I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Renée Rodgers to talk about the origin story “Clayface,” the stop-motion animated “Wildwood,” the documentary “Once Upon a Time in Harlem” and the adult fairy tale “Wicker.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with CKTB morning show host Steph Vivier to have a look at movies in theatres including the origin story “Clayface,” the stop-motion animated “Wildwood,” the documenary “Once Upon a Time in Harlem” and the adult fairy tale “Wicker.”
Listen to 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 origin story “Clayface,” the stop-motion animated “Wildwood,” the documenary “Once Upon a Time in Harlem” and the adult fairy tale “Wicker.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Wicker,” a new romantic fantasy/comedy, Olivia Colman plays a woman who jokingly commissions a master weaver to make her a husband made of wicker.
CAST: Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, Elizabeth Debicki, Marli Siu, Nabhaan Rizwan, Richard E. Grant, Peter Dinklage. Written and directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson.
REVIEW: A bawdy farce with a tender heart, “Wicker” is an innuendo laden look at unconditional love, jealously and envy.
Adapted from the short story “The Wicker Husband” by Ursula Wills, “Wicker” is set in an uptight medieval farming village. Olivia Colman is the Fisherwoman, a woman ostracized by her community due to the odor of fish that follows her around and her unconventional (for the time) thinking.
Tired of the constant taunts from the locals—“Fisherwoman,” teases a villager, “you caught yourself a lover yet?”—she sarcastically commissions the local basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband out of wicker.
To everyone’s amazement, the wicker man (Alexander Skarsgård) comes to life and proves to be the perfect companion. Handsome, loyal and adoring, he tells the Fisherwoman, “I am here to marry you.”
Their passionate relationship—“I’ll be fixing the bed this afternoon,” he says after their wedding night. “It broke again.”—causes the Fisherwoman to reassess her, “love seems more burden than a prize” mantra, and becomes the talk of the town, inspiring envy and jealousy. “The wives, they’re all aflutter!”
An adult fairy tale, on the surface “Wicker’s” unconventional, “Beauty and the Beast” love story is horny and hilarious but dig deeper and it’s also a satirical look at marriage and gender roles.
In this story women are “collared” to their husbands, giving up their own identities at the moment of matrimony. So, as a representation of a woman finding love on her own terms, the Fisherwoman’s relationship with her Wicker Husband is a slap to the face of the villager’s social norms. She is a nonconformist, not looking for approval in a place where fitting in is the custom.
At the center of it all is Coleman. A mix and match of boldness and insecurity, her take on the Fisherwoman as a fiercely independent woman who opens up to her unusual beau, allows for broad comedy and heartfelt, tender moments.
Instead of playing the joke Skarsgård, hidden beneath a wicker suit, plays it straight. He’s the love interest, and, as such, plays it like a romantic leading man role. The subtle creaking of the woven wicker that makes up his body aids in the performance, adding a handmade feel to the character.
“Wicker” is weird and wonderful, but its study of societal expectations, and a woman who breaks them, that makes it memorable, not the flashy wicker suit.
SYNOPSIS: Inspired by the 1981 novel “The War of the Roses” by Warren Adler, and the 1989 film with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, “The Roses” sees Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman as married couple Theo and Ivy. Their picture-perfect relationship dissolves into resentment when Theo’s career takes a dip while Ivy’s own ambitions take off.
CAST: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Andy Samberg, and Kate McKinnon. Directed by Jay Roach.
REVIEW: This story of the thin line between love and hate begins with love at first sight. British architect Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) and chef Ivy (Olivia Colman) have instant chemistry and soon find themselves living in San Francisco with their two kids, Hattie and Roy.
Life is good.
Even though Ivy’s restaurant, I Got Crabs and I Loved It is struggling, Theo’s bold design for a new maritime museum is just about to celebrate its grand opening. “We want to be the couple who supports one another completely,” she says.
When a storm hits their coastal town, closing off the main road, traffic is diverted to her failing restaurant. For the first time ever, the place is packed. On the other side of town, the same storm tears the roof off Theo’s latest design, collapsing the building and his self-worth.
The next morning, he is unemployable, crushed and embarrassed. “It was everything to me,” he says. Her business, however, is bolstered by a rave review in the paper from a food critic who was stranded by the storm.
As Ivy’s culinary empire blossoms, Theo’s jealousy and resentment grows.
Unemployable, he stays home with the kids as Ivy buzzes around in private jets, consumed with growing her restaurant empire.
When he designs a beautiful home for them—which she pays for—their discontent ripens, pushing them to extremes. “Someone has to sacrifice themselves on the altar of our marriage,” she says. “But who is it going to be?”
“The Roses” is top loaded with laughs. In the film’s first minutes Cumberbatch and Colman set the tone with their edgy back and forth—”In England we call that repartee,” Theo says—tossing off one-liners in response to a therapist’s suggestion that they list ten things they love about one another.
“I would rather be with her than a wolf,” he says.
“He has arms,” she says.
The scene is fast, funny and establishes their tetchy, witty banter as the couple’s love language. In a departure from the original film, Ivy and Theo actually seem to like one another, even when they don’t.
