I appear on “CTV News at 11:30” with anchor Andria Case to talk about the weekend’s best movies and shows including Matthew McConaughey in the character study “The Rivals of Amziah King,” the Disney+ documentary “Travis Barker Louder Than Fear” and the Bigfoot movie “Sawtooth Mountain” on Tubi.
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 12:15)
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about the fantasy of “The Magic Faraway Tree,” the horrors of “Insidious: Out of the Further,” the character study of “The Rivals of Amziah King” and the drama of “Late Fame.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 18:26)
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 15:15)
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Akshay Tandon to talk about the fantasy of “The Magic Faraway Tree,” the horrors of “Insidious: Out of the Further,” the character study of “The Rivals of Amziah King” and the drama of “Late Fame.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “The Rivals of Amziah King,” a new crime thriller now playing in theatres, Matthew McConaughey stars as a beekeeper whose life is upended by the return of his estranged stepdaughter and violent business rivals. “Get ready, my little chickadee. Bees only swarm when they are ready for a fight.”
CAST: Matthew McConaughey, Angelina LookingGlass, Jake Horowitz, Scott Shepherd, Rob Morgan, Tony Revolori, Kurt Russell. Directed by Andrew Patterson.
REVIEW: Set in the backwoods of rural Oklahoma, “The Rivals of Amziah King” stars Matthew McConaughey as the title character, a beekeeper and bluegrass musician who runs the biggest honey operation in his area. “I know the weather. I know the bees. I know the point where anyone else would give up and I won’t.”
His life is changed for the better when his foster daughter Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass) reappears in his life. As the pair become reacquainted, making the most of their second chance at having a meaningful relationship, Amziah opens his heart and business to the young women.
But as their efforts to create a true family business are threatened by powerful rivals looking to undo everything Amziah and Kateri have built.
“This isn’t just theft. There’s a design and a cruelty to this. Someone loaded up everything he built and took it all away. And I’m going to find them and I’m going to take it all back.”
“The Rivals of Amziah King” feels like two films.
With no spoilers I can tell you that the first hour is a hang out movie disguised as a character study of Amziah. In McConaughey’s hands he is a bigger-than-life man, who doesn’t speak, but rather pontificates, on bees, life and whatever else strikes his fancy. He’s a William Faulkner-esque character, a distinctly southern person, poetically earthy with a deep reservoir of humanity and spirituality.
Director Andrew Patterson takes his time, allowing us to get to know Azmiah, Kateri and other members of the tight knit community through storytelling, music and lots of talk about bees. In fact, it sometimes feels like “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Bees but Were Afraid to Ask” would be a better title but there’s a sanctity to Amziah’s connection with the bees that is intriguing.
Which is why it comes as such a surprise when around the hour mark, the movie drops its tone poem tendencies in favor of shift toward crime thrills and revenge. It’s not an easy fit, and the movie loses much of its heartfelt charm as it becomes about stolen bee colonies and amateur sleuthing.
Up until that part, however, “The Rivals of Amziah King” is a wonderfully offbeat movie that creates a beautiful portrait of community that sprouted up around its central character.
Two far flung events inspired director Tobe Hooper to write The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the down-and-dirty 1974 indie film that spawned sequels, prequels and last year’s splashy 3D remake–the imaginatively titled Texas Chainsaw 3D.
In November 1957 police raided the home of Plainfield, Wisconsin farmer Ed Gein, uncovering some gruesome evidence that would lead to charges of murder and body snatching. After two trials he spent the rest of his life in a mental facility, but his story would go on to inspire three memorable movie characters–Norman Bates from Psycho, Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs and one other that would serve as the basis for six films.
Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface in Texas Chain Saw Massacre, says Hooper and co-writer Kim Henkel based the character of the hooded chainsaw killer on Gein.
“When they set out to write this movie,” he said, “they decided to have a family of killers who had some of the characteristics of Gein: the skin masks, the furniture made from bones, the possibility of cannibalism.”
Hooper adds the story was also partially inspired by “the massacres and atrocities in the Vietnam War” and a display of chainsaws in the hardware section of a crowded Montgomery Ward’s department store.
“The idea popped,” he remembered. “I said, ‘Ooh, I know how I could get out of this place fast — if I just start one of these things up and make that sound.’”
That nerve jangling noise–the revving of a chainsaw–has been the soundtrack of terror ever since. The original is an atmospheric gem, a white-knuckle movie that made Leatherface the first icon of modern horror.
The apron-wearing cannibal has appeared in five more films–most of which don’t veer too far from the original plot line of unsuspecting kids falling prey to a family of demented, cannibalistic inbreds. There’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2, directed by Tobe Hooper and starring Dennis Hopper, Leatherface: TCM III, TCM: The Next Generation (starring the then unknown Matthew McConaughey and Renée Zellweger), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, TCM: The Beginning and the new 3D version.
Leatherface’s scares don’t always happen on screen, however. At the Kingsway Theatre in Toronto the flick inspired audience participation when someone dressed in a butcher’s outfit ran down the aisle brandishing a real, revving chainsaw.
