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 the epic “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” the feel-good divorce drama “Is This Thing On?” and the psychological thriller “The Housemaid.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In the third installment of the “Avatar” film series, “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” ex-Marine Corporal Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his Na’vi family’s peaceful way of life on their home planet of Pandora is threatened by the violent Ash People and returning baddie Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang).
CAST: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Dileep Rao, Matt Gerald, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Jemaine Clement, Britain Dalton, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Jack Champion, Bailey Bass, Filip Geljo and Duane Evans, Jr. Directed by James Cameron.
REVIEW: “Avatar: Fire and Ash” does what cinema is meant to do; transport the audience to new worlds while reflecting and commenting on the reality of our world. An epic for the eyes, the visualization of Pandora is impressive and immersive, but the a-list visuals are let down by a b-movie story.
First, the look.
Rendered in eye popping 3D, Cameron’s concept for Pandora and her environs is spectacular will have your synapses firing on all cylinders. An ode to French impressionism by way of the sci fi landscapes of Frank Frazetta, whether his camera is gliding through the jungles of Pandora or swimming under the planet’s oceans or traipsing around gritty fire and ash biodomes or soaring though the sky on the back of a winged Great Leonopteryx, Cameron delivers a dopamine hit directly through the eyes.
It’s a whole lotta CGI, which is ironic, given that this is a story about the organic connection between nature and all of God’s creatures in which all the dazzling images were created in the least organic way possible. Still, the pictures, no matter how they were created, do come alive on the screen.
Less exciting is the story.
Cameron has spent the better part of two decades world building, creating the belief systems, language and traditions of the Na’vi people, only to hang them on the most generic of fantasy storytelling. His hot button pet themes of colonization, government overreach, community and environmentalism are very much in place, but the storytelling isn’t as passionate as the visual work.
Essentially picking up a few months after “Avatar: The Way of Water” left off, when “Fire and Ash” begins Jake (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and their children Lo’ak, Tuk, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), and Spider (Jack Champion) are grieving the death of Neteyam, the family’s eldest son.
Their peaceful life amid the reef-dwelling Metkayina clan is disrupted when Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the ruthless RDA colonel reborn as a Na’vi recombinant, teams with the aggressive, volcano dwelling Mangkwan, or “Ash People,” lead by the vicious Varang (a compelling Oona Chaplin).
As Jake fights for the survival of his family, the fate of all of Pandora hangs in the balance.
Packed with big action set pieces, smaller, more intimate family moments, and one, “I am Spartacus” scene, “Fire and Ash” has a new, unsettling villain in the form of Varang but otherwise recycles old ideas under a slick CGI veneer.
The mix of A-list tech and B-movie dialogue like Quaritch’s quip, “I guess I don’t die that easy,” feels like watching a Saturday morning serial with boffo, stare-of-the-art visuals that distract from the often-cheesy dialogue.
The familiar story beats and the worn-out dialogue quickly take a backseat to Cameron’s unique vison. He is the star of “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” Like the other films in the franchise the new one invites the viewer to exit the real world and enter his world of imagination of three hours, and, despite some déjà vu story wise, it’s a trip worth taking.
I review the highly anticipated “Avatar: Fire and Ash” for CTVNews.ca!
“‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ does what cinema is meant to do: transport the audience to new worlds, while reflecting and commenting on the reality of our world. An epic for the eyes, the visualization of Pandora is impressive and immersive, but the A-list visuals are let down by a B-movie story…” Read the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Lee,” a new biopic now playing in theatres, Kate Winslet plays celebrated war correspondent and photographer Lee Miller. The fiercely independent former fashion model became a World War II correspondent for British Vogue, covering the London Blitz, the liberation of Paris, and the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau.
CAST: Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Andrea Riseborough, Andy Samberg, Noémie Merlant, Josh O’Connor, Alexander Skarsgård. Directed by Ellen Kuras.
REVIEW: As a reminder of the importance of journalism and photography, “Lee” contains several unforgettable moments. Recreations of her famous photographs dot the film.
Memorable images of an “unexploded bomb” sign stuck to a tree or a nurse’s underwear hung in a window to dry, mirror her innate visual style, one that combined artful composition with stark matter-of-fact journalism. “Even when I wanted to look away,” she says. “I knew I couldn’t.”
