Richard speaks to “CTV News at Six” anchor Andria Case about television and movies to watch this weekend including “The Terminator” on ctv.ca to celebrate Linda Hamilton’s birthday, the Netflix “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” prequel “Ratched,” the meta-biographicxal comedy “Jann” on CTV and the Evan Rachel Wood dramedy “Kajillionaire.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 36:41)
Richard and CP24 anchor Cristina Tenaglia have a look at the new movies coming to theatres, VOD and streaming services including the oddball comedy “Kajillionaire” starring Richard Jenkins and Evan Rachel Wood, the poignant Brticom “Misbehaviour” with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Keira Knightley and Jessie Buckley and the second Richard Jenkins movie of the week, “The Last Shift.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel with host Marcia MacMillan to have a look at “Kajillionaire” starring Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger, Gina Rodriguez and Evan Rachel Wood now in theatres.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres, VOD and streaming services including the oddball comedy “Kajillionaire” starring Richard Jenkins and Evan Rachel Wood, the poignant Brticom “Misbehaviour” with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Keira Knightley and Jessie Buckley and the second Richard Jenkins movie of the week, “The Last Shift.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“Kajillionaire,” a poignant comedy from director Miranda July and now playing in theatres, is an absurdist tale of survival and control.
The Dynes, Robert (Richard Jenkins), Theresa (Debra Winger) and daughter Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood), are a crime family struggling to survive. They live in a low-rent abandoned office next to a bubble factory, where pink bubbles overflow through the vents into their space. Clip artists, they eke out a living by pulling low level scams that are often more work than they’re worth. Even their daughter’s name is part of a con job. They named her after a homeless man who won the lottery in the long shot hope that he would notice and write her into his will.
When Old Dolio wins a trip to New York they concoct a luggage and travel insurance swindle that could finally put them in the bigtime… or at least allow them to pay their back rent and avoid eviction.
Like all their stings, things don’t go as planned but they do meet Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), an outgoing young woman with the makings of a good grifter. Despite Old Dolio’s misgivings about bringing an outsider into their tightly knit group, the Dynes and Melanie set about to separate easy marks from their money.
What begins as an unconventional crime story soon turns into Old Dolio’s story of self-discovery as she comes to realize that her upbringing has left her unprepared for the world outside the petty criminality that has been her life.
Jenkins, Winger and Rodriguez bring something unique to each of their characters. Jenkins and Winger exude desperation as the rumpled, bumbling small timers, while Rodriguez is all charm and warmth as their protégée but it is Wood who steals the show.
Wood transforms completely to play Old Dolio. With waist-length straw hair obscuring her face she drops her voice an octave or two and adopts the physicality of someone who learned how to walk from reading books. It’s a wonderfully nuanced comedic character but there’s more to her than awkward behaviour and a silly name. Wood keeps Old Dolio’s emotions under wraps for much of the film, but there’s an apparent inner life that becomes more and more apparent as she begins to wake up and make a connection with someone whose last name isn’t Dyne for the first time in her life.
Intentionally stilted and oddball, Wood makes Old Dolio the beating heart of “Kajillionaire,” a story that derives its emotional stability from a character whose parents were never emotional or stable with her.
Lately we’ve grown used to seeing Christopher Walken in comedic roles—almost veering into self-parody—so it is refreshing to see him not rely on tricks and produce a layered, heartfelt and emotionally rich work. In “A Late Quartet” he delivers his most poignant performance in years.
Walken is Peter Mitchell, cellist and senior member of The Fugue, a world famous string quartet. For twenty-fives years and 3000 performances he has helped to define chamber music with first violinist Daniel Lerner (Mark Ivanir), second violinist Robert Gelbart (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Juliette Gelbart (Catherine Keener) on viola. When Peter is diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and decides to hang up his cello, the Fugue friends are thrown into turmoil.
Walken’s illness and retirement are the catalyst for the film’s look at how people deal with change, but it also provides the heart. Many of the situations are melodramatic—an affair, an inappropriate romance among them—but it isn’t so much about the events themselves as it is about how change affects people.
Each of the three remaining musicians become different people once they have been cut loose from the watchful eye of their friend and mentor. The overall effect is more interesting than the mechanisms of it. The affair and the plot machinery that keeps the story going are there simply to serve great performances from a powerhouse cast.
Hoffman, Keener, Ivanir and Imogen Poots as Robert and Juliette’s college-age daughter Alexandra are uniformly strong, but the maestro here is Walken.
Subtle, nuanced and heartbreaking, his portrayal of a man confronting old age and an uncertain future is first class, a virtuoso turn.
“A Late Quartet” could have been a downer film about classical music and mortality, but instead it’s funny, melancholy and touching.
