I appear on “CTV News at 6” with anchor Andria Case to talk about the best movies and television to watch this weekend. I’ll tell you about the disturbing drama “The Zone of Interest” and Zac Efron in the tragic wrestling drama “The Iron Claw,” both playing in theatres.
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 34:05)
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to wrap a gift! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the satire “American Fiction,” the high-flying wrestling movie “The Iron Claw” and the drama “The Zone of Interest.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I joined CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres. Today we talk about the satire “American Fiction,” the high-flying wrestling movie “The Iron Claw,” the animated “Migration,” the superhero flick “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” and the drama “The Zone of Interest.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Roger Peterson to talk about the satire “American Fiction,” the high-flying wrestling movie “The Iron Claw,” the animated “Migration,” the superhero flick “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” and the drama “The Zone of Interest.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I joined CP24 to have a look at new movies and television shows coming to theatres and streaming services. Today we talk about the satire “American Fiction,” the high-flying wrestling movie “The Iron Claw” and the animated superhero-movie-for-kids, “Merry Little Batman” on Prime Video.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with guest host Stefan Keyes to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the satire “American Fiction,” the high-flying wrestling movie “The Iron Claw,” the animated “Migration,” the superhero flick “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” and the drama “The Zone of Interest.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
You do not exit “The Zone of Interest,” the latest from director Jonathan Glazer, now playing in theatres, with the words, “I really enjoyed that,” spilling from your lips. Loosely based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Martin Amis, it is a study of the banality of evil that is unsettlingly ordinary and hauntingly uncomfortable.
A largely plotless, slice-of-life of the comings and goings of Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and with his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), “Zone of Interest” paints a picture of a typical family.
Set in 1943, Hedwig runs the house, raises their five kids, with the help of nannies and maids, and tends to the couple’s gardens. Rudolf works next door as the Commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp. As the kids play in their large yard, swim in the pool and have friends over for birthday parties, in the background the unimaginable horrors of the camp can be heard. The cries of anguish, gun shots and barked orders fall on deaf ears in the Höss household, where life goes on as normal.
Höss’s facility at delivering death earns him promotions, which threaten to uproot his family from their beloved country home to the mean streets of Berlin. Showing the kind of concern for his family he could never muster for his victims, the Commandant arranges for his Hedwig and the kids to remain in the house while he is on the road, laying the roadmap for Operation Höss in which 430,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in 56 days.
Director Glazer never goes inside the camp. Instead, he focusses his camera, by and large, on the family. The disconnect between the imagery—smiling children in the pool, Hedwig and her mother lounging in the guest bedroom—and the sounds emanating from the camp, is devastating.
Composer Mica Levy’s score is confined to the beginning and end, with only an additional burst of music here and there. The absence of music becomes deafening, forcing the ear to focus on the brutality we can hear but not see.
It harkens back to old horror movies like Val Lewton’s “Cat People,” which understood that it’s the things you cannot see, that you must be forced to imagine, that will have the greatest impact. Glazer knows whatever we think is happening on the other side of the wall between the house and the camp, will be worse than anything he could show us. “The Zone of Interest” presents an intellectual atrocity that burrows into the brain and will not soon be forgotten.
“The Zone of Interest” is a singular film. Confident in its uneasy, experimental execution, unblinking in its representation of the facilitation of evil, it isn’t an easy watch, but will resonate long after the end credits have rolled.
Film critic Richard Crouse reviews ‘Neighbors,’ ‘Legend of Oz: Dorothy’s Return and ‘Under the Skin’.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
If there is one lesson to be learned from “Under the Skin,” the new alien seductress from “Sexy Beast” director Jonathan Glazer, it is, Don’t get in a car with strangers even if they look like Scarlett Johansson. She may play the Black Widow in the Avengers series, but here she is literally the black widow.
The film begins with an homage to Stanley Kubrick, an austere sci fi set up that suggests an alien making their way to Earth. To Scotland to be exact. The nameless creature, who assumes Johansson’s form, spends much of the time exerting her siren’s call on unsuspecting men. She lures them into her van, then to her home, where they disappear into an inky goo, never to take another breath.
She’s a newcomer on a mysterious mission, still figuring out human emotions, but in tune enough to use her sexuality to entrap unsuspecting men. After an encounter with a disabled man she takes her first tentative steps toward humanity.
Every now and again a film comes along with little or no regard for the conventions of traditional storytelling. “Under the Skin” is one of those movies.
We learn next t nothing about Johansson’s character or her mission. In a surreal sequence we do learn what happens to her victims, but not why they are being harvested.
Glazier never takes the easy narrative way out. He leaves it to the audience to draw their own conclusions about everything, character and motivations included. He even clouds much of the dialogue in thick Scottish accents that are challenging unless you have Cullen Skink running in your veins. Add to that some strange inconsistencies—how is it she knows how to drive like a New York taxi cab driver but has no working knowledge of her own naughty bits?—and the story strays far into art house territory.
It’s a deliberately paced film that never met a pause—I would say dramatic pause, but there is very little drama to be had here—it didn’t embrace.
At the center of it all is Johansson in a deceptively demanding role. She appears to be doing very little, but conveys a heady blend of innocence and sexuality that brings this otherworldly creature to life. Think “The Man Who Fell to Earth’s” Thomas Jerome Newton (David Bowie) with red lipstick and more curves and you get the idea.
“Under the Skin” won’t be for everybody. It deliberately challenges the audience, almost daring them to stay along for the ride, but those brave enough to take the journey will be rewarded with a story that takes a sly look at human identity filtered through the guise of an alien.
