In “Kate,” a new action thriller now streaming on Netflix, Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the titular character, a ruthless killer with just twenty-four hours to get to the bottom of a murder—her own.
When we first meet Kate she’s in Japan. Her handler and mentor, played by Woody Harrelson, has arranged a hit of a high-level yakuza. She takes the shot, hits her target, leaving his young daughter Ani (Miku Patricia Martineau) in tears over his body.
Later, on another gig, just as she’s about to take a shot her eyes blur. Unable to aim, she misses, takes another shot and misses again. After a wild chase she lands in the hospital where she is told she’s been poisoned and has just twenty-four hours to live.
Her quest for vengeance leads her to an unlikely ally, Ani, the daughter of one of her victims.
“Kate” is a fast-paced riff on “D.O.A..” the seventy-year-old Edmond O’Brien movie about a victim who tries to figure out who poisoned him and why. French director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan amps up the action, staging everything from wild car chases through the streets of Tokyo to up-close-and-personal fight scenes, all focused on Kate’s ability to jump, punch, shoot and generally lay waste to all comers. Winstead, who proved her action bona fides as Huntress in “Birds of Prey,” brings the kick assery in fight scenes that are fleet-footed and plentiful.
Set against the background of the ticking clock, “Kate” delivers some high velocity action, even if the premise isn’t exactly new.
As “Joker” sweeps through Awards Season, scooping up a motherlode of Best Actor gold for Joaquin Phoenix, along comes the standalone story of the Clown Prince of Crime’s former female sidekick. “Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)” sees Margot Robbie revisit her unpredictable “Suicide Squad” character in an R-rated film that is part action, part comedy and all attitude. More in tune with the antics of “Deadpool” than the serious tone of “Joker,” “Birds of Prey” is a fourth-wall-breaking story that doesn’t feel like other superhero movies.
Picking up after the events of “Suicide Squad,” Gotham City has become a cesspool of crime. Batman has flown the coop leaving the city unprotected from the likes of crime lord Black Mask (Ewan McGregor). The baseball wielding Quinn has rid herself of her former “partner in madness,” the Joker—” I am so over clowns!” she says—and now travels with a new squad of vigilantes. “As it turns out, I wasn’t the only dame in Gotham looking for emancipation,” she says. Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) come together to help Harley protect Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), a young pickpocket who had the bad luck of coming into possession of a diamond ebcoded with a valuable secret, a secret Black Mask desperately wants. “I’m back on my feet,” Harley says, “ready to embrace the fierce goddess within.”
“Birds of Prey” is a story of survivors, of feminism, of tough women out on the town and it is the most fun DC has offered up at the movies. The stripped-down story sheds “Suicide Squad’s” nihilistic nonsense in favor of empowerment and general kick assery.
It gets off to a slow start, establishing the characters and situation, but erupts in the last third with bombastic action choreographed by director Cathy Yan and “John Wick” fight maestro Chad Stahelski. Forget the CGI finales of the Marvel Universe, this is blood-soaked up-close-and-personal stunt action with a wicked sense of humour.
Robbie has a gleeful, cheeky commitment to the character that sets the tone for the movie’s 80s new wave kaleidoscopic aesthetic. With a habit of settling disputes with a baseball bat to the groin she isn’t a role model but is unpredictable, scrappy fun to watch on screen. Ditto McGregor who actually seems to be having fun wearing Black Mask’s hyped-up wardrobe after a series of movies that have left his charisma relegated to the backroom.
“Birds of Prey” is loads of fun but manages to weave some serious ideas about not needing men to survive into the chaos. Most of all, though, it feels like a welcome antidote to the monotony of so many comic book inspired films.
Richard sat down with “Gemini Man” director Ang Lee for CTV NewsChannel. The pair discuss the technological challenges in making the film, including creating a “clone” of Will Smith.
RC: What you have here in this film, and this doesn’t give anything awa,y but there is Will Smith at his current age, 50, or 51, that’s the joke in the film, fighting against his 23 year old self. You’ve created a computer generated image. So that means I guess you had to shoot everything twice,
Ang Lee: There were endless measurements to put everything together and a lot of efforts in the post. 500 artists, working for a year.
RC: There are technical challenges in this film that, it occurs to me, just made it a harder film to make. Let’s talk about the frame rate, a little bit, this sounds kind of technical but really what it is, instead of shooting at 24 frames a second, you’re shooting 60 which makes everything look really realistic. But there’s no place to hide. Right. Is it a more complicated process for you as a director?
