“Wildwood” is in theatres this weekend! “A visually ambitious movie, the stop motion animated Wildwood is a hand-crafted movie of uncommon beauty.” I spoke with Laika stop-motion animation supervisor Brad Schiff and Jacob Tremblay who voices the character Curtis in the film.
Watch the whole thing on “X” HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Wildwood,” a new animated dark fairy tale now playing in theatres, a sister goes on a dangerous journey through an “impassable forest” to rescue her brother after he is kidnapped by a mysterious woman named Alexandra. “I’m not a hero,” she says, “I’m just a girl who lost her brother to a murder of crows.”
CAST: Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina, Angela Bassett, Jake Johnson, Charlie Day, Amandla Stenberg, Jemaine Clement, Len Cariou, Maya Erskine, Tantoo Cardinal, Tom Waits, Richard E. Grant. Directed by Travis Knight.
REVIEW: A visually ambitious movie, “Wildwood” is an epic fairy tale for adults told on a grand scale.
Set in current day Portland, Oregon the story begins when Prue McKeel’s (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) parents ask her to babysit her little brother Mac. They can do whatever they want, as long as she doesn’t take him out of the house.
Of course she does, and, along with eager-to-please schoolmate Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), take the infant for an adventure packed, fun day in town. Well, fun until a murder of crows swoops down and carries the infant skyward.
Frantically following the flock, Prue and Curtis end up in the “impassable wilderness,” a magical place on the outskirts of town with a strict no outsiders policy. There they encounter an army of coyotes, talking owls, castles and mystics who talk to trees and a grief-stricken Dowager Governess (Carey Mulligan) still stinging from the loss of her son. “I don’t want any part of your fairytale,” says Prue. ”I just want my brother.”
To rescue young Mac, Prue and Curtis will have to figure out who to trust in a world filled with magic and distractions.
As far as animation studios go LAIKA, the Oregon based creators behind films like “Coraline” and “Kubo and the Two Strings,” may not have the same name recognition as Pixar, but their brand equals their better-known counterpart in quality and fearless embrace of challenging and thought-provoking themes.
In “Wildwood,” their first PG-13 film (this may be too intense for the little ones, especially in the final battle scene), LAIKA delivers their most accomplished film to date. With a blend of stop motion animation and digital tools director Travis Knight has created the company’s magnum opus, a hand-crafted movie of uncommon beauty.
Epic in scope but personal in nature, Prue’s search for her brother takes her to a wonderfully realized world.
Ripe with magic and danger in equal measure, it’s a spectacularly rendered realm, filled with an eye-popping sense of scale. From Prue’s ride on the back of a giant eagle—“Scared of flying?” she says as they soar through the air. “I’m not usually on the outside of the plane.”—and the Hitchcockian murder of crows abduction sequence to a twelve-minute climatic battle scene and the living ivy that comes alive near the end, the attention to detail will make your eyeballs dance across the screen.
There is also an unusual degree of performance, with smooth stop motion and nuanced facial expressions courtesy of 140,000 3-D printed replacement faces. The use of digital effects, however, doesn’t overwhelm the stop motion, which still feels soulful and artisanal.
Although “Wildwood’s” story sometimes feels like it has been cobbled together from a variety of other fairy tales but nonetheless sets a high bar for stop motion that will be very difficult to top.
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Akshay Tandon to talk about the whale of a tale “Whalefall,” the pulpy and pious “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother,” the documentary “You Can See Everything” and the rock ‘em, sock ‘em action “Street Fighter.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about the whale of a tale “Whalefall,” the pulpy and pious “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” and the rock ‘em, sock ‘em action “Street Fighter.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 15:21)
I join CTV Atlantic’s Bruce Frisko to talk about the whale of a tale “Whalefall,” the pulpy and pious “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” and the rock ‘em, sock ‘em action “Street Fighter.”
Watch 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 whale of a tale “Whalefall,” the pulpy and pious “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother,” the extraordinary doc “You Can See Everything” and the rock ‘em, sock ‘em action “Street Fighter.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to wind your watch. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the whale of a tale “Whalefall,” the pulpy and pious “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” and the rock ‘em, sock ‘em action “Street Fighter.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother,” a new action thriller starring Mahershala Ali now playing in theatres, a devoutly religious hitman attempts to care for his family after his wife suddenly passes away.
