I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about new movies in theatres including the adventures of Star wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” the absurd social commentary of “I Love Boosters” and the demonic road trip “Passenger.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 14:24)
I join CTV Atlantic’s Todd Battis to talk about the adventures of Star wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” the absurd social commentary of “I Love Boosters” and the demonic road trip “Passenger.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Akshay Tandon to talk about the new releases in theatres, including the adventures of Star wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” the absurd social commentary of “I Love Boosters” and the demonic road trip “Passenger.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to brush your teeth. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the adventures of Star wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” the absurd social commentary of “I Love Boosters” and the demonic road trip “Passenger.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In the raucous “I Love Boosters,” a surreal new satire starring Keke Palmer and now playing in theatres, professional shoplifters wage revolutionary war against a cutthroat designer.
CAST: Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza González, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, Don Cheadle, Demi Moore. Written and Directed by Boots Riley.
REVIEW: A tale of class warfare filtered through a Looney Tunes filter, “I Love Boosters” is an imaginative, heightened movie whose real-life thought-provoking messages on labor exploitation, capitalism and consumerism cut through the surreal story.
Keke Palmer stars as Corvette, the leader of the Velvet Gang, alongside Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige). They’re boosters, i.e. shoplifters, who, like couture Robin Hoods, steal high end fashions to resell at deep discount from make-shift shops in their apartments.
Their main target is Christie Smith (Demi Moore), a high-flying designer whose empire has been built on culture appropriation and exploitative labor.
Their boosting takes a sci fi turn when they meet Chinese garment factory worker Jianhu (Poppy Liu) and her high-tech teleportation device.
“I Love Boosters” is an absurd movie. And I mean that in the best possible way. Writer and director Boots Riley creates a world in which Smith lives in a tall, shiny tower in the city center that is tilted at a steep 45 degrees angle. We’ve seen big buildings before, but this one feels off. It’s familiar and yet quite unlike anything you’ve seen before. Riley uses this and other strange visuals to keep the viewer off balance, as if anything could happen in this strange world.
Keeping pace with Riley’s whimsical vision are a cast who help keep the sky-high story grounded in reality. Even when the film gets outrageous, depicting 30-second lunch breaks, teleporters and a paperwork boulder that follows Corvette around, the charismatic Palmer and the cast are game, bringing a sense of play but also emotion, which prevents the whimsy from taking over completely.
Riley has a lot on his mind. Labor exploitation, materialism and class are essayed but the propulsive comic aspects of “I Love Boosters” are the spoonful of sugar that makes the movie’s messages go down.
SYNOPSIS: In “Good Fortune,” a body-swap comedy starring Seth Rogen and Keanu Reeves and now playing in theatres, a bumbling guardian angel attempts to convince a down-on-his-luck guy that money won’t solve all his problems. “”Money in your pocket can’t hide the poverty in your character,” says tech mogul Jeff (Seth Rogen).
CAST: Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari, Keke Palmer, Sandra Oh, and Keanu Reeves. Directed by Aziz Ansari.
REVIEW: If “Trading Places,” “Nomadland” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” had a baby, it might look something like “Good Fortune.”
In his directorial debut, Aziz Ansari, who also wrote the script, stars as Arj, a down-on-his-luck handyman who, if he didn’t have bad luck, wouldn’t have no luck at all. He does odd jobs for tech bro Jeff (Seth Rogen), a wealthy guy who never met an excess he didn’t embrace. “I did everything right,” Arj says, “but nothing is working out.”
Arj gets a second chance at life when his “budget” Guardian Angel Gabriel (Keanu Reeves)—he usually sticks to saving people from texting and driving—is inspired by the other guardian angels to do something more meaningful with his job.
Wanting to show lost soul Arj how superficial a life of wealth can be the angel offers him a chance to see life through Jeff’s eyes.
Literally.
Gabriel swaps Arj and Jeff, allowing them to live one another’s lives. “Maybe I can show you that [that] life is not all it’s cracked up to be,” Gabriel says to Arj.
