Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies, the Tatiana Maslany drama “The Other Half,” the rom com “Lovesick” and “Antibirth” starring “Orange is the New Black’s” Natasha Lyonne.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the weekend’s new movies, the Tatiana Maslany drama “The Other Half,” the rom com “Lovesick” and “Antibirth” starring “Orange is the New Black’s” Natasha Lyonne.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“Antibirth” appears to have been made with the midnight movie crowd in mind. Surreal, gross and often quite funny, it stars “Orange is the New Black’s” Natasha Lyonne and asks the question, “Who-or what-is growing inside her?”
Lyonne stars as Lou, a hard core stoner who begins the story by blacking out at a rave after partying all night with her blotto best friend Sadie (Chloë Sevigny). Soon she discovers she is pregnant and her memory, skewed by her near constant drug use, offers few clues as to the identity of the father. ” “I’m not pregnant … I’m infected,” she slurs. “Whatever is inside of me is infecting my brain, my body; it’s not just in my crotch.” Her own lifestyle choices, paranoia, surreal visions and a rapidly growing belly hamper her search for answers. Only Lorna (Meg Tilly), a mysterious but helpful stranger, may be able to offer help.
“Antibirth” is pure schlock delirium probably best enjoyed after a night out with Lou. Imagine a splatterpunk “Rosemary’s Baby” or as particularly gross episode of “X-Files” and you get what I mean. It’s an altered state kind of flick that owes a debt to “The Toxic Avenger” and any other movie that values oozing pus and spraying blood as much as it does plot.
Lyonne is the spunky center, brash but compelling. She pulls off lines like, “Let me tell you what I need: candy, money, and whip-its,” and manages, against all odds to make add some humanity to Lou and her situation.
Tilly, who is practically unrecognizable here, keeps things lively while Sevigny doesn’t do much but swing and sway to whatever is playing on the soundtrack.
The real star here is the film’s wild, untamed spirit. It’s not all good—the movie drags in the middle, much of the stoner dialogue is snooze inducing—but “Antibirth” builds up to a body horror climax that, for better and for worse, once seen will not soon be forgotten.
“Canada AM” film critic Richard Crouse reviews “John Wick,” “Whiplash” and “Birdman.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Teen angst has been good to the movies. “Blackboard Jungle” and “Rebel Without a Cause” defined that common collision of hormones and school stress for the 19560s and every decade since has offered up its own example of misunderstood, troubled youth. Heck, Kristen Stewart has made a career of playing dead-eyed teens.
“Laggies” fits the mold of a teen angst film, except the main character Megan (Keira Knightley) is a clever twenty-something who never completely grew out of her angst. “I had a good feeling about you,” says one her friends. “That makes one of us,” she replies.
In the film’s opening minutes we meet Megan and her friends on prom night. They sneak cocktails, dance and go skinny-dipping. Cut to today, the four girls (Ellie Kemper) are still in touch, some married to their high school sweethearts, some, like Megan, living with her prom date Anthony (Mark Webber).
Megan is surrounded by a strong support system; adoring parents, a devoted boyfriend and friends who love her enough to ask her to be their child’s godmother.
Still, she is unsettled. That feeling intensifies when Anthony tries to propose on the night of her best friend’s wedding. A chance encounter with a group of teens, including Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her sarcastic friend Misty (Kaitlyn Dever), forces Megan to reexamine her life and relationship.
Megan says she became a psychologist because she wanted to have real conversations with people and Knightly, in a lissome performance, brings forthrightness to the character… even when she is lying. It’s something different from Knightley. She’s more off hand here than we’re used to, and even though she looks like a fashion model even when she is dressed down in her teen friend’s clothes, she still radiates the teen ennui that defines her character. We see her working through it, trying to figure out what she wants, but for now she is an unemployed woman with a degree who still flops herself on parents’ couch demanding pizza night.
Moretz and Dever also impress. In some ways Annika is more grown up, yet more confused than Megan. They mentor one another, and Moretz brings real vulnerability to the role. Less vulnerable but way sassier is Dever’s Kaitlyn who embodies the eye rolling best friend in every teen movie.
The role of the grumpy father, and this case also love interest, is ably taken by Sam Rockwell. He’s stern but funny—he says Annika and Kaitlyn are “like gerbils; they have no sense of time.”—but never feels like a caricature. None of the characters do. The story may have some questionable moments but the characters don’t.
“Laggies” director Lynn Shelton has a deft touch with characters—as witnessed in her other films “Humpday” and “Your Sister’s Sister”—but has relied a bit too heavily on rom-com conventions. It’s a satisfying movie, it’s too bad it settles for a standard ending.