Perhaps Miller’s most famous photograph captured her in front of the camera.
In the iconic image, set up by Miller and taken by Life Magazine photographer David Scherman (Andy Samberg), she is topless, bathing in Adolph Hitler’s bathtub on April 30, 1945, the day Hitler killed himself. New Yorker writer Chris Wiley called it an “apt visual metaphor for the end of the war” and it remains a potent symbol of triumph against evil.
When the film focusses on Miller’s trailblazing work, as in the above examples, “Lee” shines.
Winslet is terrific as the fiercely committed photographer, but she is let down by a conventional set-up—an older Miller looking back on her life—and a tendency to drift from the character’s inner life to the story’s more mundane aspects.
“Lee” is a serviceable film, but it is nowhere near as remarkable as the woman whose story it tells.
“Avatar: The Way of Water” harkens back to a time when Hollywood bigshots thought, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a 3D picture is worth a million words.” The original film, 2009’s “Avatar” was director James Cameron’s grand experiment in the audience’s tolerance for 2 hours 42 minutes of images popping off the screen.
Thirteen years ago, the million words theory worked. “Avatar” was a massive hit, grossing almost 3 billion dollars worldwide, as rumors of a series of sequels hung in the air. Delay after delay kept the blue people off screens for so long, four presidents came and went while Cameron tinkered with the story and the technology to bring his vision to life.
The tinkering is finally over. Cameron returns to theatres with the first of four planned sequels, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” an epic 3D sequel that mixes astonishing visuals with eye-rolling teenagers, a character with the b-movie name Z-Dog and a 3 hour and 12-minute tale of colonialism.
Set on Pandora, an Earth-like habitable extrasolar moon from the Alpha Centauri System populated by the Na’vi, the 9 to 10 feet tall Indigenous peoples, the movie picks up the action more than a decade after the events of the first film. Former Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who left his human body behind to permanently become Na’vi, lives on the peaceful planet with wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and children.
Their idyll is interrupted with the return of the Sky People, humans who want to“pacify the hostiles” and takeover Pandora.
“Earth is dying,” says General Frances Ardmore (Edie Falco). “Pandora is the new frontier.”
Despite having been killed off in the original, the Pandora-bound team is led by the ruthless Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), a genetically engineered “recombinant” or avatar version of the late Marine, implanted with his mind and emotions. “We have been brought back in the form of our enemy,” he says of he and his team. He plans on taking Pandora at any cost, and getting revenge on Sully, who he sees as a traitor.
Forced into hiding with Tonowari (Cliff Curtis), Ronal (Kate Winslet) and the reef people clan of Metkayina, Sully and his family learn the way of water—”no beginning and no end”—and fight to defend their world.
So, the big question is: Was “Avatar: The Way of Water” worth the wait?
As a technical achievement, yes, unquestionably. The visuals are stunning, particularly in the underwater scenes. Cameron’s camera has a nimbleness often missing in 3D films, which often feel locked-down. His fluid camera roams, on land and sea, capturing some of the most eye-popping, breathtaking scenes of this, or any other, season. Each and every frame is carefully considered, and most could be cut out, framed and hung on the wall to great effect.
The visuals facilitate Cameron’s world building, providing tantalizing views of the forest land of Pandora and the wet ‘n wild world of Metkayina, complete with giant whale-like creatures that could have sprung from the imagination of Ray Harryhausen, and lush, colorful flora and fauna.
It does not look like any other 3D film—even the original “Avatar”—and will engage the eye and stimulate the brain.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the story, which is as simple as the images are complex. Essentially, Cameron continues the colonialization themes of the first film, while adding in mysticism, traditional medicine, poachers and even a nod to Jonah and the Whale.
Most of all, it is a story of family, of parents and children. Apparently, Pandorian kids behave sort of like Earth teens, eye rolls, attitude and all. The family relationships add an intimate element to the epic story, but the visuals often get in the way of the storytelling.
Long action sequences, like a spectacular sea creature attack, take away from the movie’s main thrust, pushing the running time upwards, but not advancing the story. Perhaps they are scheduled in to accommodate bathroom breaks. Whatever the reason, they showcase Cameron’s mastery of the form but often feel spectacular simply for the sake of spectacle.
