I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Renée Rodgers to talk about the origin story “Clayface,” the stop-motion animated “Wildwood,” the documentary “Once Upon a Time in Harlem” and the adult fairy tale “Wicker.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with CKTB morning show host Steph Vivier to have a look at movies in theatres including the origin story “Clayface,” the stop-motion animated “Wildwood,” the documenary “Once Upon a Time in Harlem” and the adult fairy tale “Wicker.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to wind your watch. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the origin story “Clayface,” the stop-motion animated “Wildwood” and the documentary “Once Upon a Time in Harlem.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: Third feature in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Universe, “Clayface” is the origin story of one of Gotham City’s most notorious villains. “This is gonna be hard for you to believe. Matt Hagen can change his face.”
CAST: Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella, Eddie Marsan. Directed by James Watkins.
REVIEW: An origin story that doesn’t spare the violence and gore, “Clayface” is a bloody good time that breathes the same fetid air as body horror flicks like “The Fly” and “The Substance.”
The DC standalone action of “Clayface” centers on rising movie star Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries). From the rough-and-tumble streets of Gotham City to the big screen and an Oscar nomination, things are going great until he has an ill-advised dalliance with local crime boss Markos Szabo’s (David Dencik) girlfriend (Joana Ribeiro). In revenge Szabo takes a razor to Hagen’s face, rendering him disfigured and unrecognizable.
Scarred and with his career in tatters he looks into an experimental treatment to regain his old looks and identity offered by Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie). “Even if it kills me,” he says, “I’ll be better off than I am now.”
The miracle nanocell serum yields results, and Hagen’s movie star good looks return, but, as Dr. Corr says, “The procedure is causing troubling… physical changes.”
As the grisly side effects manifest themselves, his body shapeshifts into living clay, making him able to absorb and change into his foes.
As his life and body transform, his vain quest is overtaken by a thirst for revenge. “You want to know how I feel?” he asks. “The people I trusted betrayed me. The justice system failed me. They stole my career, my money, my life…! I’m a monster.”
Dark, violent and grimly entertaining, “Clayface” isn’t the same old from DC. It’s a body horror film that goes surprisingly hard, capped with a charismatic performance from star Tom Rhys Harries.
It’s a multifaceted role for the Welsh actor as he metamorphoses from movie star to monster. As his identity and sanity slip away, his shift from charismatic actor to desperate victim to vengeful villain is seamless. Those transformations are made tragic (despite his dreadful behavior) by Harries’s deft work.
Adding to the overall vibe are practical effects that give the movie a gooey, visceral Cronenbergian feel that make for vivid, cringe-inducing visuals.
A twisted tale touched by human tragedy and revenge, “Clayface” is not your typical origin or comic book movie, but it is a welcome addition to the DC Universe.
There is nothing modest about “Babylon,” the new three plus hour epic from “Whiplash” director Damian Chazelle, now playing in theatres. It is unapologetically epic in themes, in length and in sheer off-the-wall exuberance.
A multicharacter treatise on the movies and knowing when to leave the party, it is “Boogie Nights” by way of Fellini’s “Satyricon” with a dash of “Singin’ in the Rain” thrown in for good measure. Love it or hate it, and there are valid reasons for either response, it is audacious, chaotic, vulgar, and, like its leading lady, it always makes a scene.
The action begins in 1926 in Bel Air, then a dusty patch of dirt. Hollywood wannabe Manny Torres (Diego Calva) is an up-and-comer who’ll do almost anything to break into the film business. That includes the wrangling of full-sized elephant to be used as entertainment at a wild Hollywood party later that night. Pulled over by a cop who amusingly informs him, “You can’t drive an elephant without a permit,” the quick-thinking Manny talks his way out of a ticket and gets the job done.
Later, while working as security at the decadent bash, he meets Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), a bombshell party girl with an attitude and a taste for cocaine and attention. “You don’t become a star,” she says. “You either are one, or you ain’t.”
She isn’t famous, but she is a star. To Manny she represents everything he aspires to be and it’s love at first sight. For Nellie it’s a chance to expose herself to the Hollywood elite and sure enough, her provocative wild child style catches the eye of a producer who hires her on the spot to replace an actress who overdosed at the party.
Meanwhile, as a live band, led by trumpeter Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), blows the roof off the place, matinee idol Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) splits with his third (Or maybe his fourth. Who’s counting anymore?) wife and is drowning his sorrows in champagne and cocktails.
As the music blares, the dancers dance, the drinkers drink, the touchers touch and the snorters snort. It’s a bacchanal, the kind of party that only could have existed before the invention of the cell phone camera and TMZ.
As the sun rises, the party breaks up. Nellie drives off, on her way to the studio to make her big screen debut, and Jack takes Manny under his wing, giving him a start in that business called show.
There is more. So much more, but “Babylon” is not a film that lends itself to a Coles Notes treatment. Put it this way, one of the stars fights a rattlesnake, surely the climax of a regular film, but in “Babylon,” there’s still two more hours of story to go.
