to a minimum, mostly serving as a vehicle for the movie’s metaphor of cannibals as anyone who has ever felt like an outcast. Maren and Lee are the ultimate others, a compulsive couple who aren’t treated as monsters, but as two people living outside of collective norms. Come for the cannibals, stay for the languid, sensitive essay on life on the fringes of society.
Seductive and strange, director Luca Guadagnino anchors the movie with his two leads, Chalamet and Russell. Both are driven to extremes by their appetites, while, at the same time, searching for acceptance and a place to call home. Both actors bring humanity to their characters, concentrating on their personal journeys rather than the monstrous aspects of their personalities. Their performances give the eccentric story a universal feel even if it is a very specific topic.
“Bones and All” has more to do with relationship road movies like “Two-Lane Blacktop” and “Badlands” than it does “Cannibal Holocaust.” It’s a haunting tale, if a little languorous for its own good, that makes a meal out of its allegory.
With his remake of the classic Dario Argento supernatural horror film “Suspiria” director Luca Guadagnino has made a film as glossy and grandiose as the original giallo. Maybe even more so. What he has also done is intellectualize the story to the point where you don’t actually get scared you just think you do.
Set in 1977 Berlin, the film begins with a manic episode. The first of many. Patricia Hingle (Chloe Grace Moretz), on the run from the Tanz Ballet School, is distraught. Making her way to the office of her psychiatrist Dr. Josef Klemperer (Lutz Ebersdorf a.k.a. Tilda Swinton under and inch or two of make-up) she’s in the midst of a breakdown, ranting about witches before disappearing into the city leaving Klemperer with more questions than answers.
Cut to the story of American ballet student Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson), Patricia’s replacement at the prestigious dance school. A Mennonite from rural Ohio she arrives for an audition with the school’s formidable head teacher Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton in more recognizable form) despite never having studied or danced professionally. Her raw talent is enough to earn her a berth with at the school and soon she has not only formed a bond with Blanc, but is dancing the lead in a production of the avant-garde piece “Volk.”
Dr. Klemperer and Susie’s roommate Sara (Mia Goth) think something is wonky at the school but can’t figure out what is wrong. Imagine their surprise (SPOILER ALERT UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN THE ORIGINAL FILM!) when it becomes apparent the school is run by a coven of witches intent on human sacrifice.
Guadagnino and screenwriter David Kajganich keep the bones of Argento’s story, fleshing it out with much talk of the terrorist Baader-Mienhof bombings, Susie’s backstory and Klemperer’s search for his long lost wife. Aptly subtitled “Six Acts and an Epilogue Set in a Divided Berlin” the new version is an hour longer than the original and while it is visually stunning it feels padded for length.
Not to say there aren’t memorable moments and ideas. A death-by-voo-doo-dance sequence is queasily beautiful and the film’s climax, a Grand Guignol freak-out, must be seen to be believed. It’s beautifully rendered, all grey skies and red rivers of blood, not nearly as lurid as Argento’s movie—except, perhaps for the exploding head sequence—but it is solemn when it should shock.