AL: Of course, because that’s something new to us. The equipment is doesn’t quite accommodate it. It’s not as not handy. It is very clumsy in operation. To raise the frame raise is just raise it to normal for 3D. I think 3d, because your perceptions is sharper, it is more like real life. It’s less tolerable to the strobe, which we actually learn to like in the past. So this is something else is uncomfortable zone but but it is exciting because it’s a new experience.
RC: There’s not so much CG in Brokeback Mountain, but you do use CGI in your other films. Do you just see it as another tool in your toolbox as a filmmaker?
AL: Yeah, ironically, I’m a really low tech I am like really down when it comes to that. Ask the experts. I ask the smart guys to figure out for me how I can see certain things and pursue images that do things to you.
RC: I would think at some point it becomes less about the storytelling. At a certain point and then more about what we have to make sure that the eyeline is right and we have to make sure that when you’re dealing with such technology, how do you as a director as a storyteller as someone who says you’re, you’re not so technologically minded. Keep your enthusiasm up for a project like that,
AL: If it doesn’t look right get scared. You’re making a mess and people are spending a lot of money on it. Also you just want to see that image, how it plays. So naturally, is painstaking, and hopefully we’ll go through there so the audience don’t go through the same thing. They’re just enjoy the picture, and don’t think about that. The visual effects people will tell you that. Ironically, it’s the best compliment they can get is that people don’t know is they had a hard time.
“Gemini Man,” a glossy new action-thriller starring Will Smith, feels like a cinematic stew of ideas lifted from other movies. Mix and match “Looper” and “Replicant” with a dash of “Deadpool” and “Unforgiven” and you have a film with that feels like a mild case of déjà vu.
Smith plays highly trained government sniper Henry Brogan. When we first meet him he’s on mission to assassinate a bio-terrorist from a perch two kilometers away. He aims, blasts his target, who happens to be travelling on a train at over 200 KPH, through the neck, completing the job as assigned. It’s a spectacular shot but Brogan doesn’t feel great about it. “There was a girl,” he says, “a beautiful little girl next to him. If I was six inches off…” After 72 confirmed kills he feels it’s time to hang up his guns. “Deep down my soul is hurt,” he says. “I need peace.”
Trouble is, he knows too much. Retiring means he is a loose end and his Defense Intelligence Agency bosses, Clay Verris (Clive Owen) and Janet Lassiter (Linda Emond), don’t like loose ends. He must be controlled or killed. “Mutts like Henry were born to be collateral damage,” Verris sneers. First they send newbie Agent Zakarweski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to keep an eye on him. When that doesn’t work a hit-squad is dispatched. When Brogan dispatches the squad the international adventure begins.
With Zakarweski and ace pilot Baron (Benedict Wong) in tow, Brogan blows through his air mile points, travelling to Cartagena, Colombia, Budapest, Hungary and Savannah, Georgia. They’re on the run from a new breed of soldier sent by Verris, a weaponized human who makes the mission personal for Brogan.
(ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE, THERE BE UNAVOIDBALE SPOILERS AHEAD) There is no way to discuss the plot of “Gemini Man” without giving away a major plotline. It’s a not a secret but let’s just pretend you didn’t hear it from me: the weaponized human is Brogan’s clone, complete with the skill set but without most of the annoying human traits like fear and pain. Playing the clone is a de-aged Smith and while it is fun to see a cocky, spry version of him on the big screen, the young Smith often looks like a digital echo of the real thing. It’s all fun and games when the two are doing battle in any number of director Ang Lee’s frenetically staged action scenes but when their relationship becomes an emotional mano a mano the limitations of the digital imitation become obvious and distracting.
Shooting in 60 frames per second and in 3D, Lee fills the screen with hyper-realistic images that seem to pop off the screen. Shrapnel cascades into the audience and a gravity defying ninja hop scotches across the screen to great effect but, for my money, the digital imagery treatment doesn’t have the warmth of film. It feels hard-edged and stark, like old-school video tape, which works well in the action scenes—e motorcycle chase in Columbia is breathtaking—but less so in the more intimate moments.
“Gemini Man” will likely garner more attention for its startling look than for its content. An olio of clone and one-last-job movies it feels out of date, like a slick looking relic from the age of direct to DVD action movies.
Richard and Academy Award winning director Ang Lee presented a sneak peak of his new film “Gemini Man” at the Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto on Wednesday night. They talked about why Lee chose to shoot in 4K digital 3D at 120 frames per second and how Will Smith has changed as an actor in the last thrity years.
Los Angeles is a sun-dappled utopia with a Mediterranean climate, palm trees as far as the eye can see and only 35 days of precipitation annually. It’s a sprawling Garden of Eden, with pockets of paradise connected by an interweaving series of freeways. Think year-round sun tans, flip-flops and driving the convertible with the top down.
