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.
SYNOPSIS: In “Blink Twice,” a psychological drama directed by Zoë Kravitz, and now playing in theatres, disgraced tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) invites cater waiter Frida (Naomi Ackie) to join him and his friends for an idyllic get-a-way on his private island. “Are you having a good time?” he repeatedly asks her as champagne flows, and she is… until, in the blink of an eye, she has a startling revelation.
CAST: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment, Kyle MacLachlan, Geena Davis, Alia Shawkat. Directed by Zoë Kravitz.
REVIEW: A dark psychological thriller with elements of rage, humour and danger, “Blink Twice” is a confident, if scattered, directorial debut from Zoë Kravitz. A violent riff on “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s” memory erasing, it asks the question, Is it best to live with only good memories, burying the bad so deeply they never resurface?
A fantasy island trip gone wrong, “Blink Twice” takes a while to get where it is going, to let the Twilight Zone-ness of the situation sink in. It’s decadent and drug fueled, set to a soundtrack of dance tunes and King’s constant query, “Are you having fun?” Nothing matters except hedonism, and soon (NO SPOILERS HERE), but not soon enough, we find out why.
At this point “Blink Twice” flicks the switch. What begans as Jordan Peele style exploration of the ultra-wealthy, of the lingering, intergenerational effects of trauma and violence against women, becomes a revenge drama tinged with horror. After a long lead up, however, the transition feels rushed as the true cruelty of the party island, and the men who run it, is revealed.
Kravitz and co-writer E.T. Feigenbaum have a lot on their minds, but more isn’t always better. From the apology tours of cancelled celebrities and sexual violence against women to the price of trauma, white patriarchal privilege and gender disparity, it touches down on a litany of hot button topics. Add to that a private island with a Jeffrey Epstein vibe and a misbehaving billionaire and you have an overload of Twitter/X trending topics. With so much happening, “Blink Twice” feels like it is hop-scotching around its themes and doesn’t add much new to the discourse of any of them.
Still, as tightly packed as the movie is—no shrinkflation here—Kravitz keeps the pace up, nimbly navigating her way through to the film’s finale with style to burn. The direction trumps the storytelling, as Kravitz knows how to stage effective scenes that will entertain the eye and, perhaps even move you toward the edge of your seat.
She is aided by strong performances from the three leads, Ackie, Tatum and “Hit Man’s” Adria Arjona. Tatum is all charm as the romantic lead (for a while anyway) before revealing his true nature in a terrific turn-around for the character.
Ackie and Arjona enjoy the best-written roles and make the most of them. As Frida, Ackie (last seen playing the title role in “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody”) is relatable as someone who finds themself in an unimaginable situation, before tapping into a newfound iron will.
Arjona takes a role that could have been one-note—a reality show warrior with her eye on the billionaire’s affections—and makes her multi-faceted, kick-ass and very funny.
“Blink Twice” doesn’t entirely work, but as a story about the nature of memory, it is memorable enough to earn a recommendation.
On an encore presentation of “Pop Life” on June 13, 2020 we welcome the droid you’ve been looking for, Anthony Daniels. As C-3PO he is the only actor to have appeared in all of the episodic films in the series, as well as many of its spin-offs, including television shows, video games and radio serials. On this twelfth episode of season five of “Pop Life,” he talks about his first stage appearances, the uncomfortable nature of the gold suit that made him famous and how he once felt like a “secret outcast” from the rest of the cast. Then the “Pop Life” panel, Marvel, DC, Lucasfilm and Hasbro artist Ken Lashley, CTV NewsChannel anchor and “Star Wars” super-fan Todd Van Der Heyden and Roger Christian, the Academy Award winning Set Decorator and Production Designer for “Star Wars”–he created the lightsaber and R2D2 and decided to put dice in the film as a nod to Han Solo gambling–discuss why “Star Wars” is still important forty two years after its initial release.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s exciting talk show POP LIFE.
Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock legends Sting and Meat Loaf, musicians Josh Groban and Sarah Brightman, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, superstar jazz musician Diana Krall, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actors Danny DeVito and Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Nigella Lawson, and many more.
It has taken forty-two years but the story of the Resistance, begun in “Star Wars: A New Hope” comes to a conclusion in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” With an amped-up story, featuring flying Stormtroopers and much talk of destiny, confronting fear and inner turmoil, the ancient conflict between the Jedi and the Sith promises to deliver big box office, but will it satisfy old school fans who have waited a lifetime for the film’s final showdown?
The events of “Episode VII: The Last Jedi” and the passing of Carrie Fisher presented challenges that helped shape the plot of the new film, but you’ll get no spoilers here. I will say that old footage of Fisher as General Leia Organa from “The Force Awakens” appears alongside new work from Darth Vader’s grandson, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), Jedi apprentice Rey (Daisy Ridley), Stormtrooper-turned-Resistance-fighter Finn (John Boyega), Resistance pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and the First Order’s General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson).
Add to that new characters like diabolical First Order Allegiant General Pryde (Richard E. Grant), Spice Runners of Kijimi leader Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell) and returning faves Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) and Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker (in what form I will not say) and you have a blended “Brady Bunch-style” family in space. That is, a complicated intergalactic family dynamic in which not everyone sees eye to eye.
Tasked with wrapping the Skywalker Saga up in a pretty bow director J.J. Abrams has made a film that is part fan service—many familiar faces come along for the ride—and part homage to the Original Trilogy. He replaces subtext with action, rehabilitates one character’s tarnished, cranky-old-man reputation (NO SPOILERS HERE) and essentially delivers the movie you expect.
Abrams knows there are no do overs on this one. “Do or do not; there is no try,” comes to mind. It is the wrap to one of the most popular and talked-about film franchises of all time. Expectations are high with the possibility of fan backlash ever present. Questions are answered—Rey’s parentage chief among them—quips are thrown, Chewbacca howls and star ships are blasted to Kingdom Come as “The Rise of Skywalker,” for better and for worse, replaces the nuanced take of Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi” with the more tried and true Star Wars tale of nature vs nurture and good vs evil.
Jam packed with action and plot, “The Rise of Skywalker” gets bogged down with exposition and tying up loose ends. Worse, it often drifts from the thing that made “Star Wars” great in the first place—the characters. They’re all present and accounted for but are often overshadowed by the whiz bang pacing and over-abundance of story.
Having said that, the film’s final third, the payoff to the Saga, hits several emotional high points. It’s the end of the Saga and, therefore (NO SPOILERS HERE JUST THE FACTS) the final appearances of several members of the original cast. Their exits are handled with sensitivity and should generate a sniffle or two from hard core fans.
The core of the movie is the anguished dynamic between Rey and Kylo. The push and pull between their logical vs biological family commitments is the most compelling part of the story. It also provides for several of the film’s most visually interesting scenes, including a climatic lightsaber battle on the wreckage of the Death Star.
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” ticks a lot of boxes for fans but—again, no spoilers but be careful—the mythic battle of good vs evil, of finding balance in the Force, that has fuelled the franchise for forty plus years, was really only going to resolve itself in one way. As such the metaphysical struggle is about the journey and not as much about the actual conclusion.
Richard speaks with “Rise of the Skywalker” star Joonas Suotamo about playing the iconic Wookie character Chewbacca, and what it is like wearing the fur suit for ten hours a day.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
