Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the big weekend movies, the “Smurfs: The Lost Village,” “Going in Style,” “Song to Song” and the documentary “Giants of Africa.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I think it’s time Terrence Malick and I called it quits.
I used to look forward to his infrequent visits. Sure, sometimes he was a little obtuse and over stayed his welcome, but more often than not he was alluringly enigmatic. Then he started coming around more often and, well, maybe the old saying about familiarity breeding contempt is true.
For most of his career he was a tease, a mythic J.D. Salinger type who burst on the scene in a blinding flash of brilliance, made two of the best films of the 1970s, then left us hanging. Like spurned lovers we waited for him to return for two decades and at first were happy to see him again. He told wondrous stories about personal connections and the nature of relationships.
Then he started repeating himself. In the beginning I didn’t mind but soon his whispered philosophical asides became tiresome and I began to look for reasons to avoid him.
Now I have one.
It’s been said that the essence of cinema is beautiful people saying interesting things. In his new film Malick gets it half right, parading good-looking heart throbs like Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender and Natalie Portman around in a pointless exercise called “Song to Song.”
Fassbender plays a Machiavellian a record producer who uses his wealth and power to seduce those around him, including aspiring musician Mara, rising star Gosling and waitress-turned-wife Portman. The willowy women and mumbling men run barefoot through the loose story—which often feels cobbled together from scraps of film found on the editing room floor—pondering philosophical questions in hushed tones. “How do you know when you were lying to yourself?” they whisper. “Is any experience is better than no experience?” All the while Malick’s camera, light as a feather, floats above it all capturing his puzzling whims. For the entire running time nobody looks like they’re having any fun even when they’re dancing, being goofy or laughing. They’re not having any fun and neither will you.
Airy and disjointed, it’s a collage of feelings and shards of life strung together on a fractured timeline. Malick indulges himself to the point that the film is less a movie and more like an experience, like going to “Laser Floyd.”
There are highlights. Val Kilmer singing to a festival crowd, “I got some uranium! I bought it off my mom!” before hacking off his hair with a giant Bowie knife is a memorable moment and cameos from Patti Smith and John Lydon are welcome, but at its heart “Song to Song” is a movie about people trying to connect that keeps its audience at arms length.
There’s a quick shot of a tattoo in the movie that sums up my feelings toward my relationship with Malick. Written in flowery script, the words “Empty Promises” fill the screen, reminding us of the promise of the director’s early work and amplifying the disappointment we feel today. “Song to Song” is the straw that broke the camel’s back, the Terrence Malick movie that put me off Terrence Malick movies.
I’ll be nice though and say, it’s not him, it’s me.
Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies, Matthew McConaughey in “Gold,” the Oscar nominated “The Red Turtle,” “Trespass Against Us” starring Michael Fassbender and Germany’s entry for Best Foreign Film, “Toni Erdmann.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Erin Paul to have a look at the big weekend movies, Matthew McConaughey in “Gold,” the Oscar nominated “The Red Turtle,” “Trespass Against Us” starring Michael Fassbender and Germany’s entry for Best Foreign Film, “Toni Erdmann.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
For the second time in a year Brendan Gleeson and Michael Fassbender play father and son on screen. Recently Fassbender’s daddy issues with Gleason in “Assassin’s Creed” came to an abrupt Oedipus-esque end. “Trespass Against Us” once again pits them against one another, this time with Irish accents and an anti-establishment attitude.
Gleeson is Colby Cutler, the patriarch of a band of Irish outlaws, including son Chad (Fassbender). They live on the fringes of society, sequestered away in a fleet of trailers in the country. Colby’s influence over the clan is complete. His children are home schooled, taught flat earth nonsense and the ways of thievery.
Chad and Colby butt heads as the son tries make a better life for his wife (Lyndsey Marshal) and children by putting crime and his father’s domineering influence in the rear view mirror.
Before walking the straight and narrow Chad attracts the unwanted attention of the police when he agrees to the proverbial one last job, the robbery of a well-known local judge.
Other than deep seeded daddy issues and a seemingly unattainable desire to do better Chad, as played by Fassbender, doesn’t bring much to the story except for the actor’s charisma. He, and everyone else, are archetypes, done before and done better in other family crime films.
Despite being based on a real life crew of sibling lawbreakers, there’s nothing distinctive enough, or the sympathetic enough about the lot of them to maintain interest
A couple of quirky, pulse racing the action sequences—Fassbender hides under a cow!—inject some spunk into what otherwise is a lifeless affair.
Richard sits in with Erin Paul to have a look at the special Wednesday releases, “Passengers” with Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, the videogame flick “Assassin’s Creed” with Micheal Fassbender and the animated sing-a-long “Sing.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“Assassin’s Creed” may have the highest end cast ever for a movie based on a videogame. Ripe with Oscar nominees and winners like Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson and Charlotte Rampling, it’s the poshest piffle to ever leap from the gaming consul to the big screen.
Based on the wildly popular Ubisoft videogames of the same name, the movie is a standalone that does not follow the storyline of the games.
When we first see Fassbender it’s the time of the Spanish Inquisition. He is Aguilar de Nerha, head of a stealthy brotherhood of assassins charged with making sure that rivals Knights Templar don’t get their hands on a holy relic called The Apple of Eden. “We work in the dark to service the light!” The stakes are high as the mystical device contains “the seed of man’s first disobedience.”
Jump forward to 2016. Fassbender is now Cal Lynch, a career criminal set on a bad path as a child when he saw his father murder his mother. On death row for the murder of a pimp he is to be executed. Instead he is whisked away by multinational corporate conglomerate Abstergo. “What do you want from me?” Callum asks. “Your past,” says lead scientist of the Animus project at Abstergo Foundation Sophia Rikkin (Cotillard).
Using something called the Animus Abstergo unlocks Cal’s genetic memory, essentially seeing through Aguilar de Nerha’s 15th century eyes as they look for clues as to the location of the Apple.
It’s ancestry.ca gone wild! It’s also an almost incomprehensible story about ancient rivalries and, more confusingly, “the genetic code for free will.” What, exactly does that mean? Who knows? The plot, such that it is, is essentially a load of gobbledygook that fills the gaps between the action scenes. Plot points are delivered with Fassbender’s trademarked intense glare and solemn intonations from Irons and the rest of the cast, so they must mean something, right? If you figure it out, let me know.
The action sequences are plentiful and set at a time when, apparently the world was shrouded in a brown mist. Through the murk you see some nifty 15th century style Parkour, plenty of swordplay, and, of course, the Fassbender Glare©. Director Justin Kurzel and cast take things a little too seriously—extolling ideas about the eradication of violence etc—but when they’re not talking “Assassin’s Creed” is quite silly and a bit of fun.
Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund talk about the weekend’s big releases, “The Light Between Oceans,” starring Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander and “The 9th Life of Louis Drax,” with Jamie Dornan and Sarah Gaddon!
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with Marcia MacMillan to have a look at “The Light Between Oceans,” starring Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander and “The 9th Life of Louis Drax,” with Jamie Dornan and Sarah Gaddon!
Watch the whole thing HERE!