So why, when such natural beauty surrounds it, does Hollywood seem obsessed with stories about the end of the world? Could it be it’s because they live above the San Andreas Fault, an inner earth rupture that issues occasional rumblings that threaten to drop much of Southern California into the Pacific Ocean? Perhaps it’s because it’s the home of Kim, Kourtney and Khloé, an alliterative television family who seem to be a harbinger for the dissolution of society.
Whatever the reason, in movie after movie Hollywood hands us terrifying visions of what the world will look like when the Kardashians are done with it.
This weekend 10 Cloverfield Lane, which producer J.J. Abrams calls a “blood relative” but not a sequel to his 2008 monster flick Cloverfield, sees Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) trapped in an underground bunker with a sinister survivalist played by John Goodman. Outside, he says, an attack is about to leave the world uninhabitable. “Something’s coming,” he hisses.
What exactly is happening outside the bunker’s walls is unclear. Whether it’s nuclear fallout, an unexpected ice age or a zombie holocaust that brings about the end, the post apocalyptic feel of 10 Cloverfield Lane is just the latest attempt by the film biz to tap into the world’s general feeling of unease.
In 1959 bright and sunshiny Hollywood offered up a scary story that set the date for the end of the world just after World War III in 1964. In On the Beach, nuclear war has destroyed all life on the planet save for a small enclave in Australia, but even they will succumb once the radiation clouds drift by. As doomsday dramas go this one is particularly depressing — for example people gobble up “suicide pills”— but its Cold War commentary led one writer to label it “the most important film of our time.”
Not all end-of-the-world scenarios are as grim as that, however. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World’s set up sounds bleak but it’s actually amusing and inventive.
Three weeks before a giant asteroid is scheduled to collide with earth, Dodge (Steve Carell) and his flaky downstairs neighbour (Keira Knightley) head out of town, looking for meaning in a world that soon won’t exist. It’s a low-key movie that could have been a broad comedy, but instead chooses for a more modest, heartfelt approach.
Sometimes the end of the world is appealing; cute even. WALL-E, the story of a lonely, but adorable, robot who inadvertently gives humankind a second chance, is aimed at kids but doesn’t look like any other kid’s movie you’ve seen. Don’t expect the same old from Pixar. It’s ambitious and beautiful like 2001: A Space Odyssey for children.
With such a range of dystopian stories to mine it seems sunny Hollywood just might produce dark visions of our planet until the end of the world comes for real.
“Something’s coming,” hisses Howard (John Goodman) in “10 Cloverfield Lane.” But what?
When we first meet Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) she’s packing up and about to hit the road to get away from her fiancée. In her car she answers a call from her ex, and, like a PSA about distracted driving, promptly has a car accident that leaves her unconscious. When she wakes up she’s trapped in an underground bunker with sinister survivalist Howard (“He’s like a black belt in conspiracy theories.”) and sweet-natured motor mouth Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.). Outside, he says, an attack is about to leave the world uninhabitable.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asks.
“I’m going to keep you alive,” he replies.
The bunker has all the conveniences of home, just don’t flush when you don’t have to. What exactly is happening outside the bunker’s walls, however, is unclear (NO SPOILERS HERE!). Whether it’s nuclear fallout, an unexpected ice age, rabid Donald Trump supporters or a zombie holocaust that brings about the end, “10 Cloverfield Lane” is a modern day episode of “The Twilight Zone” played out on the big screen. Dynamics develop between the trio as Michelle struggles to make sense of the situation but discovers the mystery only deepens the longer they stay sequestered underground.
“10 Cloverfield Lane,” doesn’t share a city, characters or situation with the 2008 mighty monster flick “Cloverfield,” but can be considered a spiritual cousin. Nor can it rightly be considered a horror film. It’s more a psychological thriller with a twist. There are creepy moments. Director Dan Trachtenberg (J.J. Abrams produced this time around) makes good use of the soundtrack, using jarring hums and thuds as a soundtrack to the daily life in the underground. Add to that an anxiety inducing score by Bear McCreary and a small collection of well chosen pop songs, including the ironically appropriate “I Think We’re Alone Now,” and you have a movie that uses sound as effectively as dialogue and story.
The bulk of the film could be recreated on stage with virtually no changes. Screenwriters Josh Campbell, Matt Stuecken and Damien “Whiplash” Chazelle carefully control the story, doling out details in dribs and drabs, tightening the vice with every scene. Howard’s backstory is slowly revealed, but we’re never sure what’s real and what’s not. For his part Goodman gives nothing away. He is masterful, toggling between compassion and rage, riding the line of sanity in his concealed kingdom, ruling over his “family” with an iron fist.