Loud and proud, “Avatar: The Way of Water” can be, by times, overwhelming, but it’s also the kind of grand scale movie that demands to be seen on the biggest, most immersive screen possible. Cameron shoots for the moon, but goes even further, to a place called Pandora.
Anna Sewell’s timeless classic “Black Beauty,” now streaming on Disney+, is given an update in a gentle, family-friendly take on a girl and a horse who “share the same Mustang spirit.”
The titular character is a wild horse, born to roam free until she is rounded up, taken from her family and sent to Birtwick Stables where she is to be trained and sold off to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, Jo Green (Mackenzie Foy of “Twilight” and “The Conjuring”) has lost her immediate family and is sent to live with her horse trainer Uncle John (Iain Glen). Feeling lost, she’s unhappy and unfamiliar with life at the stables. Soon though, a bond forms between her and the Mustang named Black Beauty. Somehow, they see themselves reflected in one another. “You’ve gotten closer to that filly in days than I have in weeks,” says Uncle John. “They say a horse picks you.”
Later, when it’s time for Black Beauty to move along top a new owner, Jo protests. “If I fought for every horse I ever loved,” Uncle John says, “I’d have a hundred of them.”
“I don’t want a hundred horses,” Foy responds. “I just want one.”
And so it goes, the connection between a girl and her horse remains unbroken, despite the ups and downs in both their lives.
This version of “Black Beauty” features a first, two female leads, Foy and Kate Winslet. The Oscar winning Winslet supplies the voice of Black Beauty in narration, in calm, measured tones that suggest she’s reading the inside of a schmaltzy Hallmark greeting card. “A true mustang never gives up on hope and love,” she whinnies.
It has also dialed back much of the rough stuff—there’s no enforced labor pulling London cabs for instance—that younger viewers may have found distressing in the original story but there are still some emotional scenes that will pull at the heartstrings of young and old.
“Black Beauty” errs on the side of sentimentality, favoring uplift over real edge, but while the smoothed down version has changed some of the details of Sewell’s story but the underlying messages of loyalty and kindness to animals remain the same.
The plot of “Ammonite,” a new romantic drama starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan now playing in theatres, is simple but the film is not. A complex study of love, what it lacks in plot it makes up for in masterful performances.
Set in the 1840s, Winslet plays self-taught paleontologist Mary Anning. Her scientific glory days behind her, she now supports her ailing mother (Gemma Jones) selling fossils found on a nearby beach in the barren Southern English coastline of Lyme Regis. Still feeling the sting of the breakup of her last relationship with fossil-hunter Elizabeth Philpot (Fiona Shaw), she has developed a an exterior as hard as the rocks she cracks open to find fossils.
When wealthy Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison (James McArdle), whose wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan) suffers from “mild melancholia,” passes through Lyme Regis, he hires Mary to look after his wife while he travels.
It’s not an easy fit. Mary is all work and no play, but needs Murchison’s money. Charlotte is used to being coddled and of getting her own way from the hired help. Soon, it becomes apparent that Charlotte’s melancholia is caused by a lack of passion in her marriage, a excitement she rediscovers with Mary.
Director Francis Lee begins the picture in a shroud of grey. Dull matte hangs over every frame of the film, echoing the icy relationship between… well, almost everyone on screen. As Mary and Charlotte’s relationship heats up, so does the movie’s visual sense. Colours are introduced and flowers, once mere stems, bloom. It’s a lovely backdrop for the blossoming of love, or at the very least, infatuation.
“Ammonite” is, first and foremost, a vehicle for two wonderful performances. Ronan and Winslet deliver austere, quiet performance but share electrifying chemistry. Their initial disdain of one another is palatable, and later, their attraction is fervid. Even when they aren’t reciting pages of dialogue, their inner most thoughts are clear and unmistakable. Every gesture and glance fills in a blank and helps move the story forward.
Despite the passion from the leads “Ammonite” feels listless for much of its running time. It’s a serious story—although apparently not based on the actual facts of the real-life Mary Anning’s life—that feels as though it is trying to exerting a sense of gravitas through spare dialogue, depiction of grief and the use fossils as a metaphor for what was once alive and vital.
