I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Akshay Tandon to talk about the new releases in theatres, including the adventures of Star wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” the absurd social commentary of “I Love Boosters” and the demonic road trip “Passenger.”
Watch 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 Star wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” the absurd social commentary of “I Love Boosters” and the demonic road trip “Passenger.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In the raucous “I Love Boosters,” a surreal new satire starring Keke Palmer and now playing in theatres, professional shoplifters wage revolutionary war against a cutthroat designer.
CAST: Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza González, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, Don Cheadle, Demi Moore. Written and Directed by Boots Riley.
REVIEW: A tale of class warfare filtered through a Looney Tunes filter, “I Love Boosters” is an imaginative, heightened movie whose real-life thought-provoking messages on labor exploitation, capitalism and consumerism cut through the surreal story.
Keke Palmer stars as Corvette, the leader of the Velvet Gang, alongside Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige). They’re boosters, i.e. shoplifters, who, like couture Robin Hoods, steal high end fashions to resell at deep discount from make-shift shops in their apartments.
Their main target is Christie Smith (Demi Moore), a high-flying designer whose empire has been built on culture appropriation and exploitative labor.
Their boosting takes a sci fi turn when they meet Chinese garment factory worker Jianhu (Poppy Liu) and her high-tech teleportation device.
“I Love Boosters” is an absurd movie. And I mean that in the best possible way. Writer and director Boots Riley creates a world in which Smith lives in a tall, shiny tower in the city center that is tilted at a steep 45 degrees angle. We’ve seen big buildings before, but this one feels off. It’s familiar and yet quite unlike anything you’ve seen before. Riley uses this and other strange visuals to keep the viewer off balance, as if anything could happen in this strange world.
Keeping pace with Riley’s whimsical vision are a cast who help keep the sky-high story grounded in reality. Even when the film gets outrageous, depicting 30-second lunch breaks, teleporters and a paperwork boulder that follows Corvette around, the charismatic Palmer and the cast are game, bringing a sense of play but also emotion, which prevents the whimsy from taking over completely.
Riley has a lot on his mind. Labor exploitation, materialism and class are essayed but the propulsive comic aspects of “I Love Boosters” are the spoonful of sugar that makes the movie’s messages go down.
I join the CTV NewsChannel to have a look at the documentary “Melania,” the desert island drama of “Send Help” and the déjà vu of “Shelter.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the CTV NewsChanel to talk about the desert island drama of “Send Help,” the déjà vu of “Shelter” and the awesome animation of “ARCO.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make a smoothie! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the desert island drama of “Send Help,” the déjà vu of “Shelter” and the awesome animation of “ARCO.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Shelter” Jason Statham plays Statham Character #2. That’s the “loner with a past who must protect a youthful innocent.” (As opposed to Statham Character #1 in which he plays “a loner with a past who must protect a loved one.”)
CAST: Jason Statham, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Bill Nighy, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays. Directed by Ric Roman Waugh.
REVIEW: Whenever I watch a Jason Statham film, I imagine that somewhere in Hollywood there is a small, organized office with two employees called the Déjà Vu Department, whose sole job it is to oversee the writing of Jason Statham scripts.
Statham has made a career of repeatedly making the same movie. They are not sequels— locations, character names and situations change—but in their mix of formula and form, they are remarkably similar.
In his new film “Shelter,” instead of a beekeeper with the past (à la “The Beekeeper”) he’s a lighthouse keeper with a past (see: “Homefront,” “Mechanic: Resurrection” and many others) who rescues a young innocent woman (as he did in: “Transporter 2,” “Safe” and others) by switching to one man army mode (see: “Wrath of Man,” “A Working Man,” “The Mechanic” and too many others to mention here).
So, to say “Shelter” doesn’t reinvent the wheel is like saying that Statham’s signature character is handy with his fists.
Still, despite the echoes of past movies that reverberate throughout the movie, “Shelter,” like Statham’s other films, is entertaining. It’s a by-the-Statham-book story but, for fans, his take on a character who says, “People like me don’t get to live normal lives,” is comfort food. Like meatloaf or a hot soup on a cold day, there’s something reassuring about the actor’s consistency. In a constantly changing world, where everything is disrupted, there is something appealing about knowing exactly what you’re going to get when you buy a ticket to one of his movies.
They are as cozy and reassuring as a movie with a body count in the dozens can be.
Add to that a talented teen sidekick in the form of Bodhi Rae Breathnach—even though most of her role consists of being told to, “Sit here. Don’t move.”—and Oscar nominee Bill Nighy to class up the joint, and you’re left with another entertaining, if forgettable, action film from Statham’s Déjà Vu Department.
Near the film’s climax young innocent Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) laments that with the bad guys after him Michael (Statham) won’t be able to return to the refuge of his isolated island.
