I join CTV Atlantic anchor Todd Battis to talk about Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest,” the action comedy “Nobody 2,” the music doc “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley”and the crime drama “Americana.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 29:49)
Deb Hutton is off, so I sit in with host Jim Richards on NewsTalk 1010 to go over some of the week’s biggest entertainment stories and let you know what’s happening in theatres. We talk about KISS receiving a Kennedy Center Honor, Chubby Checker snubbing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and I recviuew “Nobody 2,” now playing on theatres.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I joined CTV NewsChannel anchor Roger Peterson to have a look at new movies coming to theatres, including Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest,” the action comedy “Nobody 2” and the crime drama “Americana.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CP24 Breakfast to talk about the big movies hitting theatres his week including the action comedy “Nobody 2,” and Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift” for “Booze & Reviews!” This week I review the action comedy “Nobody 2” and tell you about some drinks to make you feel like a somebody as you enjoy with the film.
Click HERE to listen to Shane and me talk about Johnny Depp’s possible return to the “Pirates of the Caribbean,” why Ji9mmy Kimmel may leave America, Shaniua Twain’s new collaboration with McDonalds and a Heinz ketchup smoothie.
For the Booze & Reviews look at “Nobody 2” and some cool to pair with it, click HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make the bed! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest,” the action comedy “Nobody 2” and the crime drama “Americana.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Nobody 2,” the sequel to the 2021 action hit, sees Bob Odenkirk as assassin and family man Hutch Mansell in need of a break from the mayhem of his day job. On vacation with wife Becca (Connie Nielsen), daughter Sammy (Paisley Cadorath), son Brady (Gage Munroe) and grandpa (Christopher Lloyd) at Wild Bill’s Majestic Midway amusement park, he stumbles into viper’s nest of illegality overseen by a corrupt theme-park operator (John Ortiz), a shifty sheriff (Colin Hanks), and a bloodthirsty crime boss (Sharon Stone). “I just want a break,” says Hutch.
CAST: Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, RZA, Michael Ironside, Colin Salmon, Billy MacLellan, Gage Munroe, Paisley Cadorath, Christopher Lloyd, Colin Hanks, John Ortiz, Mckenna Grace and Sharon Stone. Directed by Timo Tjahjanto.
REVIEW: The trouble with “Nobody 2” is that the titular character, the nobody known as Hutch Mansell, is now a somebody. Fans of the first film know the character, know his backstory and know what to expect. It’s a sequel, so the fights are a bit longer, the explosions a bit louder, but even though it’s a lively time waster, it doesn’t deliver anything new.
Once again, Odenkirk is a charismatic everyman, a relatable guy who also happens to be a one-man army. Part of his appeal lies in his approachability. When he’s not swinging fists, he’s the guy you see on the subway, or at the dog park or at the coffee shop. He’s an Average Joe with a bad temper and a way with a line and Odenkirk finds the tricky balance between the hostility and the humor.
He punctuates violent scenes with an exasperated, “I just wanted a break,” and, after his son picks a fight in defense of his sister at the amusement park, Hutch says, “I understand protecting your sister. It’s instinctual but there are other ways.” It’s funny because Hutch’s method of dealing with issues usually leaves people in the hospital or worse, and the switch to giving fatherly advice is not only disingenuous, but in context, hilarious.
“Nobody 2” is a showcase for Odenkirk, and he remains a lot of fun in the role, so it’s too bad the movie isn’t as fun as he is.
The smart, funny and insightful, “American Fiction,” winner of this year’s Toronto Film Festival People’s Choice Award, is a satire that sees Jeffrey Wright as an exasperated novelist who confronts racial stereotypes by writing a book that forces him to balance hypocrisy with selling out.
An adaptation of Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure,” the film stars Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, an author and English Lit professor frustrated that his publisher rejects his latest work as not being “Black enough,” while another book, “We Lives in da Ghetto” by Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), is heralded by critics as a modern masterpiece.
As Monk struggles personally—his brother Cliff (an excellent Sterling K. Brown) is experiencing a massive life shift while his mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams) is in decline, and will soon need a care home, which the family cannot afford—his professional life turns upside down.