“Blackbird,” the new Susan Sarandon end-of-life drama now on VOD, is a remake of the 2014 Danish film “Silent Heart.” Equal parts heartbreaking and humorous, it’s a movie whose humanity is first and foremost.
Sarandon is Lily, a vey sick woman whose body has betrayed her. Her long battle with ALS has taken the use of one of her arms and she struggles to maintain her dignity in the face of ever declining health. A self-diagnosed A-type personality, Lily has made the decision to end her life on her own terms. With her husband Paul (Sam Neill) she has arranged one last weekend with the family, a celebration of life complete with holiday traditions.
In attendance are daughters Jennifer (Kate Winslet) and Anna (Mia Wasikowska), their significant others, husband Michael (Rainn Wilson) and girlfriend Chris (Bex Taylor-Klaus), grandson Jonathan (Anson Boon) and Lily’s lifelong friend Liz (Lindsay Duncan).
Lily has found a sense of comfort in her decision, but as the fateful time nears, unresolved issues arise as the children reveal they may not be accepting of her choice.
“Blackbird” is an end-of-life drama, bold in its presentation of delicate matters, that never dips into soap-opera sentimentality. With sensitivity and unexpected humor director Roger Michell transcends the disease-of-the-week genre, staging intricate scenes that allow for drama and discourse.
A Christmas dinner scene, for example, begins as a lighthearted gathering. It’s funny, warm, even romantic but deepens into something else as Lily gifts some of her prized possessions to family members. “I haven’t taken this bracelet off in 22 years,” she says, passing it along to her daughter. “I’ve never taken this wedding ring off.” It could have dipped into melodrama but Sarandon, in a tremendous performance, never allows the scene to become maudlin. It’s incredibly sad and for the members of her family, and for the viewer, it’s the moment when Lily’s decision to say goodbye becomes heartbreakingly real.
All the action in “Blackbird” happens inside Lily and Paul’s beautiful home, a powerful architectural presence that almost becomes a character on its own. On the downside the limited setting gives the movie a stagey feeling, as though we’re watching an elaborate play instead of a movie.
The lack of backgrounds, however, helps focus on the issue at hand. “Blackbird” doesn’t debate the ethics of assisted suicide or wallow in any sort of moral quandary. Instead, it celebrates life in all its multi-faceted and messy glory as the characters approach Lily’s end of life in their own, unique ways.
In its examination of the end-of-life “Blackbird” packs an emotional punch, illuminating not only Lily’s end but the entirety of a precious life well lived.
THE BAD (in alphabetical order)
CHIPs: It’s a remake, a comedy and an action film and yet it doesn’t quite measure up to any of those descriptors. It’s a remake in the sense that writer-director-star Dax Shepard has lifted the title, character names and general situation from the classic TV show but they are simply pegs to hang his crude jokes on.
The Circle: While it is a pleasure to see Bill Paxton in his last big screen performance, “The Circle” often feels like an Exposition-A-Thon, a message in search of a story.
The Fate of the Furious: Preposterous is not a word most filmmakers would like to have applied to their work but in the case of the “Fast and Furious” franchise I think it is what they are going for. Somewhere along the way the down-‘n’-dirty car chase flicks veered from sublimely silly to simply silly. “The Fate of the Furious” is fast, furious but it’s not much fun. It’s an unholy mash-up of James Bond and the Marvel Universe, a movie bogged down by outrageous stunts and too many characters. Someone really should tell Vin Diesel and Company that more is not always more.
Fifty Shades Darker: Depending on your point of view “Fifty Shades of Grey” either made you want to gag or want to wear a gag. It’s a softcore look at hardcore BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism) that spanked the competition on its opening weekend in 2015. Question is, will audiences still care about Grey’s proclivities and Ana’s misgivings or is it time to use our collective safeword? “Fifty Shades Darker” is a cold shower of a movie. “It’s all wrong,” Ana says at one point. “All of this is wrong.” Truer words have never been spoken.
