Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make your bed. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the dark comedy “The Christophers,” the east coast crime drama “Little Lorraine” and the Montreal coming-of-age “Mile End Kicks.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I appear on “CTV News at 6” with anchor Andria Case to talk about the documentary “Lorne,” Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel in the dramedy “The Christophers” and the east coast crime dr5ama “Little Lorraine.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 37:00)
I sit with host Deb Hutton on NewsTalk 1010 to talk about Timothée Chalamet’s unexpected boost to ballet and opera ticket sales, a heated rivalry between a news outlet and the government, a $117 Picasso, Kim Kardashian on Broadway and I review the dark comedy “The Christophers.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about new movies in theatres including the dark comedy “The Christophers,” the east coast crime drama “Little Lorraine,” the documentary “Lorne” and the Montreal coming-of-age “Mile End Kicks.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 12:11)
I join “CP24 Breakfast” hosts Nick Dixon and Jennifer Hsiung to talk about the dark comedy “The Christophers” and the documentary SNL “Lorne.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Scott Hirsch to talk about the recently announced “Top Gun 3” and new releases in theatres, including the dark comedy “The Christophers,” the east coast crime drama “Little Lorraine,” the documentary “Lorne” and the Montreal coming-of-age “Mile End Kicks.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including the dark comedy “The Christophers,” the east coast crime drama “Little Lorraine” and the Montreal coming-of-age “Mile End Kicks.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “The Christophers,” a new dark comedy now playing in theatres, the greedy, estranged children of a once famous artist hire an art restorer to complete their father’s unfished paintings so they can sell them after his death. “This isn’t about the unfinished Christophers is it?” asks Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen). “I won’t paint them. I can’t paint them. Please don’t ask me. Please don’t even speak of them. My children are obsessed with them.”
CAST: Ian McKellen, Michaela Coel, Jessica Gunning, James Corden. Directed by Steven Soderbergh.
REVIEW: A finely observed story of second chances, “The Christophers” is given heart by top tier work from stars Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel.
McKellen is Julian Sklar, an ailing artist whose portraits of his ex-lover Christopher made him a sensation in the 1990s. His star faded in a swirl of cancel culture accusations, his work going the way of “the lava lamp and the leisure suit.” He lives alone in a cluttered London apartment, surrounded by memories of his heyday, visited only by health care workers and delivery people.
Even his children are forbidden from stopping by. “She’s s trainwreck; completely off the walls,” he says. “He’s a shipwreck, completely sunken.”
His hermetic existence is interrupted by Lori (Michaela Coel), a forger hired by his estranged children Barnaby and Sallie (James Corden and Jessica Gunning).
She is to pose as his assistant, find the unfinished paintings of his most famous subject, complete them and secret them out of the house for resale. “How would you know how I would have painted them when even I don’t know how I would have painted them?” he asks.
As Julian and Lori spend time together, what began as a small-scale art heist becomes a war of wills and a study of restoration of art and life. “It’s almost worth staying alive for,” Julian says.
A chamber piece, “The Christophers” is essentially a two hander. Director Steven Soderbergh opens up the action somewhat, with the occasional scene outside of Julian’s home, but the vast majority of the story happens with the two leads face-to-face.
Intimate, edgy and sweet, the back-and-forth between McKellen and Coel sparkles. In those moments the movie sings.
He’s a lion in winter, unrepentant, ravaged by time but filled with piss and vinegar. McKellan gives the verbose Julian a fierce intelligence and humor always tinged with acidity. It’s a masterful performance, theatrical yet human, funny but touched with tragedy.
Although temperamentally different, Coel’s Lori is a perfect match in this battle of wits. She’s chillier than Julian, more subdued but radiates intensity, intelligence and a sense that there is more to her relationship with Julian than is immediately obvious. It’s layered work that acts as an anchor to McKellan’s more heightened performance.
“The Christophers” would likely work well as a stage play. Dialogue-heavy and character-driven, the fireworks here come from the performances and ideas on friendship, art and legacy, more than from Soderbergh’s tasteful, subtle presentation.
The world was shocked when Chadwick Boseman passed away in 2020 at the tender age of forty-four, just two years after finding superstardom as King T’Challa in “Black Panther.” His passing left the future of the “Black Panther” franchise in flux. Would it be possible to make a “Black Panther” movie without the Black Panther?
The second film in the series, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” answers the question. The new film has all the action you expect from a blockbuster Marvel movie, but also acts as a eulogy of a sort to the late actor and his most famous character.
“Wakanda Forever” begins on a sombre note, acknowledging the passing of T’Challa. “Your brother is with the ancestors,” Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) tells daughter Shuri (Letitia Wright). After a grand funeral fit for a king, director Ryan Coogler moves the action forward by one year.
Queen Ramonda, still healing from the wound left by T’Challa’s passing, is forced to defend her kingdom from international poachers intent on stealing their most valuable resource, a rare metallic ore with energy-manipulating properties called Vibranium. “We mourn the loss of our king,” she informs the United Nations, “but don’t think for a moment that Wakanda has lost its ability to protect her resources.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. military discovers a cache of Vibranium, previously thought to only exist in Wakanda, at the bottom of the ocean. But before you can say “Wakanda Forever,” the expedition is attacked by sea people, led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta), “feathered serpent god” of an ancient race of teal-skinned underwater people who look like they could have been extras in James Cameron’s “Avatar.”
Namor’s kingdom of Talokan also has Vibranium, and now that Wakanda has made the ore’s awesome power public knowledge, his nation is under threat from people who want what they have. That puts Wakanda at odds with an enemy unlike any they’ve fought before, an army outfitted with Vibranium weapons.
With a 2-hour-and-41-minute runtime, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” takes on a lot. It’s a study in loss and grief mixed with big time Marvel action set pieces. In addition, Coogler and co-screenwriter Joe Robert Cole have woven an indictment of colonialism into both the history of Wakanda and the Mayan-influenced backstory of Talokan. It makes for rich subtext in the storytelling, even if the movie occasionally has a rough time balancing all its elements.
If those missteps can be forgiven, its simply because “Wakanda Forever” isn’t a typical Marvel film. It exists outside Marvel Cinematic Universe. That means there is no connection to the other Avengers films, and it is better for it. Instead of feeling as if it is a puzzle piece of a larger picture, it is its own thing, a movie able to walk a different path and get away from the increasingly rigid structures of the late period MCU movies. The mix of the intimate and epic is what makes this movie work, both as a tribute to Boseman and as blockbuster entertainment.
The ensemble cast is very strong, but it is Bassett who leaves a mark. As Queen and T’Challa’s mother, she is majestic and melancholy, a woman attempting to balance duty with grief. “I am Queen of the most powerful nation in the world,” she says in anguish, “and my entire family is gone. Have I not given everything?” It’s a powerful moment and a poignant exploration of the weight that comes with loss coupled with obligation.
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” has a few draggy moments, but its determination to be its own thing makes for compelling viewing.
