Posts Tagged ‘Maria Bello’

LIGHTS OUT: 2 STARS. “jump scares and a few low-fi but high wattage shocks.”

Screen Shot 2016-07-19 at 2.46.29 PMAs a general rule it’s not the dark we’re afraid of, it’s the goblins and ghosts that may be lurking on the dark that terrify us. A new film from producer and horror meister James Wan takes advantage of our fears, unveiling the creepy crawlies that may or may not be shrouded in darkness.

Based on Swedish director David F. Sandberg’s acclaimed short film of the same name, the movie stars Teresa Palmer as Rebecca, a young woman who left home at a young age, disturbed by visions and her mother Sophie’s (Maria Bello) behaviour. Years later Rebecca returns home after a phone call from her half-brother Martin’s (Gabriel Bateman) school. Seems he’s been having a hard time staying awake in class and Rebecca fears the same spirit that plagued the family for years is tormenting him. “Every time I turn off the lights,” he says, “there’s this woman waiting in the shadows.”

The bloodthirsty supernatural form is Sophie’s childhood friend (Alicia Vela-Bailey) who had a skin condition that made her allergic to the light. “A long time ago I had a friend named Diana,” says Sophie, “and something really bad happened to her.” Sophie sees her as “a good friend” but Rebecca fears she is actually a malevolent spirit only visible in the dark. When the lights come on, she disappears. “Everyone is afraid of the dark,” says Rebecca, “and that’s what she feeds on.”

With her sanity and safety at risk, Rebecca must discover, once and for all, why Diana does bad things when the lights go out. “Each one of us is being haunted by this thing,” says Rebecca.

The light averse wraith is a cool, fresh idea for a movie bugaboo. The story, however, feels stretched to fill the 8eighty-one-minute running time. There are some good jump scares early on and a few low-fi but high wattage shocks in the final twenty minutes—Beware the flickering light!—but the lead up feels padded.

As it is “Lights Out” is a nicely performed ray of genre with a few story problems that will leave some audience members in the dark.

RICHARD’S “CANADA AM” REVIEWS FOR FEBRUARY 13 WITH DAN RISKIN.

Screen Shot 2015-02-22 at 8.10.49 PMRichard’s “Canada AM” reviews for “Hot Tub Time Machine 2,” “McFarland” and “The Duff.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

MCFARLAND: 2 ½ STARS. “like an afterschool special with a bigger budget.”

10974179_10155205029235293_1879795823477133060_o“McFarland” is based on the life of Jim White, a hothead football coach who worked his way down from good paying jobs at big schools to taking an assistant coach position in McFarland, California, one of the poorest towns in America.

When we first see White (Kevin Costner) he’s hurling a cleated shoe at the lippy captain of his football team. He opens the kid’s cheek and loses his job. It’s a recurring pattern for the temperamental teacher, and the thing that lands him in McFarland. He and his family are fish-out-of-water in this mainly Latino town where jobs as “pickers” in the local fruit and vegetable fields are valued over athletic or academic achievement.

White soon notices that several of his students have a remarkable ability; they can run like the wind and strengthened by years of picking, have great physical strength and endurance. He puts together the school’s first ever cross-country track team and after a rocky start—placing last in their first meet—and not so hidden racism from other teams—“Bet they can’t run without a cop behind them and a Taco Bell in front of them.”—White teaches the seven runners how to be champions while they teach him a thing or two about dedication, loyalty and family.

There’s nothing in “McFarland” we haven’t seen in a hundred other sports movies. The underdog-pulling-themselves-up-by-the-bootstraps may be a potent source of drama but it is a familiar one, so it’s hard to get too excited about “McFarland’s” story arc, even if it is tarted up with American Dream messaging about the virtues of heart and hard work. It’s not just a sports movie, it’s an ode to what it is to be American—family + heart = success! They even sing the “Star Spangled Banner” at one point.

“McFarland” is a standard issue inspiration coach movie. White—or “Blanco” as his students call him, inspires the runners but, in a twist, they inspire him to let go of his preconceptions about success and family. On one hand the lack of cynicism is refreshing but it feels a bit old fashioned, like an afterschool special with a bigger budget.

Chatting with the real-life inspiration behind Kevin Costner’s McFarland

B9FbMTvIUAIGQ4JBy Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus

Jim and Cheryl White have seen the movie McFarland three times and teared up every at every viewing, even though, he says, “we knew what was going to happen.”

The film, which stars Kevin Costner as the most successful Californian high school cross-country coach in history, is the story of White, his wife and their life and work in McFarland, California, an impoverished town transformed by sports.

The Texas native taught in McFarland for forty years, establishing a cross-country running team that would win nine state championships and give the runners a glimpse of life outside their small town and nearby fields where many of them worked as migrant “pickers.”

His success may have earned him a Hollywood biopic and a more permanent tribute in the form of a dedicated gazebo in the town square but he sees his influence in more metaphysical terms.