“Monk,” says his agent Arthur (John Ortiz), “your books are good, but they’re not popular. Editors want a Black book.”
“They have a Black book,” says Monk. “I’m Black and it’s my book.”
Angry, on a whim he bangs out “My Pafology,” a satire of Golden’s book under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh. Filled with tired and reductive stereotypes of gang violence and broken homes, his gag novel becomes a publishing sensation, receiving an offer of a $750,000 advance and huge marketing campaign.
Monk is the only person, it seems, who gets the joke. “It’s the most lucrative joke you’ve ever told,” says Arthur.
It may have started as a joke, but Monk needs the money. If he accepts the offer, however, does that mean he’s perpetuating tropes that play into what he regards as “Black trauma porn”?
“American Fiction” finds sharp humor in identity politics, perception and culture wars. Serious in its message but playful in tone, it can cut to the quick. In one scene, Monk and Golden, the only two Black jurors on a literary panel, are castigated to by the white judges to “hear Black voices.” It is one of the film’s funniest scenes, but the performative nature of the sentiment is all too realistic.
As Monk, we see Wright in a different sort of role. Given the chance to flex his rarely-used comedy muscles, he excels, playing up his curmudgeonly character’s conundrum to maximum effect. It’s bittersweet. As he watches the fictious Stagg R. Leigh’s book become successful. It confirms his feelings about the biases of the publishing industry. He reacts with a mix of outrage and humor. It’s a bravura work that hopefully means it won’t take thirty years to give Wright another leading role in a theatrical release.
Giving Wright a run for his money is Brown who steals every scene he’s in. His character Cliff is a mess, pushing personal boundaries as a man coming out of the closet and building a new life. Like Wright, Sterling creates a character that gets laughs, but the laughs aren’t shallow, they come from a deep well of pain and Cliff’s lived experience.
Director Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction” asks why stereotypes of Black trauma are so prevalent in entertainment by not so subtly satirizing the process and the people who create the limited view of Black life in books and on screens. It is insightful but never forgets to entertain.
Near the end of “Replicas,” a new sci film starring Keanu Reeves, a clone assesses the state of her being. “I am dead.” She’s referring to her former self, the template for her current physical state, but she could just as easily have been talking about her film, a movie about creating life that arrives DOA in theatres.
Reeves plays William Foster, a scientist with a genius IQ and family man with a wife (Alice Eve) and three kids (Emily Alyn Lind, Emjay Anthony and Aria Lyric Leabu). By day he works for BioNyne, a Puerto Rico-based biotech firm, toiling to place the sentient minds of dead soldiers into synthetic bodies. If successful the procedure could change the world but so far the results have been uneven. An early test subject spent his final seconds engulfed in existential angst, repeatedly yelling, ‘Who am I?” as it examined its new metal body. “You can’t keep bringing back people from the dead while you figure this out,” scolds wife Mona.
On a rare break from the lab William loads the family into the car for a weekend getaway. Driving in terrible weather he veers off the road, tumbling into a lake. He survives but the family perish. Stricken with grief he has a Eureka moment. The dedicated father and even more dedicated scientist decides to get his family back the only way he knows how—cloning and neural transmission. Enlisting lab partner and clone master Ed (Thomas Middleditch) he sets out to grow a new family in pods in his garage. “What if something horrible goes wrong?” asks Ed. “Something already has,” comes William’s reply.
Layer in some corporate greed and scientific mumbo jumbo and you have a film with all the emotional depth of one of the robots William makes at BioNyne. The creation of life has always fascinated storytellers and audiences alike but “Replicas” is so scattershot—Cloning! Artificial Intelligence! Robots!—it likely should have been titled “Replican’t” for its inability to interestingly explore any of its unfocused ideas. With no interest in the ethical or theological ramifications of the work the movie simply becomes a thriller and not a good one at that.
Reeves looks like he’s putting in some effort—he has more dialogue here than in his last three movies combined—but is in full blown “Sad Keanu” meme mode. Downtrodden and desperate, he veers from monosyllabic to bug-eyed, delivering lines with a gravitas that borders on camp.
Once upon a time “Replicas” would have gone straight to DVD, decorating delete bins and quickly forgotten. On the big screen it makes no impression, neural or otherwise.
