I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with guest anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about new movies in theatres including the thriller “Drop,” the gritty “Warfare,” the Rami Malek revenge drama “The Amateur” and Prime Video’s “G20.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 15:00)
I join CTV Atlantic anchor Todd Battis to talk about the thriller “Drop,” the gritty “Warfare” and the Rami Malek revenge drama “The Amateur.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with CKTB morning show guest host Karl Dockstader to have a look at movies in theatres including the thriller “Drop,” the gritty “Warfare,” the Rami Malek revenge drama “The Amateur” and Prime Video’s “G20.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including the thriller “Drop,” the gritty “Warfare,” the Rami Malek revenge drama “The Amateur” and Prime Video’s “G20.”
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 pickup what “Drop” is putting down, and tell you about the dramas “Warfare” and “The Amateur.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “The Amateur,” a new thriller now playing in theatres, Rami Malek plays a CIA cryptographer whose life is touched by tragedy when his wife is killed in a terror attack. When the agency refuses to investigate he takes matters into his own hands. Despite being “just a nerdy guy who works on computers,” he vows to use his unique set of skills to get vengeance. “I want to face my wife’s killers,” he says, “look them in the eyes, and balance the scales.”
CAST: Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Caitríona Balfe, Jon Bernthal, Michael Stuhlbarg, Holt McCallany, Julianne Nicholson, Adrian Martinez, Danny Sapani and Laurence Fishburne. Directed by James Hawes.
REVIEW: “The Amateur,” based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Robert Littell, is a workmanlike thriller, with loads of style but few actual thrills.
The story of vengeance, set into motion after CIA cryptographer Charles Heller’s (Rami Malek) wife is murdered in a terror attack, aspires to be a layered look at grief, anger, the integrity of institutional organizations and the ethics of revenge, is instead a slackly paced movie that is all surface and no depth.
It begins with promise. There’s a cast headlined by Oscar, Tony and Emmy winners, a premise that reflects government conspiracy theories and worldwide unrest, and who doesn’t love a revenge drama? But as the story unfolds it becomes a jumble of ideas that are never pulled together in a tight enough package to become truly engaging.
Malek is in virtually every scene and acquits himself well as the smartest-guy-in-the-room-with-a-grudge, but there’s never any real heat around the character. We are told over and over how brilliant he is, so while he plays a life-and-death game of “Survivor” with the baddies, it’s almost a certainty that he will Outwit, Outplay and Outlast everyone. The predictable nature of his near misses and close scrapes becomes less interesting with every minute of the film’s runtime.
And don’t get me started on the underuse of Rachel Brosnahan, who is barely given any screen time, and when she is, is relegated to playing an idealized version of Charles’ wife. Laurence Fishburne fares better but is still a stock character. He plays a no-nonsense tough guy, ripe with gravitas. It feels like the original script called for a “Laurence Fishburn type” and then they were lucky enough to get Laurence Fishburn. It’s a shame they don’t give him more to do.
As a thriller “The Amateur” rarely raises the pulse rate, but it is as a vehicle for its supporting actors that it really disappoints.
The only thing worse than someone who says, “I had the craziest dream last night,” and then tells you all about it is… well, hardly anything. There are few things worse than suffering through a disjointed story that barely makes sense to the teller and absolutely no sense to you.
But, just imagine if everyone, family, friends, strangers, told you about their dreams, because you were in them. Every single one of them. That’s the nightmarish idea behind “Dream Scenario,” a new “Twilight Zonesque” Nicolas Cage social satire, now playing in theatres.
Cage plays humdrum evolutionary biology professor Paul Matthews. He’s an unexceptional, almost invisible man, mocked by his students and colleagues at work and a sad sack at home with possessive wife Janet (Julianne Nicholson) and two teen daughters.
His unremarkable life is made noteworthy when inexplicably, he begins to appear in the dreams of millions of people.
He’s viral all over the world, except, tellingly, in the nighttime visions of his wife. Why not? “Because you get the real deal,” he says to her. “It wouldn’t be fair to get both.”
“Why me?” he asks. “I don’t know. I’m special I guess.”