Trouble is, Arj’s problems are solved by Jeff’s cash. “I tried to show him that wealth wouldn’t solve all his problems, but it seems to have solved most of his problems.” As punishment for his divine intervention Gabriel loses his wings and is sent to Earth to become Jeff’s roommate. “You have to get Arj to go back,” says head angel Martha (Sandra Oh). “Until then I have to take your wings.”
“Good Fortune” is an American Dream satire with a standout performance from Keanu Reeves who brings humor and heart to the fallen angel Gabriel. All innocence and wide eyes, Reeves plays Gabriel like a baby in a man’s body as he learns about the simple pleasures of street tacos, dancing and laughing. “How will I know when I’m done chewing?” he asks as he tastes food for the first time. It’s a strange, committed performance that provides many of the film’s unexpected laughs.
Rogen and Ansari are solid, playing characters that echo their previous roles, but Reeves is the glue that sticks “Good Fortune’s” simple and sentimental story together.
Hidden underneath the character driven story are incisive and biting commentary on the difficulty of the gig economy—“We have it good” rich guy Jeff tells his board of directors, “because they have it bad.”—being true to yourself and finding hope in life. The presentation of the ideas is earnest, but effective situationally.
“Good Fortune” isn’t a laugh a minute, but the situation overall is amusing and director Ansari milks some laughs out of the circumstances.
SYNOPSIS: In “The Pickup,” a new action comedy now streaming on Prime Video, Eddie Murphy and Pete Davidson play odd couple armored truck drivers drawn into a scheme by cunning thief Zoe (Keke Palmer). “You two are going to help me steal 60 million dollars from the casino,” she says.
CAST: Eddie Murphy, Keke Palmer, Pete Davidson, Eva Longoria, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Jack Kesy, Andrew Dice Clay, Marshawn Lynch. Directed by Tim Story.
REVIEW: Given the talent involved, the most surprising thing about “The Pickup” is how excruciatingly unsurprising it is. Not even its three, very appealing above-the-title stars can rescue this 1980s inspired tepid action comedy.
To be precise, it’s more action than comedy, although there is a golden “Neutron Bomb” needle drop.
Murphy, who can usually wring laughs out of even the most banal of material (I’m looking at you “Candy Cane Lane”) but here it’s as if he’s sleepwalking. He’s playing the older, seasoned armored truck driver to Davidson’s inexperienced wildcard—Murphy’s Russell has twenty-five years on the job whereas Davidson’s Travis only took a fifteen-hour on-line course—but while Murphy’s serious, deadpan delivery supplies the odd laugh, his usual charm is hidden under a bushel.
Davidson riffs on his public persona. Vulnerable but scrappy, he plays Travis as an underdog whose reach exceeds his grasp. He’s a gullible dreamer, a screw-up, and (conveniently) a math whiz who can do complex equations in his head. Davidson’s awkward charm goes a long way, but the character is more goofy than funny.
Palmer fares better, creating a baddie you actually root for.
By the time the end credits roll, “The Pickup” reveals itself to be less than the sum of its parts. All three leads are charismatic, and promise fireworks, but deliver a dud.
The trailer for “Nope,” the new alien abduction film from thriller auteur Jordan Peele, now playing in theatres, is one of the rare promos that gives next-to-nothing away about the plot. It’s meant to pique curiosity, to open your mind to the possibility of… well, almost anything.
The movie exists on the edge of possibility. It’s possible to see it simply as a good-time-at-the-movies UFO flick, but if you’re looking for more, Peele adds layers of subtext to the slow burn story, commenting on Hollywood, corralling nature and the belief in something bigger than yourself.
Set in current day, just outside of Los Angeles, “Nope” sees O.J. and Emerald Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer) carry on the family business after the death of their father (Keith David). Descended from the Bahamian jockey who was the first person to be filmed riding a horse, they run Haywood’s Hollywood Horses, a ranch that supplies livestock to film and television shows. “Since the moment pictures could move,” says Emerald, “we’ve had skin in the game.”