“To me my legacy is in the hearts and minds of these boys I’ve taught.”

In person White is a humble man who quietly commands respect. At a post screening Q&A I hosted with him in Toronto he earned a standing ovation before even saying a word. As the audience clapped he was genuinely moved, and with a quivering voice whispered to me to, “take over for a second.”

Earlier in the day we discussed seeing his life played out on the big screen. “We just hoped they could portray our true feelings of love for the town; for the community. That came across real well. We also felt like they portrayed the true hardships these boys went through.”

Hollywood did make some changes to White’s story and one scene in particular irked him. When we first see White in the film he’s hurling a cleated shoe at the lippy captain of his Idaho school football team, opening the kid’s cheek.

 

Screen Shot 2015-02-04 at 10.28.10 PM“That is dramatic licence,” he says. “It bothered me for a while but I talked to Kevin Costner about it. I said, ‘Kevin, can you give me your true feelings about the situation that happened in Idaho?’ He said, ‘I think, Jim, you’re going to come across as the hero and not the villain because you’re standing up for what’s right.’ I said, ‘All right and I was satisfied with that.’”

White often uses the phrase “well, that’s Hollywood for you,” when describing the making of the film and the liberties taken with his life’s story but now that the movie is finished he says, “What was really fascinating to both us was watching the screen and seeing them say, ‘Mr. White would you come in here…’ Jim White this, and Cheryl White that. We’re sitting there looking at ourselves up there. It was kind of funny.”

PRISONERS: 3 ½ STARS

maxresdefault“Death Wish,” the Charles Bronson revenge drama, painted its main character as a vigilante hero, someone who evened the score when the police couldn’t.

“Prisoners,” a new child abduction drama starring Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal and Terrence Howard, isn’t as cut and dried. It asks the question, How far would you go to get the information you need to protect your family?

The story is fairly simple. Best friends Keller and Grace Dover (Jackman and Maria Bello), Franklin and Nancy Birch (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis) and their kids spend Thanksgiving together. After dinner the youngest members of the family, Anna Dover (Erin Gerasimovich) and Joy Birch (Kyla Drew Simmons) go for a walk and never return.

Panicked, the family search the neighborhood and when they come up empty the police are called with a description of the girls and a suspicious RV that was seen in the area. The camper is racked down and Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal) arrests a suspect, Alex Jones (Paul Dano).

Keller is convinced the police have the right man and when Alex is released, he takes matters into his own hands. Kidnapping Jones, he tries to beat a confession out of him. When that doesn’t work his methods escalate.

There is a serial killer subplot woven into “Prisoners,” but it detracts from the core element that makes the movie interesting. Jackman brings the full weight of Keller’s anguish to the screen, and his performance carries with it the moral dilemma of the movie. The serial killer element feels tacked on, as though screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski felt he needed to up the tension with a “Criminal Minds” style plot twist.

It’s too bad, because the last hour—the movie clocks in at 150 minutes—feels unnecessary. The procedural elements is interesting until the red herrings start and the movie moves away from the ethical question that propelled the first half.

“Prisoners” is compelling stuff. At its heart it is a family drama with a twist. But as is, it almost feels like two movies.

GROWN UPS 2: 2 STARS

GrownUps2_Cast2The old saying, “They got bigger, but they didn’t grow up,” perfectly applies to this new Sandler and Company movie. It’s ninety minutes of middle-aged men, urination gags (too many to count) and cleavage shots. So while the actors may have matured (chronologically at least) the jokes haven’t.

Question is, Is it funny?

I didn’t really think so, although I have to say Shaquille O’Neal’s big-guy-Andre-the-Giant schick made me laugh.

“Grown Ups 2” picks up where the last movie left off. Lenny (Adam Sandler in his first ever sequel) has relocated his wife (Salma Hayek) and kids back to his hometown to be closer to friends and family. It’s the last day of school, and as the kids are packing up their books, their fathers (Kevin James, Chris Rock and David Spade) grapple with growing up, growing old and a gang of frat boys (lead by “Twilight’s” Taylor Lautner) who think the four old friends are WAY over the hill.

The movie comes equipped with an all-star comedy cast. In addition to the above-the-title actors there’s cameos by everyone from Colin Quinn, Tim Meadows, Georgia Engel and Steve Buscemi to name a few. In fact there may be more recognizable faces here than true laughs.

That’s not to say there are no laughs at all. James’ deadpan dumb kid who can’t add or spell is a funny running gag, Hayek does a pretty good Sofía Vergara imitation and O’Neal’s oversized antics are fun but for a movie about growing up it is all so juvenile. I didn’t expect a searing meditation on aging but I did think they might touch on the fact that they were growing old with more smarts than lines like, “I used to buy ten cases of beer for my parties, now I get ten cases of juice boxes.”

There’s nothing wrong with a good silly movie and “Grown Ups 2” had the chance to be just that, but I just wish it was silly AND about something other than a moose urinating on Sandler’s unsuspecting family, and by extension, the audience.

