I appear on “CTV News at 6” with anchor Andria Case to talk about the big screen adventures of “Supergirl” and the drama “Blood Lines.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 38:44)
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Matt Skube to talk about the new releases in theatres, including the adventures of “Supergirl,” the jackassery of “Jackass: Best and Last” and the drama of “Blood Lines.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join NewsTalk 1010 host Deb Hutton to talk about Owen Gleiberman’s notorious pan of “Supergirl” and the role of the film critic in the arts.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to brush your teeth. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the adventures of “Supergirl,” the jackassery of “Jackass: Best and Last” and the drama of “Blood Lines.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Supergirl,” a new DC Comics superhero film now playing in theatres, Milly Alcock plays Superman’s cousin, Kara Zor-El, a.k.a. Supergirl. “My cousin and I,” she says, “have very different ideas about what it means to be a hero.”
CAST: Milly Alcock, Matthias Schoenaerts, Eve Ridley, David Krumholtz, Emily Beecham, David Corenswet, Jason Momoa. Directed by Craig Gillespie.
REVIEW: “Supergirl” has an obvious affection for not only DC Comics, but also “Star Wars,” “John Wick” and a handful of post-apocalyptic flicks but allows those influences to get in the way of establishing a style and personality of its own.
After spending the first fourteen years of her life on Krypton, watching everyone and everything she loved be destroyed, Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) finds herself more flawed than fierce. “Krypton didn’t die in a day,” she says. “The gods are not that kind.”
After a life of loss—and a wild interplanetary bender to celebrate her twenty-third birthday—she discovers a sense of purpose when she meets Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley), a heartbroken child looking for vengeance after merciless villain Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), destroyed her home and killed her family.
Together they set off on a mission of interstellar justice that uses their pain to find strength.
Loosely based on the “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow” comic book series, the origin story is darker in tone than you might expect. What could have been a “Guardians of the Galaxy” style space romp is, instead, more of a mixed bag.
A raw and physical performance from Alcock, who channels both the character’s heroic spirit and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’s?” drunken, unpredictable Martha, lies at the film’s center. It’s highwire work with a lot of grit—have we seen a superhero vomit on screen before?—and emotional depth. Her trauma has left her scarred; cynical about her place in the world, and Alcock goes for it, embracing both the character’s hedonistic, haunted and heroic sides.
Her trauma drives the story, and, for a time, it feels unique. As the story develops, winding its way from a revenge drama to a more traditional superhero narrative, however, it becomes generic. The large-scale battle scenes are cluttered and so frenetic, it’s often impossible to follow the action. When you can, despite some good fight choreography—Supergirl is an agile, animated brawler—the fights are chaotic, but not fresh.
“Supergirl’s” real kryptonite, however, is in its desire to both defy audience expectations while, at the same time, making a big budget superhero flick. Director Craig Gillespie, working from a script by Ana Nogueira, smooths off the rough edges that make Supergirl interesting in favor of a generic, derivative approach. The result is a movie that folds a unique character into the usual collection of big battles, laughs and cool creatures. It feels familiar, which maybe doesn’t breed contempt in this case, but it does evoke a certain kind of apathy.
“Amsterdam,” a quirky new film starring John David Washington, Margot Robbie and Christian Bale and now playing in theatres, is a convoluted story fueled by everything from fascism and birding to murder and music. If there ever was an example of a film that could have benefitted from the KISS rule, Keep It Simple Silly, this is it.
The madcap tale begins in 1933 New York City. WWI vet Dr. Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale), once a Park Avenue physician, he now runs a downtown clinic where he caters to the needs of soldiers who came back from the war broken and in pain.
When Berendsen and his best friend, fellow vet and lawyer Harold Woodsman (John David Washington), are hired by Liz Meekins (Taylor Swift), the daughter of their beloved commanding officer, to ascertain the cause of his death, they are drawn into a murder mystery involving secret organizations, ultra-rich industrialists and a crusty Marine played by Robert DeNiro.
In a flashback to the final days of WWI, we learn their backstory and meet Valerie (Margot Robbie), a nurse who treats their wounds, physically and mentally. As a trio, they swear allegiance to one another during an extended bohemian get-a-way in Amsterdam, a city that becomes a metaphor for freedom and friendship.
