Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies including “Patti Cake$,” the New York City drama “The Only Living Boy in New York,” the civil war shoot ’em up “Bushwick” and Penelope Cruz in “The Queen of Spain.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Erin Paul to have a look at the big weekend movies including “Patti Cake$,” the New York City drama “The Only Living Boy in New York,” the civil war shoot ’em up “Bushwick” and Penelope Cruz in “The Queen of Spain.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
Patti Cake$, a story of big dreams and hip hop glory, introduces two major new talents, writer, director Geremy Jasper and star Danielle Macdonald. Together they present a gritty, sweet and quite unforgettable movie.
The Australian born Macdonald is Patricia Dombroski, a New Jersey wannabe rapper who, depending on her mood goes by Patti Cake$ or Killer P. She’s a walking, talking attitude in plus size clothes; a woman with a way with words and a dream of bettering her circumstances through hip hop. “Just to make myself clear,” she raps, “Get me the BLEEP outta here.”
“She wants to do what she loves to do,” says Macdonald, “but she kind of gets put in a box by society, by the people around her, by her mom even.”
Bringing the film to the screen was a three-year journey. Jasper wrote the script in just nineteen days to submit it to the Sundance Writer’s Lab in January 2014. After that, says Macdonald, there were many incarnations of the story.
“Sid [Siddharth Dhananjay] who plays Jheri and Bridget [Everett] who plays my mom and me all came on board at the Sundance Labs. After that Geremy said, ‘I want to use all these people. That’s what I picture.’ I think knowing we were in those roles and had already acted them probably helped him and influenced his writing.
“He would send me a script and if I would see a part I loved I’d say, ‘I love this, you better not change it.’ He didn’t. The first time he wrote the end scene the way it is, which is a rewrite from when we did the Labs, I was obsessed with it. I cried and I had read the script so many times.”
Perhaps it’s because Patti Cake$ is, in part, based on the director’s life that Patti’s attempts to claw herself out of her Dickensian existence feel so authentic. What begins as one rapper’s run-of-the-mill journey to get out from under the weight of her dreams snakes around to become a high-energy, fist-pumping story of overcoming odds with dignity and on your own terms.
Part of the film’s appeal are the raps that seem to effortlessly flow from Patti’s lips. They’re fresh, raw and most of all sound extemporaneous. “That’s good,” laughs Macdonald when I compliment her. “They were not. It took time and a lot of practice.”
“I learned the raps with the Jersey accent,” she says. “At that point I only knew how to rap them with a Jersey accent. That helped. If I had learned them another way and then had to change, it would have been way harder. When I got the raps I had to slow them down and put in the accent and then speed it all up because they’re tongue twisters basically. The accent is a whole different placement in your mouth and then learning how to rap is a whole new thing I was trying to figure out.”
Three years after first taking on the role Macdonald is done with the character. Almost.
“We shot the music video just last week so I wouldn’t say I have necessarily shed her skin,” she says. “I think that was actually the last time I’ll be Patti.”
What about if there is a sequel?
“Except for that!” she laughs.
“Patti Cake$,” a story of big dreams and hip hop glory, introduces two major new talents, writer, director (and former front man for indie rock band The Fever) Geremy Jasper and star Danielle Macdonald. Together they present a movie that is gritty, sweet and quite unforgettable.
Macdonald is Patricia Dombroski, a New Jersey wannabe rapper who, depending on her mood goes by Patti Cake$ or Killer P. She’s a walking, talking attitude in plus size clothes, a woman with a way with words and a dream of bettering her circumstances through hip hop. “Just to make myself clear,” she raps, “Get me the BLEEP outta here.”
Her mother Barb (Bridget Everett), once an up-and-coming singer, is now a drunk who spends her days caring for the wheelchair-bound Nana (Cathy Moriarty) in their ramshackle house.
With musical partner Hareesh (Siddharth Dhananjay) and an off-the-grid punk rocker who goes by Antichrist (Mamoudou Athie) she performs as PBNJ, a band with a demo but no street cred or prospects. When a “showcase” at a strip club goes sideways Patti leaves the group, trading hopes of MTV stardom for a catering job. Music is never far away, however, and still might be the remedy for Killer P’s heartache and crushed dreams.
It’s hard to classify “Patti Cake$” as a feel good movie but underneath the story’s grit and grime is an aspirational tale that won’t leave the taste of saccharine in your mouth. It’s a raw, emotional coming-of-age story of the type we’ve seen before, with styles we’ve seen before— fantasy cutaways and impossibly grim circumstances to overcome—but director Jasper and Australian born star Macdonald keep it compelling.
Perhaps it’s because “Patti Cake$” is, in part, based on the director’s life that Patti’s attempts to claw herself out of her Dickensian existence feel so authentic. Patti is a resilient underdog, a sympathetic lead brought to vivid and appealing life by Macdonald. What begins as one rapper’s a run-of-the-mill journey to get out from under the weight of her dreams snakes around to become a high-energy, fist-pumping story of overcoming odds with dignity and on your own terms.
Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies,“The Accountant,” starring Ben Affleck as a deadly bookkeeper, “American Honey” starring Sasha Lane, “Unless” with Catherine Keener and “Christine” with Rebecca Hall!
Watch the whole thing HERE!
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
These days Sasha Lane is waiting for her next big film role but not so long ago the twenty-one-year-old American Honey star was waiting tables at a Mexican restaurant in Texas. After a talent scout told her, “You have a face for movies,” she left the eatery to embark on what she calls “the biggest blessing of my life.”
With acting on her mind she answered an ad looking for people who were “wild, physical, fearless and ready for adventure. No acting experience required.” Her natural charisma impressed British director Andrea Arnold, who cast her in the lead role of a two-hour-and-forty-minute faux cinema vérité road movie that sees her play Star, an eighteen-year-old from a troubled home. Her character’s ticket out of the dysfunction she has grown up with is a travelling band of magazine sellers led by the charismatic Jake (Shia LaBeouf) and Krystal (Riley Keough).
For two months Lane hit the highway, travelling the dusty back roads of the American Midwest shooting a movie that was part scripted, part improvisation.
“We got sides the day before and the day of,” Lane says. “The scenes between Krystal and me were more scripted. This is the word, these are the lines. Some of the scenes where I’m in the van with the kids were more like, ‘I need you to mention that. Get from point ‘a’ to point ‘b.’ Go with it. Fill it out a little bit.”
It was a process of discovery for the first time actress as she learned about her character as the shoot wove its way across country.
“I didn’t know much about my character or much about what was happening,” Lane says, “but Andrea would say to me stuff like, ‘Sasha, you’re representing all the girls who go through this.’
“I was thinking, don’t being scared. You get to do this and in a way it’s what you’ve always wanted to do. I was studying psychology and social work in college. This is an artistic way to do what I wanted to do. I was excited and very much nervous because I had never done it before and people were going to be watching it. I knew it was a movie but it didn’t really hit me until I saw the trailer.”
Life on the shoot was all encompassing—“You’re in this bubble,” she says. “I didn’t have outside thoughts.”—but not always exciting. “There was a lot of sitting in parking lots,” she laughs.
Nonetheless she threw herself at the role.
“I remember when there were times I would go to Andrea and be like, ‘I can’t [bleeping] tell what the difference is between my life in this movie and my real life.’ It was insane.”
All the work paid off—“A Star is born,” raved The Guardian—and she’s now weighing multiple offers. Rumours suggest she’ll either star in Hunting Lila, based on the popular YA books by Sarah Alderson or Shoplifters of the World, a true-life drama about the night The Smiths announced they were calling it quits.
Wherever she lands it’s certain the shoot will be much different from the singular American Honey shoot.
“I just did a short,” she told me in September, “and I was like, ‘Oh, I get to go back home?’ Nothing is like this experience.”
You might want to think about your definition of what a movie is before buying a ticket for “American Honey,” a new film from British director Andrea Arnold. If story is your thing, then perhaps look elsewhere. Arnold’s has made a rambling two-hour-and-forty-minute faux cinema vérité road movie that is all journey and no destination.
Newcomer Sasha Lane is Star, an eighteen-year-old from a troubled home. Her ticket out of the dysfunction she has grown up with is a travelling band of magazine sellers led by the charismatic Jake (Shia LaBeouf) and Krystal (Riley Keough). She joins after a short job interview—“Do you got anyone who’s going to miss you?”—jumping in the van as the team treks across the American Midwest, selling magazines door to door. “We do more than work,” says Jake. “We explore. We party.” Despite training from top seller Jake, who’ll say anything to move the magazines, she’s not the best sales person. “You don’t have to read them,” she says. “You can use them to wipe your ass.” When not selling copies of “Trout Aficionado” the team explores, parties, tries to make money while Star and Jake embark on a covert affair.
Some will find Arnold‘s free form filmmaking exhilarating; some will find it exasperating. At epic length there is an emphasis on naturalism with all that entails; the mundane and the pulse racing in equal measure. It’s not a traditional road flick, it’s part of a sub-genre of road movies, the American travelogues by British directors armed with shaky hand held cameras.
There are some sublime moments, mostly when Star and Jake inhabit the screen, but too often we’re just along for the ride, like kids banished to the backseat watching everyone else have fun while having none ourselves.
Lane is a charismatic presence and LaBeouf will forever wipe away any and all memories of his stint as a child star. The real star is Keough, a Fagin-like character, tough-as-nails with a glare that could peel the paint off the walls. She’s not just Elvis Presley’s granddaughter; she can act.
Set in a world where regular folks still open the door for rattily dressed kids selling magazines, “American Honey” is a road trip about families lost and families found, about poverty and disenfranchised youth. It’s also about three hours long, which will be too long a trip for many people.