Goodman is the star, but Winstead has the most screen time and emerges as a formidable action star who will likely get co-opted in the Marvel or DC universes before you can say J.J. Abrams three times, fast. Also strong is Gallagher Jr. who brings a goofy charm to Emmett.
“Cloverfield” and “10 Cloverfield Lane” are two very different films linked only by their name and their ability to keep audiences on the edge of their seats. Gone is the original movie’s wobbly camera work and sprawling cast, replaced by a film with just three characters and a healthy respect for classic filmmaking. Best of all the new film is fuelled by the jittery times we live in when Howard’s rantings about attacks—whatever the cause—don’t sound completely far fetched.
In “Smashed” Mary Elizabeth Winstead and “Breaking Bad’s” Aaron Paul play, Kate and Charlie, a couple on a slow, steady climb to the bottom, watching their lives stagger by through the bottom of a pint glass. He calls her “his drunk angel,” and she goes along with it, until the day she realizes she’ll never be “a wine with dinner” person.
The realization comes soon after she hits bottom following a wild night of drinking and smoking crack with a stranger. Grasping that her life and behavior have gone from from embarrassing to scary, she decides to get sober. With the help of a co-worker (Nick Offerman), a sponsor (Octavia Spencer) and a twelve step program, but none from her husband, she does just that, only to find that life outside the bottle is more challenging than she ever imagined.
“Smashed” is a clear-headed look at drunkenness. The stylized drinking of “Days of Wine and Roses” and the self-destructive “Leaving Las Vegas” boozing are absent. Instead we’re given a brutally honest depiction of people who don’t realize they have a problem until it is too late. By then their world is crumbling, and it is heartbreaking to watch two people in love separated by the pull of a vodka bottle.
The tone of the movie shifts when Kate gets sober. The devil-may-care drinking beer at noon is gone, and suddenly the constant “I’m sorry’s” from Charlie seem louder and less sincere than before. But as Kate takes the smashed pieces of her life and start putting them back together she has some tough decisions to make, and makes them despite a lack of support from Charlie and even her mother (a terrific Mary Kay Place) who responds to Kate refusing a drink with the words, “no means yes where I come from.”
Former horror movie “scream-queen” Winstead anchors the movie with a strong performance that brings both vulnerability and strength to Kate. It’s a tricky balance but she finds it, both in her battle with the bottle and her struggle to understand how to navigate her relationship.
Paul isn’t given as much to do, but proves there is more to him than the lost soul we see on “Breaking Bad” every week.
“Smashed” is a compelling and sobering portrait of a person in crisis, but it also sheds a light on how people treat alcoholism as a personal failing rather than a disease.
“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” throws a crimson stain on American history, but for a movie about vampires “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” has very little bite. You have to expect a movie about a president offing vampires to be silly, and this movie is, but you also hope it will have some scares, and those are as rare as beard trimmer in Lincoln’s travel kit.
The story of Abraham Lincoln’s bloodsucker battles begins in 1818 when his mother is killed by a vengeful vampire. His hatred of his mother’s killer grows for years, but when he finally has the chance to even the score, he is bitten by the urge to hunt vampires. Teaming up with a Van Helsing-esque warrior named Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), he uses a silver tipped axe to make sure America remains “a nation of men and not monsters.”
There are a couple of big action set pieces and bloodsuckers get killed by the dozen, but the over reliance on computer generated effects reduces the vampire battles–and that’s what we’re paying to see!– to a bloody synthetic spray of binary code, and little more.
This isn’t a history lesson, it’s a movie about killing vampires in slow motion and on that level it only works in the film’s OTT action sequences. Give me more of Honest Abe jumping from horse to horse during a stampede, and less of everything else. Although, having said that, I have to have a soft spot for a movie that wraps up (MILD SPOILER) with Mary Todd Lincoln (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) saying, “Abraham! Hurry, we’re late for the theatre!”
The vampires do have cool shark fangs, there’s an unexpected horse-drawn-carriage rescue and the head vamp is 5000 years old, but there’s no real atmosphere to go along with the flowery language and petticoats. It’s neither historical or horror. It’s not fish, but it is occasionally foul. The acting ranges from good–Benjamin Walker beards-up nicely as the elder Abe–to the bland–Anthony Mackie as Will, Abe’s forgettable friend–to the bad–Rufus Sewell as the “first vampire” Adam is not nearly megalomaniacal enough–and everyone seems to be struggling to find the right tone to tell the story.
“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” director Timur Bekmambetov knows his way around an action scene but despite the gallons of gore on display has made a bloodless vampire movie. Abe would hate it, honestly.