THE MUMMY: THE TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR: ZERO STARS!!!

mummy-3-tomb-of-the-dragon-emperor-poster-11We’ve been lucky this year. The summer season has provided a bumper crop of blockbusters from Iron Man in May to July’s mega chartbuster The Dark Knight which shattered every attendance record known to man. The good times had to stop sometime, though, and with the release of The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor they come to a screeching halt. Seven years after the last installment of the Brendan Fraser franchise The Dragon Emperor proves that bigger and louder is not necessarily better when it comes to summer entertainment.

In the new Mummy movie treasure hunter Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) and family—wife Evelyn (Maria Bello taking Rachel Weisz’s place), their son Alex (Luke Ford who is actually only 13 years younger than Fraser and 14 years younger than Bello) and hapless brother-in-law Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah)—are in Asia and once again run afoul of ancient supernatural forces when Alex awakens a wicked 2000 year-old Emperor Mummy (Jet Li). The evil one’s plan is double-pronged; he wants to use his army of undead warriors to conquer the world while getting revenge on the sorceress who cursed him two millennia ago.

Very loosely inspired by the 1932 Universal Boris Karloff classic the first two Mummy films were actually comedies disguised as horror. In the place of real scares were family-friendly thrills more in line with vintage Saturday-matinee horror-adventure classics than anything that’ll really send shivers down your spine. The third installment follows suit, except the jokes aren’t funny, the thrills are non-existent and worst of all, there’s no actual mummies. I guess that saved on the movie’s tissue budget but a movie titled The Mummy should have at least one character wrapped head to toe in toilet paper.

As big a waste of money and effort as we have seen on the big screen for some time, The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor fails on almost every level. Usually Brendan Fraser can muster some goofy charm as he walks through these low-rent Indiana Jones rip offs, but here he’s so disengaged you can almost see him reaching for the pay check while spouting bad one liners and battling blue-screen baddies. Maria Bello does a bad Rachel Weisz impression featuring the worst faux English accent since Kevin Costner created his own unique dialect in The Adventures of Robin Hood. Top billed star Jet Li has very little screen time and the rest of the cast are so bland they barely rate a mention.

In a summer where computer generated images on screen have become passé—both The Dark Knight and Hellboy favor practical effects to baffle the eye over CGI wizardry—The Dragon Emperor relies too heavily on fake looking binary code fabrications. The “wow factor” of CGI dried up long ago and the movie’s cheesy looking, but helpful Yetis and other computer created creations leave the film feeling old-fashioned and out-of-date.

Just like the evil mummies who cause so much trouble in this franchise The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor proves that some things should never be resurrected. 

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE: 3 ½ STARS

private_lives_of_pippa_lee_ver2The old maxim, “never judge a book by its cover” could have been coined to describe Pippa Lee. When we first meet her at age fifty she’s the very picture of composure, a well put together spouse to her much older husband. Of course, the journey to becoming Pippa Lee, trophy wife, is far more interesting than the well manicured facade she presents to friends, family, and even, most of the time, to herself. “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee,” the new film starring Robin Wright Penn in the title role, takes the viewer on the wild ride that is (and was) Pippa’s life.

We first get to know the middle aged Pippa, devoted wife of Herb Lee (Alan Arkin). He’s thirty years her senior and in a move to make a “pre-emptive strike against decrepitude,” he and Pippa leave New York for a retirement home. There her life begins to fall apart, and in a series of flashbacks we learn about her mother—a hopped up Maria Bello—her drug tinged wild young life—as portrayed by Blake Lively—and even a kinky photo session with her aunt’s lover. As her life unwinds, she finds security in the most unlikely of places—with the troubled son of a neighbor (Keanu Reeves).

Based on a novel written by director Rebecca Miller, “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” is a rambling look at a woman in the midst of “a very quiet nervous breakdown.” The quirky flashback structure shouldn’t work, but Miller teases us, keeping the story fresh by bit by bit doling out tantalizing moments from Pippa’s life. There are ups and downs, and the reckless Pippa often seems to zig when she should zag, but in the end the story is life affirming, but in a grown up way.

Despite the presence of teen dream queen Blake Lively, this isn’t a drama for kids. It’s a study of living life north of forty populated with believable, interesting characters.

Front and center is Robin Wright Penn in the lead role. She’s never made much of an impression on me, despite her great beauty, but here she glows, as if this is the role she has waited all these years to do. As the elder Pippa (Lively plays her as a young woman) Penn hits all the right notes, creating a fully formed person out of a collection of flashbacks and biographical notes.

She is supported by an engaging and able cast including Alan Arkin as her wrinkled husband, Winona Ryder as her teary-eyed friend and (ultimately) betrayer Sandra, Maria Bello as her pill popping Stepford Mom and Keanu Reeves as a love interest with a twist.

“The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” mixes and matches mid-life drama and humor, delivering some surprises and real emotional moments to create an interesting portrait of an interesting person.