Reviewing “Amsterdam” stings. The production is first rate, from Academy Award nominated director David O. Russell, to the a-list cast to the ambitious script that attempts to link events of the past to today’s headlines. But, and this is what stings, the film is definitely less than the sum of its parts.
From the off-kilter tone, part screwball, part deadly serious, to the glacial pacing, which makes the already long two-hour-and-fifteen-minute running time seem much longer, and the script, which casts too wide a wide net in hope of catching something compelling, “Amsterdam” flails about, lost in its own ambition. This is the kind of story, it’s easy to imagine, the Coen Brothers could make look effortless, but Russell does not stick the landing.
He does, however, forward some lovely ideas about embracing kindness and the full experience of being alive, but even those are muddied by the inclusion of heavy-handed, and not particularly original, warnings about domestic terrorism and authoritarianism. Ideas get lost in a sea of exposition and narration, that not even these interesting actors can bring to life.
There may be an interesting story somewhere within “Amsterdam,” but it is hidden, lost in the movie’s epic ambitions.
“The Old Guard,” a new superhero flick starring Charlize Theron on Netflix, has the earmarks of an action flick, but brings the genre kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century by focusing the story on not just one, but two female characters.
Theron channels the dark side that made her characters in “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Atomic Blonde” so compelling. She’s Andy, a tough-as-nails immortal mercenary with the power to heal herself, no matter how deep the wound. “She has devised more ways to kill than entire armies will ever know,” says unkillable sidekick, and former soldier for Napoleon, Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts). For centuries they have fought the good fight—depending on which side you take—along with Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli), sticking up for the maltreated and oppressed. “Through history, we’ve protected this world,” says Andy, “fighting in the shadows.”
In modern day they come across Nile (KiKi Layne), a Marine who shares their “extremely rare skillset.” “She stabbed me,” Andy says admiringly, “I think she has potential.”
Nile is the first of their kind they have come across since 1812 and soon they recruit her to join their ranks. “You haven’t figured this out yet?” Andy asks her. “You can’t die.” At the same time a mad-scientist big pharma type (Harry Melling) sets his sights on them as lab rats in his experiments to find a cure for death. “If we can unlock their genetic code, the entire world will be begging us for the key.”
“The Old Guard” is an action film, with carefully staged and exciting fight scenes, but first and foremost it’s a set-up for a franchise. Like an action-packed trailer for a movie it teases the possibility of the next film. The origin story is talky, illustrated by flashbacks, while the main plot is resolved quickly in a hail of bullets and a few swings of an axe. Then the set up begins, as they hint at further adventures. Trouble is, I’m not sure “The Old Guard’s” appeal is as immortal as its characters.
Theron and Layne are strong characters who deliver in the fist-to-the-face action department, but the movie doesn’t let them shine. As mentioned, the fight scenes are well staged but their relationship is never fully developed. Everyone, except for Melling who appears amped up on something he didn’t share with the rest of the cast, is on a slow simmer which gives the movie a laid-back vibe which doesn’t spark interest.
“The Old Guard” does a good thing by placing two women at the center of an action movie but the all-set-up all-the-time script doesn’t do the characters or the movie any favors.
Based on “Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite” by Jake Bernstein “The Laundromat” chronicles the rot that festers on the corrupt body of our financial institutions.
Divided into chapters with names like “Secret Number One: The Meek Are Screwed,” “The Laundromat” is a funny, star-studded portmanteau of thematically linked stories involving tax loopholes, exploitation and financial malfeasance. “All these stories are about money,” says Ramón Fonseca (Antonio Banderas), “the secret lives of money.” Like “The Big Short” it takes the spoonful-of-sugar-to-help-the-medicine-go-down approach to telling a story so dripping with bile you have to laugh to stop from crying.
Meryl Streep is at the helm of this cinematic op-ed playing Ellen Martin, a steely woman whose husband’s death leads her by the nose into the world of fake insurance policies and a shady Panama City law firm run by slicksters Jürgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Fonseca. The flamboyant represent “drug lords, sex traffickers and destroyers of the planet” and also colorfully narrate the action. “Tax avoidance and tax evasion,” says Mossack. “The line between them is as thin as a jailhouse wall.” They’re more interested in the shell companies they control that help line the pockets of their very wealthy clients than the regular Joes affected by their actions. “Bad is such a big word for such a small word.”