Trouble is, he doesn’t do anything special in the dreams. He mostly just appears in the background, watching unresponsively as strange things happen to the dreamer. “He occupies the space like an awkward guest at a party,” says one dreamer.
As his fame grows, it brings with it some unexpected repercussions for the unassuming Paul. “You know,” says Sidney (Marc Coppola), “fame can come with some less desirable side effects. You should be prepared for that.” At first, he almost enjoys the intense glare of the spotlight, but when his presence in the dreams goes from passive to active, and he becomes as repugnant to the public as he was once popular.
“Dream Scenario” does feature some surreal dream sequences, but it’s not really about dreams. It’s about life as a modern, viral celebrity, on display in the unblinking eye of the public, social media and cancel culture.
Cage plays Paul as a man who claims to love his anonymity, but fights a former colleague for credit when she alludes to one of his thirty-year-old theories in an academic paper, and, when fame comes, he’ll pose with anyone who wants a selfie. He’s tired of being invisible, but wants fame on his own terms. But, as the movie ably points out, fame is a three-headed hydra, untamable and uncontrollable.
It’s a perfect role for Cage’s sensibility. As Paul’s life switches from dreamlike to nightmarish, Cage embraces the tragicomic elements of the role—a man who can’t live up to expectations in real life or dream life—and pulls off a great trick by making a forgettable man memorable.
“Dream Scenario” is a clever, timely film that details everything from mid-life crisis and cancel culture to viral fame and social media marketing in a bizarre, funny and thought-provoking way.
Marilyn Monroe is one of the most documented movie stars of all time. Her time on earth inspired hundreds of thousands of posthumous column inches, hundreds of books and a slew of biopics and documentaries, the first, narrated by Rock Hudson, coming out less than a year after her 1962 death. There is a Broadway musical and even videos games bearing her likeness.
It begs the question, What is left to learn about this Hollywood icon in 2022?
If a new movie, “Blonde,” with Ana de Armas as the “Some Like It Hot” star, and now playing in theatres before it moves to Netflix, is any indication, not much.
The film begins its 166-minute journey with Norma Jeane Mortenson’s (Lily Fisher) unstable single mother Gladys (Julianne Nicholson) gifting her child with a surprise, a battered photograph of a prosperous looking man in a fedora. That’s your father, the little girl is told. He is a very important man.
Thus begins, according to director Andrew Dominik, a Freudian lifelong search for a father figure, that would see her cycle through famous husbands like Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) and Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody), both of whom she calls daddy in an annoying baby-doll voice.
In Hollywood, now known as Marilyn Monroe, she makes a splash working as a model before being sucked into the studio system in a flurry of casting couches, emotional auditions and the creation of her bombshell image, a look that sold movie tickets but didn’t resonate with Norma Jeane. “She is pretty I guess,” she says, “but it isn’t me.” At one point, she yells, “Marilyn is not here,” during a contentious call with her studio boss.
As her life spirals downward, accelerated by alcohol and pills, depression caused by everyone’s inability to look past the blonde dye job to see who she really is and career dissatisfaction, her life and career begin to fall apart. “She is not a well girl,” her make-up artist (Toby Huss) says. “If she could be, she would be.”
“Blonde” is an art house biography. Fragmented and often impressionistic, it attempts to take you, not just inside Marilyn’s life, but also her psyche and body. Dominik’s camera does offer never-before-seen views of Monroe, from the considerable nudity to literally travelling inside her womb.
But to what effect? The insights into Monroe’s life and career, that she was, essentially, two sides of the same coin, Norma Jean on one, Marilyn on the other, aren’t original, even if their daring presentation is. The film’s advertising tagline, “Watched by all, seen by none,” sums up most of the film’s message in a much more powerful, and mercifully succinct, way.
Dominik does create memorable moments, a nightmarish red carpet walk at the “Some Like It Hot” premier, for instance, visually conjures up the horror Marilyn must have felt as a reluctant superstar constantly in demand by people who wanted to use her. Less successful is footage of a missile launch to emulate the goings-on during a sex scene—most definitely not love scene—between Marilyn and JFK (Caspar Phillipson).