The Mountain Between Us: Mountain survival movies usually end up with someone eating someone else to stay alive. “The Mountain Between Us” features the usual mountain survival tropes—there’s a plane crash, a showdown with a cougar and broken bones—but luckily for fans of stars Idris Elba and Kate Winslet cannibalism is not on the menu. Days pass and then weeks pass and soon they begin their trek to safety. “Where are we going?” she asks. “We’re alive,” he says. “That’s where were going.” There will be no spoilers here but I will say the crash and story of survival changes them in ways that couldn’t imagine… but ways the audience will see coming 100 miles away. It’s all a bit silly—three weeks in and unwashed they still are a fetching couple—but at least there’s no cannibalism and no, they don’t eat the dog.
The Mummy: As a horror film it’s a meh action film. As an action film it’s little more than a formulaic excuse to trot out some brand names in the kind of film Hollywood mistakenly thinks is a crowd pleaser.
The Shack: Bad things in life may be God’s will but I lay the blame for this bad movie directly on the shoulders of director Stuart Hazeldine who infuses this story with all the depth and insight of a “Davey and Goliath” cartoon.
The Snowman: We’ve seen this Nordic Noir before and better. Mix a curious lack of Oslo accents—the real mystery here is why these Norwegians speak as though they just graduated RADA—Val Kilmer in a Razzie worthy performance and you’re left with a movie that left me as cold as the snowman‘s grin.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: Movies like the high gloss crime thriller “La Femme Nikita,” the assassin mentor flick “Léon: The Professional” and outré sci fi opera “The Fifth Element” have come to define director Luc Besson’s outrageous style. Kinetic blasts of energy, his films are turbo charged fantasies that make eyeballs dance even if they don’t always engage the brain. His latest, “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” not only has one of the longest titles of the year but is also one of the most over-the-top, retina-frying movies of the year. Your eyes will beg for mercy.
Wonder Wheel: At the beginning of the film Mickey (Justin Timberlake) warns us that what we are about to see will be filtered through his playwright’s point of view. Keeping that promise, writer, director Woody Allen uses every amount of artifice at his disposal—including cinematographer Vittorio Storaro’s admittedly sumptuous photography—to create a film that is not only unreal but also unpleasant. “Oh God,” Ginny (Kate Winslet) cries out at one point. “Spare me the bad drama.” Amen to that.
THE UGLY
Song to Song: I think it’s time Terrence Malick and I called it quits. I used to look forward to his infrequent visits. Sure, sometimes he was a little obtuse and over stayed his welcome, but more often than not he was alluringly enigmatic. Then he started coming around more often and, well, maybe the old saying about familiarity breeding contempt is true. In “Song to Song” there’s a quick shot of a tattoo that sums up my feelings toward my relationship with Malick. Written in flowery script, the words “Empty Promises” fill the screen, reminding us of the promise of the director’s early work and amplifying the disappointment we feel today. This is the straw that broke the camel’s back, the Terrence Malick movie that put me off Terrence Malick movies. I’ll be nice though and say, it’s not him, it’s me.
EXTRA! EXTRRA! MOST COUNFOUNDING
mother!: Your interest in seeing “mother!,” the psychological thriller from “Black Swan” director Darren Aronofsky, may be judged on your keenness to watch American sweetheart Jenifer Lawrence flush a beating heart down a toilet. Aronofsky’s story of uninvited guests disrupting the serene lives of a poet and his wife refuses to cater to audience expectations. “mother!” is an uncomfortable watch, an off-kilter experience that revels in its own madness. As the weight of the weirdness and religious symbolism begins to feel crushing, you may wonder what the hell is going on. Are these people guilty of being the worst houseguests ever or is there something bigger, something biblical going on?
Aronofsky is generous with the biblical allusions—the house is a paradise, the stranger’s sons are clearly echoes of Cain and Abel, and there is a long sequence that can only be described as the Home-style Revelation—and builds toward a crescendo of wild action that has to be seen to be believed, but his characters are ciphers. Charismatic and appealing to a member, they feel like puppets in the director’s apocalyptic roadshow rather than characters we care about. Visually and thematically he doesn’t push button so much as he pokes the audience daring them to take the trip with him, it’s just too bad we didn’t have better company for the journey.
“mother!” is a deliberately opaque movie. Like looking into a self-reflective mirror you will take away whatever you put into it. The only thing sure about it is that it is most confounding studio movie of the year.