CAST: Mahershala Ali, John Cho, Giancarlo Esposito, Abubakr Ali, Tramell Tillman, Tiffany Boone, Laith Nakli. Directed by Bassam Tariq.
REVIEW: Oscar winner Mahershala Ali plays Latif, a devout Muslim contract killer torn between his faith, family and the morality of his deadly work when his wife suddenly passes away. “I see her everywhere,” he says. “You take her from me. And you expect me to bow down to you. I thought I was your sword. Now I have to fill her shoes. I’m breaking.”
The soft-spoken ex-military hitman, now solely responsible for their three children, including the youngest, an infant child allergic to baby formula, finds himself distracted from his desperate citywide mission to find a supply of breast milk by a gangster (Laith Nakli) demanding a favor, the disapproving imam (Giancarlo Esposito) who leads his local mosque in Houston and a Charismatic Christian leader (John Cho) who spreads his gospel via violence.
“Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” is arthouse action that works because the stakes are high. This isn’t just a story of good and evil; it’s the story of a father trying to feed his innocent baby as his life spins out of control.
At the center of it all is Ali. As Latif, he’s a coiled spring, ready to go at any minute. Capable of great violence, he’s also, by times, warm, grief stricken and even funny. It’s a character of great depth and complexity that affords Ali the opportunity to do top tier work that mixes the sacred with the profane.
It also feels like a faraway echo of a movie that might have been. For a time, Ali and director Bassam Tariq worked on a reboot of “Blade,” the sword wielding Marvel Comics half-vampire, half-human vampire hunter. The project was abandoned after years of development, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Latif, like the superhero, has a dual identity, uses a blade to dispatch his victims and radiates a brooding, quiet intensity. If “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” wasn’t such a great movie, it could easily play like a trailer for a film we may never get to see.
Pulpy and pious, and with, it must be said, some unexpected humour, “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” uses its unusual breast milk inciting incident to weave a parable laced with tension, bloodshed, but, most of all, devotion.
SYNOPSIS: “Jurassic World Rebirth,” the seventh installment in the Jurassic Park franchise now playing in theatres, plays like a love letter to Steven Spielberg’s original dino drama. Scarlett Johansson is Zora Bennett, leader of a covert operation team hired by a pharmaceutical company to secure genetic material from dinosaurs at the original Jurassic Park Island research facility. Their expedition soon uncovers more than they bargained for, including a mutant Tyrannosaurus Rex with six limbs. “The worst of the worst,” Zora says, “were left here.”
CAST: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Ed Skrein. Directed by Gareth Edwards.
REVIEW: Early on in “Jurassic World Rebirth” we’re told the public’s intertest in dinosaurs has waned. “Nobody cares about these animals anymore,” laments paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey). Judging by the enthusiastic audience I saw this movie with, that isn’t exactly true, but the film itself doesn’t appear to be in love with its reanimated reptiles.
The mutated dinos on display—we’re told the island is where they dumped dinosaurs that were “malformed or too hard for people to look at”—are used sparingly, as they were in the classic original, but they don’t make the same impact when they do appear. The sense of wonder that once accompanied watching the Jurassic movies has evaporated. Perhaps we’re too familiar with the roaring CGI creatures or perhaps it’s the film’s presentation.
Director Gareth Edwards conjures up fierce looking foes for the cast to interact with, but much of it feels been-there-done-that. A notable exception comes with a scene featuring a pair of “married” Titanosaurus. It’s a lovely, tender moment, for both the dinosaurs and their human counterparts, that breaks the film’s theme park ride vibe.
The dinosaurs aren’t the film’s only big stars. Oscar winners Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali headline the cast but soon get lost in a story that divides in two directions, the mercenaries lead by Johansson’s Zora Bennett and a castaway family who distract from the plot’s main thrust.
The supporting cast fares even worse. They’re so underdeveloped and uninteresting they could have been delivered to the set in a large plastic shaker labelled Dino Food.
“Jurassic World Rebirth” does have several pulse racing sequences. A raft chase featuring a fierce T-Rex, adapted directly from Michael Crichton’s original “Jurassic Park” novel, is exciting stuff and a cliff climbing scene may have you moving toward the edge of your seat, but the dopamine rush wears off very quickly.
“Jurassic World Rebirth” will likely please fans of the franchise and in some ways it is a return to form after a series of lackluster sequels, but the sense of awe that made us fans in the first place is missing.