“There’s always another island,” he replies. And for Statham, there’s always another film.
SYNOPSIS: “Sorry, Baby” from writer, director and star Eva Victor, is a black comedy about sexual assault and survival.
CAST: Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, Lucas Hedges, John Carroll Lynch, Louis Cancelmi, Kelly McCormack. Directed by Eva Victor.
REVIEW: An idiosyncratic comedy, “Sorry, Baby” is a simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking look at a very difficult subject.
Told on a broken timeline, the story of English professor Agnes (Eva Victor) is told in a series of chapters, beginning long after the movie’s inciting incident.
In the opening segment Lydie (Naomi Ackie), Agnes’s best friend and former roommate, comes to visit from NYC. Their deep bond is immediately apparent as they get caught up, share in-jokes and intimate details of their lives.
It’s also evident that something tragic hangs over Agnes like a dark cloud.
Later, in a segment titled “The Year with the Bad Thing” we learn about a sexual assault (NO SPOILERS HERE), and the long-lasting effects of that physical betrayal.
As Agnes’s rock and best friend, Ackie is a font of understanding, humor and ride-or-die friendship. It’s a lovely performance that reveals the character’s steeliness, vulnerabilities and concern. She always knows the right thing to say, and more importantly, in an extended scene in which Agnes recounts the assault, knows when to listen.
The star of the show, however, is Victor. “Sorry, Baby” is a remarkably assured debut as a writer and director, but it is her breakout performance as a person who uses humor and intelligence as a shield as protection from trauma, that is both devastating and captivating. Her deadpan humor and occasional silences mask a deep-rooted pain, and Victor carries the film’s emotional weight as she looks toward recovery.
“Sorry, Baby” is a layered look at trauma that allows Agnes room to heal. She was victimized, but she isn’t a victim. Instead, she’s on a complex journey of healing, with all the attendant, knotty emotions that accompany that process.
SYNOPSIS: In “Mickey 17,” a new sci fi black comedy from Oscar winning director Bong Joon-ho, and now playing in theatres, Robert Pattinson plays an “expendable worker” who takes on dangerous jobs on the outer space colony Nilfheim. “You’re an Expendable,” he’s told. “You’re here to be expended!” If he dies—which is likely—he is regenerated and sent back to work. When one of his clones, Mickey 17, is replaced before death and makes his way back to the colony, the two Mickeys must fight back or be destroyed.
CAST: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo. Directed by Bong Joon-ho.
REVIEW: An almost unclassifiable genre piece, “Mickey 17” has elements of sci-fi, comedy, drama, mystery, social commentary and suspense and more Robert Pattinsons than you can shake a stick at.
Fleeing a loan shark who threatened to hunt them down to the ends of the earth, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his best friend and business partner Timo (Steven Yeun) sign up for an outer space expedition to the human colony Nilfheim. “Nothing was working out,” Mickey says, “and I wanted to get off Earth.”
As Timo trains to be a pilot, Mickey becomes an “Expendable,” a disposable crew member, used for experiments, who when, and if, he dies, can be “reprinted” with his memories intact. “Every time you die,” he’s told, “we learn something new and humanity moves forward.”
As Mickey repeatedly dies and is reborn, all other life and death on Nilfheim is curated by Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), a vainglorious politician with sinister intentions for his new society.
When the seventeenth iteration of Mickey is presumed dead—“Even on my seventeenth go around I hate dying,” he says.—and replaced by Mickey 18, Nilfheim’s “no multiples” rule is inadvertently broken. “In the case of multiples,” Marshall says, “we exterminate every individual.”
With dueling Mickeys causing trouble for Marshall, a new threat emerges, an alien big bug life form called “creepers” that may be the key to the survival or destruction of Nilfheim.
Oscar winning director Bong Joon-ho crafts an absurd story with serious messages about identity, survival, and colonization. Based on the novel “Mickey7” by Edward Ashton, it’s a farce, and like any good farce, it aims to give you something to think about once the end credits have rolled.
Buried beneath Pattinson’s charmingly nerdy performance and the film’s sci fi antics are heavy-weight, philosophical questions regarding what makes us human and what it means to really feel alive. Is it our physical being, our memories or our ethics?
From a world building point of view “Mickey 17” ponders colonial cycles of violence and authoritarianism. It may be in the dark outer reaches of the universe, but it is a world Bong Joon-ho has essayed before in films like “Parasite,” “Snowpiercer” and “Okja.” His best works are futuristic cautionary tales that hold up a mirror to current society. No matter how fantastical the setting, the very human follies of class inequality, governmental ineptitude and broken social systems are front and center.
But Boon doesn’t overwhelm with ideology.
“Mickey 17” continues with his pet themes, and while the story gets muddled by times, the movie impresses with its originality and commitment to entertaining while firing up the synapses.