Dominik, who adapted the script from the fictionalized and controversial Joyce Carol Oates novel “Blonde,” does craft some interesting dialogue to bring Marilyn’s state-of-mind in focus—”Marilyn doesn’t have any well-being” she says, “she has a career.”—but he also includes some absolute clunkers, like the unintentionally hilarious, “I like to watch myself in the mirror. I like to watch myself on the toilet,” uttered by Edward G. Robinson Jr. (Evan Williams). That is “Mommy Dearest” level writing.
As Marilyn, de Armas is fearless, and does inhabit Monroe’s vulnerability and intellect, and looks enough like her to complete the illusion. My only quibble is that sometimes de Armas sounds like Marilyn and sometimes sounds like Marilyn doing an impression of de Armas.
I’m sure “Blonde” won’t be the last Marilyn Monroe biopic, but it will be the last one I devote three hours to watching. Not because it is definitive, but because I think that everything that needs to be said about the later movie star has already been said.
“I, Tonya” explores the seedy underbelly of a sport you didn’t think had a seedy underbelly. A darkly humorous look at the defining moment of figure skater Tonya Harding’s career, it’s a tale of death threats, broken blades and attempted hobbling.
Margot Robbie is Harding, an elite athlete who sums up her career with, “I was loved for a minute. Then I was hated. Then I was a punch line.” As a young child all she wanted to do was skate. A rink rat from age four, she began winning figure skating awards at a time when her friends were still learning cursive. Her embittered mother LaVona Golden (Allison Janney), the kind of person who stubs out her cigarette out in her mashed potatoes, is a punishing presence, pushing her relentlessly to be the best. “You’re not here to make friends,” she screeches when young Tonya pauses to say hello to a fellow skater. “That girl is your enemy.”
With the help of trainer Diane Rawlinson (Julianne Nicholson) Harding rises through the ranks, developing an aggressive and athletic style that sees her out skate most of her competitors to become the first skater to complete a triple axel combination with the double toe loop. Trouble is, her homemade costumes, Trashy Tonya nickname and hair trigger temper are not accepted by the skating establishment. “You’re not the image we want to portray,” she’s told. “You’re representing our country and we want a wholesome American family.”
To even the playing field husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) hatches a plan to unnerve Tonya’s biggest threat on the ice—Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver). What starts off as psychological warfare against a competitor snowballs into “The Incident,” a scandalous affair vaults Harding’s name into the headlines. On January 6, 1994, just six weeks before the Lillehammer Olympics, unbeknownst to Harding, a thug, hired by Gillooly’s friend and co-conspirator Shawn Eckardt (Paul Walter Hauser), broke Kerrigan’s knee as she walked through a corridor at Cobo Arena immediately after a practice session. “The Incident” made front page news and eventually saw Harding ousted from the sport she loved.
Director Craig Gillespie keeps the tone light and lively but presents Harding in a light never before seen. Framing her as an abused woman, first by her mother, then Gillooly and finally, devastatingly, by the press and the public—“You’re all my abusers,” she says directly to camera.—creates sympathy for a woman who has been widely vilified and mocked.
Robbie dons blue nail polish, perms her hair, chants her “It wasn’t my fault” mantra and hits a career high as the self-described redneck skater who had a shot at the big time. Bold and brassy, it’s a fourth wall breaking performance that could have slid into caricature but doesn’t. It’s a warts and all portrayal that doesn’t try and pull on your heart-strings or pander to easy theatrics. In Robbie’s hands Harding is still rough around the edges—“Nancy gets hit one time,” she complains, “and it’s life altering event.”—but “I, Tonya” looks beyond the Trashy Tonya image so often portrayed in the press to transform the punch line into a person.
In a movie full of showy roles Janney shines brightly. As the chain-smoking LaVona she’s a foulmouthed force of nature that belittles her daughter at every turn. “She skates better when she’s enraged,” she hacks. When its own style occasionally bogs the movie down Janney shows up like a bad penny to keep things interesting.
“I, Tonya” is “based on irony free, often contradictory interviews” with the main players in Harding’s life. As a result it’s messy, but this is a messy story about a woman who paid a heavy price for daring to be herself. Not conforming cost her everything but you get a sense, by the end of the film, it’s a price she was willing to pay.