As the story splinters into chapters, cameos from Jeffrey Wright (as a secretive insurance broker), Nonso Anozie (as a billionaire who tries to buy his way out of trouble) and David Schwimmer (as a business person screwed by his insurance company) pile up, revealing personal aspects of the dirty business of money laundering. The story wanders here and there but Streep stays on course, lending this ragged movie a strong emotional core.
“The Laundromat” features lively performances—I’m looking at you Oldman and Banderas—timely commentary about whistleblowers and fraud and a rousing fourth-wall-breaking ending and yet, feels like less than the sum of its parts. Director Steven Soderbergh provides some well-crafted big moments but the stories are too far flung and too brief to inspire any real interest in the characters. They come and go with little development (save for Martin), often representing ideas rather than fully formed characters.
Streep plays a double role, an ill-advised choice that feels like a stunt and doesn’t lend much to the telling of the tale, but wraps things up with a wake-up call, asking basic questions—Who is accountable? Where and how do you get justice?—that put a period on this story but should be a starting point for more discussion and thought.
Jennifer Lawrence says she’s taking the next year off from acting.
Instead of prancing in front of a camera she’ll join forces with Represent.Us to help get “young people engaged politically on a local level.” This weekend, before she leaves Hollywood in the rearview mirror, she gifts us with a movie Variety critic Owen Gleiberman says “shows you what true screen stardom is all about.”
In the spy thriller Red Sparrow she delivers one last blast of unadulterated star power in the form of former Russian prima ballerina Dominika Egorova. Based on a novel by former Central Intelligence Agency operative Jason Matthews, it tells Egorova’s story after an injury forces her to leave the stage.
Sent to the Sparrow School, a facility where intelligence agents are trained to seduce and manipulate, she becomes the institute’s best and deadliest student ever. “Your body belongs to the state,” says Charlotte Rampling as the school’s sadistic headmistress.
The new film is garnering raves for the star, but she’s used to that. Critics have lobbed praise at her since her breakout performance in Winter’s Bone, a bleak 2010 Ozark Mountains drama about a young woman who tries to keep her family from falling apart. Peter Travers, writing in Rolling Stone, enthused, “Her performance is more than acting, it’s a gathering storm.”
Winter’s Bone made her a critical darling but it was the Hunger Games movies that made her a superstar.
Based on the bestselling novels by Suzanne Collins, the Hunger Games films could have been run-of-the-mill young adult movies a la Divergent or The Maze Runner. The thing that elevates them is Lawrence’s character work.
Set in Panem, a dystopian world ruled by a fascistic leader played by Donald Sutherland, the movies chronicle a state-sanctioned battle to the death between 24 players, two from each of the country’s districts.
These televised games are equal parts Miss Universe, American Idol and Death Race. The story also follows two “tributes” from District 12: Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), two reluctant warriors whose survival is at stake.
Jennifer Lawrence imbues Katniss Everdeen with a rich inner life in The Hunger Games films, writes Richard Crouse.
As fans of the books know, the focus of the story is the characters. They may be thrown into a wild situation. But knowing and caring about Katniss and Peeta is as important to this story’s success as the action scenes or dystopian premise.
Lawrence imbues Katniss with a rich inner life. You can see the machinations of this character churning behind her eyes. That depth played a big part in the series’ success. She took a role that could have been buried under layers of teen ennui or simple steely-eyed determination and gave Katniss real depth.
She starred as Katniss in four blockbuster Hunger Games outings, but took time to make smaller, riskier films that paid off with critical raves and an Oscar for best performance by an actress in a leading role for Silver Linings Playbook.
Now she’s taking a break from the big screen and from her now-legendary talk show appearances. Time calls her a “late night MVP” for her outspoken and often outrageous spots with the Jimmys — Kimmel, Fallon — but perhaps there was more than a kernel of truth in her recent sit-down with Stephen Colbert. Asked why she was taking a year off she replied, “Because I’m miserable.” She laughed off the remark but given the level of intensity of her performances perhaps it’s time for her to sit back and recharge her batteries. Her fans will be there in a year when she’s ready to come back.