Business is slow, and just as O.J. considers selling some of their horses to a local pioneer village style theme park owned by former child star Ricky “Jupe” Park (“The Walking Dead’s” Steven Yeun), strange things happen at the ranch. Some kind of disturbance in the force has caused electrical blackouts, weird weather and put the horses on edge. There’s also a cloud that hasn’t moved for months.
When O.J. spots something in the sky, something he says was “too fast to be a plane,” Emerald hatches a plan to film the airspace around the ranch to capture film of a UFO. “The money shot,” she says. “Undeniable. The Oprah shot.”
They set up surveillance cameras, and, working with tech support guy (and UFO evangelist) Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) and gravelly-voiced cinematographer Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), they attempt to lure the mysterious craft—which resembles a giant sand dollar—to their elaborate trap and get “the impossible shot.”
“What we’re doing is going to do some good,” says Angel, “besides the money and the fame. We can save some lives.”
Like Peele’s other films, “Get Out” and “Us,” “Nope” has jump scares and disturbing images but this isn’t a horror film. It’s a sci fi movie that explores the fear of the unknown by way of Hollywood Westerns—it pays tribute to the doorway shot at the end of “The Searchers”—monster flicks, and of course iconic Steven Spielberg sci fi films like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” These homages are lovingly assembled to create something fresh, but students of film will have a hoot dissecting the movie’s visual influences and Peele’s obvious love of the form.
Just as there are myriad visual inspirations, Peele has jam packed the film with ever-shifting thematic and plot elements. The straight-ahead alien showdown is prefaced by story threads and flashbacks that don’t always feel like they’re forwarding the story. A TV chimpanzee-gone-wild sequence, for instance, while kinda cool if it was part of another movie, is a bit of a head scratcher.
Having said that, the sheer size and spectacle of “Nope” are powerful. There are only a handful of characters, but their journeys are broad and there are unexpected twists and turns. It’s an ambitious movie that feels less focused than Peele’s other films, but nonetheless, “Nope” earns a Yup.
The opening minutes of “Lightyear,” the new, Pixar origin story now playing in theatres, inform us that what we are about to see is the film that inspired “Toy Story’s” Buzz Lightyear character. In other words, it’s the movie that inspired the merch that inspired a movie that inspired even more merch.
Chris Evans voices the square-jawed, heroic and slightly goofy Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear. After a disastrous crash landing on a strange planet, his attempt to rescue the crew, including Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba), his best friend and commanding officer, goes wrong, leaving everyone stranded on a hostile planet 4.2 million light-years from Earth. His famous Space Rangers helmet weighs heavy on his head. “Everyone is stuck here because of me,” he says.
Determined to return home Buzz embarks on a series of experimental flights using various configurations of jet fuel, trying to find the right formula to achieve the hyper speed needed to cut through space and time.
But something strange happens. For every minute he’s in space, a year passes back on the planet. As Buzz tries trip after trip, his BFF Alisha ages, gets married has a child, and later a grandchild Izzy (Keke Palmer), while Buzz remains, more or less, unchanged.
On the planet, sixty years has passed before Buzz, and his smart and adorable computer companion cat Sox (Peter Sohn) try one last test trip, one that will unite him with Izzy, her “volunteer team of motivated cadets” and Zurg, a menacing force with an army of robots.
At first blush, “Lightyear” may seem like the origin story we don’t really need. Twenty-seven years, three sequels, one direct to video flick and a television series later, you wouldn’t think there would be much left to say about the character, but Pixar has found a way.
“Lightyear” is a Pixar film through and through. You expect the top-notch animation, some cool looking robots, cutesy side characters and the occasional laugh for parents and kids. Less expected is how fun the action-adventure is and how effective the patented poignant Pixar moments are.
It’s a hero’s journey, one that actually humanizes the little hunk of talking plastic (or coded series of bits and bytes) and imbues a catchphrase like “To infinity and beyond” with a new, heartfelt meaning.
“Lightyear” may well inspire a renaissance in the character and spawn more toys, but this movie is much more than merch.