Chazelle’s maximalist vision is gloriously off the hook. He fills the screen with overstuffed detail, creating an avalanche of images and ideas. It is, by times, unfocused and sloppy, and begins to “Babylon-and-on” near the end of the 3-hour and 15-minute runtime, but the sheer exuberance of it won me over.
A story of loving something that can’t love you back, whether it is the movies, a gig, drugs or a person, Chazelle weaves a complicated tale of the highest highs and lowest lows, of glitz, glamor and grime that examines the notion of stardom and what happens when times change.
Adversely affected by shifting tastes is former matinee idol Jack, played by current matinee idol Pitt. A king of early Hollywood, he’s a Douglas Fairbanks style action star who always gets the girl in the final reel. He believes in the power of the movies—“What I do means something,” he says earnestly.—to uplift people beginning to feel the sting of the Great Depression but as the sounds of Al Jolson’s voice begins to fill theatres, Jack is the last to realize his time at the top has passed.
Pitt finds a balance between comedy and tragedy in Jack’s character. When we first meet him, he’s a hedonistic Hollywood a-lister who embraces the town’s loose morality. Often drunk, frequently ridiculous, he’s never less than charming. As the good times evaporate and the industry he loves, and helped build, moves on without him, there is real pathos in his downfall.
“You thought the town needed you,” says gossip columnist Elinor St. John (Jean Smart). “It’s bigger than you.”
Robbie has a showier, if slightly less rich, character arc. Nellie is a rough and tumble Hollywood creature with a taste for cocaine and fame. Her rise and fall may be more predictable than Jack’s career collapse, but it is just as colorful. From all night coke binges to a vomit scene that brings to mind Mr. Creosote, she’s troubled and troubling, a person whose self-destructive motivations are only truly understood by herself. Robbie plays her as a brash and bold woman enabled by Hollywood, her youth and Manny’s unrequited love.
In a breakout performance Calva’s Manny begins his journey as an ambitious show business outlier. As he becomes an insider, Manny’s character becomes the avatar of the film’s theme of transformation.
Each of these main characters, including Adepo’s trumpet playing Sidney Palmer, are in flux. They are adrift in the winds of change, flailing about, at the mercy of public opinion and an ever-changing industry. Manny’s makeover is undoubtedly the biggest step up, mostly because he is the only character not living in the moment. “Everything is about to change,” he says after seeing “The Jazz Singer,” the first sound movie, and one of “Babylon’s” harbingers of transformation.
Pitt, Robbie, Calva, Adepo and a stacked list of supporting players, including Tobey Maguire, Olivia Wilde, Flea and “SNL’s” Chloe Fineman, among others, are given lots to do, but the real star is Chazelle. “Babylon” is big and sloppy, but Chazelle shoots for the moon in a way that few other recent films have dared.
Richard makes a Bloody Mess, the perfect cocktail to enjoy while having a drink and a think about “Spiral: From the Book of Saw,” the latest chapter in the “Saw” franchise.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“And Justice for All,” the last four words of the American Pledge of Allegiance, sum up the dynamic of “Spiral: From the Book of ‘Saw,’” the ninth instalment of the “Saw” franchise, now playing in theatres.
On one hand you have a murderer dispensing their own brand of justice; inventively slaughtering people who have broken a twisted moral code known only to the killer. For instance, a detective who has lied on the stand many times, is given the choice, provide justice by tearing out his own lying tongue, or be killed. “Live or die. Make your choice.”
Then, there are the police who must use more traditional means to enforce their brand of justice.
It might not be exactly what Congress had in mind, but in the “Saw” universe there is more than one definition of the word justice.
Chris Rock is Zeke Banks, an idealistic-but-disillusioned big city detective trying to get out from under the shadow of his father Marcus (Samuel L. Jackson), a decorated, hero cop and retired police chief. When Zeke and his partner, an eager rookie named William Shenk (Max Minghella), catch an unusual, grisly case, the game is afoot.
Literally.
A new serial killer, playing from the same gamebook as the notorious villain Jigsaw, who put his victims through deadly scenarios he referred to as “games” or “tests,” is terrorizing the city’s dirty cops, looking to avenge wrongs perpetrated by the South Metro Police and “reform” the department. “A Jigsaw copycat,” says Marcus. “That could be difficult.”
As the bodies pile up Zeke suspects the killer isn’t just playing around, that he has another motive. Something personal.
After eight instalments of the “Saw” franchise, countless deadly traps and one iconic baddie, “Spiral” finds a newish way in to tell an old story. Billy the Puppet and Jigsaw are gone, as is much of the gore that splattered the screen in earlier incarnations of the series. They’ve been replaced with a timely but underdeveloped subtext regarding police corruption and the addition of humor, an element often sorely lacking from previous instalments.
Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, who helmed the second, third and fourth “Saw” movies, “Spiral” is as character based as it is consequence based. Bousman, and “Jigsaw” screenwriters Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger, have dialed back the grim stuff. There are still enough traps and gore to keep “Saw” purists happy—there’s a finger ripping machine and some nasty hot wax—but an increased emphasis on character raises the stakes so the gory stuff has more impact. It’s still a horror film, but Bousman structures it like a thriller, even if his reliance on flashbacks and exposition mutes some of the thrills.
There’s also loads of uninspired hard-boiled dialogue and lots of yelling but also just enough of the nasty stuff and deadly game playing to keep fans satisfied.
The spiral logo that gives the movie its name is supposed to be emblematic of change and progress, but the movie doesn’t quite live up to the symbol’s meaning. It shakes some of the dust off the old franchise without reinventing it or doing justice to it.
“Teen Spirit,” a new musical drama starring Elle Fanning, sets the authentic story of hopes and dreams against the artificial backdrop of a televised singing competition.
Fanning plays Violet, an Isle of Wight teen who works in a pub, goes to school and spends weekends selling produce from her family‘s farm at a local market. She can also sing like a popstar and often sneaks into town to perform at a local open mic because her strict mother (Agnieszka Grochowska) doesn’t approve. “Do you want to sing? You have the choir. What better audience than the Lord himself?” Drawn to the more secular pleasures of “I’m Just a Girl” by Gwen Stefani, she has dreams beyond singing in church.
When a dayglo ad for an “American Idol” style talent show called “Teen Spirit” (Sing Your Heart Out!) catches her eye she signs up for the cattle call audition. Making it through the first round—after singing and dancing à la Britney—she’s told she’ll need a guardian if she is to continue. Asking her mother is out of the question so she approaches Vlad (Zlatko Buric), a local man, who happens to be a former opera singer, to pose as her uncle and sign her into the competition. He agrees but says, “If you win I’ll be your manager.”
Electro-pop isn’t his gig, but he teaches her stagecraft, how to breathe and to sing from the heart. At her next try out Jules (Rebecca Hall), a Simon Cowell type in haute couture, tells her, “You have a nice voice. You have to work on everything else.” With Vlad and the help of a local bar band she tunes up for the big show but, thrown into the fast-paced world of television and music, will all the newfound attention go to her head? “You’re a caterpillar,” Jules says. “We are a cocoon. Maybe together we can make a butterfly.”
“Teen Spirit” is a “Flashdance”-style underdog story (you even hear a snippet of the famous Irene Cara song on the soundtrack) set in a familiar milieu. In his directorial debut Max Minghella keeps the rise (there is no fall) story simple—it’s like an elaborate performer bio segment on “American Idol” and the like—but the characters are not.
Violet blooms over the snappy ninety-minute running time. From shy girl to confident performer, her character has an arc on and off stage. On stage by the time she delivers a blistering version of Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” there is no doubt she has learned to sing from the heart. Just as interesting is her off stage behavior as she learns to trust her instincts and realize her dreams. Fanning is wonderful, she can sing but also gives vivid life to all of Violet’s aspirations and desires. Buric and Grochowska hand in heartfelt performances but it is Fanning who keeps this movie’s heart beating.
“Teen Spirit” is not a searing expose of the music business. It’s a specific story, set within the music business, that has universal messages for anyone who has ever dreamed a dream.
There’s accident-prone and then there’s Louis Drax. After surviving eight near-death experiences, the young boy almost meets his end on his ninth birthday when he tumbles off a cliff. What is his secret to survival? More importantly, why do terrible things keep happening to him?
Louis’s (Aiden Longworth) latest accident has left his family in tatters and him in a coma. As psychologist Dr. Allan Pascal (Jamie Dornan) delves into the strange case, piecing together the disparate aspects and weird coincidences of Louis’s life that brought him to the coma ward, the good doctor also begins a romantic relationship with the boy’s mother Natalie (Sarah Gadon). The details surrounding Louis’s case not only defy medical logic but believability as well. “I think that some people don’t want to wake up until they feel safe,” Pascal says to the comatose boy. Determined to get to the bottom of the medical mystery Pascal and a colleague, Dr. Perez (Oliver Platt), take drastic steps to get inside the boy’s head.
“The 9th Life for Louis Drax” rides the line between reality and fantasy, pitting perception against interpretation. Director Alexandre Aja ambitiously tackles a complicated narrative, switching the point of view between Louis and Pascal perspectives as he balances the story’s three-pronged attack. It’s part psychological drama, part mystery and part police procedural. Add to that a creepy sea monster that visits Louis and you have a film that feels like a novel.
Dornan makes for a good looking, if bland leading man, but Gaddon and Aaron Paul, as Louis’s father, hand in solid, interesting performances. They bring the human touch the story needs to keep the fantasy elements from overpowering the gothic narrative core. The movie flirts with the supernatural but it is more a look at how truth can be interpreted.
“The 9th Life for Louis Drax” is a handsome film that feels like Guillermo Del Toro Lite. Aja’s film isn’t quite as deep or magical as it thinks it is, but it’s a nice, mostly entertaining adaptation of a complex novel.