Theo’s treatment of their children—he weans them off Ivy’s homemade sweets in favor of hardcore exercise—is a major source of tension in the couple, but it’s the kids who are also, in many ways, the glue that holds them together.
That dynamic makes for a more realistic look at a couple near the breaking point, but it also slows down the “endlessly whirring machine” the couple finds themselves trapped in. The propulsive vibe of the film’s first act fades as the story sits at a slow simmer for much of its latter half.
Still, even though this iteration of the story doesn’t lean into the farcical elements, or much of the nastiness of the original, it’s a pleasure to watch Cumberbatch and Colman effortlessly cut through this material like a hot knife through butter.
SYNOPSIS: In “Paddington in Peru,” the marmalade loving bear, voiced by Ben Whishaw, searches for his cherished Aunt Lucy who has gone missing in the Peruvian jungle. Helping Paddington on his dangerous quest are Oscar winner Olivia Colman as a cheery singing nun, a brave boat captain played by Antonio Banderas and his adopted parents Henry (Hugh Bonneville) and Mary (Emily Mortimer, replacing Sally Hawkins).
CAST: Hugh Bonneville, Emily Mortimer, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Carla Tous, Olivia Colman, Antonio Banderas and Ben Whishaw. Directed by Dougal Wilson.
REVIEW: If the world worked the way it is supposed to there would be a picture of Paddington the Bear next to the word ‘adorable’ in your dogeared copy of Funk and Wagnalls.
Since 1958, when the marmalade loving, spectacled bear first appeared in print, he has been an avatar for mischievous fun, kindness and overall, unescapable lovability.
Eight years after two perfectly perfect instalments of the bear’s adventures with his adopted English family comes “Paddington in Peru,” a new adventure that is sure to please family audiences, but the ambitious story doesn’t have the magic of the first two films.
The impossibly cute Paddington, voiced by Ben Wishaw, is still the kindhearted agent of mild chaos he has always been, but this time around his adopted family, the Browns, play a larger role. Emily Watson and Hugh Bonneville are up to the task, expertly riding the line between silly and sentimental, but the film Itself feels less whimsical than its predecessors.
Having said that, Olivia Coleman, as the singing nun at The Home for Retired Bears, brings a big dollop of fun in the “Sound of Music” inspired musical number “Let’s Prepare for Paddington.”
Paul King, director of the first two instalments, brought an eccentric charm to Paddington’s world that was undeniably wondrous. That world is still evident, but this time around director Dougal Wilson opts for action and adventure, most of which is very compelling, and character driven, but it doesn’t lift off the screen the way the first two films did.
Nonetheless, “Paddington in Peru” is a thoroughly enjoyable family film, one with timely subtext about immigration (Paddington gets his British passport in the film’s early minutes), identity and loyalty, and, of course, is laced with the bear’s good-natured way of seeing the best in everyone, even those who done him wrong.
Everyone from Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader to The Ghostbusters and the Godfather have been given the origin story treatment, so why not Wille Wonka, the mysterious and mischievous chocolatier created by Roald Dahl? That’s the premise of “Wonka,” a new musical now playing in theatres.
Timothée Chalamet plays the title character, the young version of the Wonka seen in 1971s “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” and 2005s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” but his sartorial style is already in place. Decked out in a top hat, purple waistcoat and flamboyant scarves, Wonka arrives in town with the dream of opening the greatest chocolate shop the world has ever seen.
“I’ve spent the past seven years travelling the world,” the magician, inventor and chocolate maker announces, “perfecting my craft. You see I’m something of a magician, inventor, and chocolate maker. So quiet up, and listen down. Nope. Scratch that, reverse it.”
His original idea was to make chocolates his mother (Sally Hawkins) would love, and after years of study he learned to concoct delicious, unusual candies. His caramels are salted with the tears of a Russian clown. His cherries come from the Imperial Gardens in Japan and his marshmallows are harvested from the mallow marshes of Peru, and some of them, like the Hoverchoc, have magical, gravity defying side effects.
Trouble is, the city is under the thumb of the Chocolate Cartel, sweet treat tycoons Mr. Prodnose (Matt Lucas), Mr. Fickelgruber (Mathew Baynton) and Mr. Slugworth (Paterson Joseph). They don’t like Wonka or the threats his chocolates pose to their businesses. “He’s good,” snarls Fickelgruber. “Too good.” But they really hate his idea of making affordable chocolate for the working class.
“Send Wonka a message,” says the sinister Slugworth.
Nothing is going Wonka’s way. The local Chief-of-Police (Keegan-Michael Key) threatens to bonk him on the head, the Cartel is out to ruin him, he’s indebted to work house owners Mrs. Scrubbit (Olivia Colman) and Bleacher (Tom Davis) and a small orange Oompa-Loompa (Hugh Grant) accuses him of stealing cocoa beans.
Despite the odds, with the help of an orphan named Noodle (Calah Lane), the optimistic Wonka is certain he can make his dreams come true and make his mother proud.
Directed by “Paddington’s” Paul King, “Wonka” replaces the weirdness of past film adaptations with whimsey. From the fanciful set and costume design to the heightened performances and relentlessly upbeat tone, it is as sweet as any of Wonka’s magical confections. A celebration of the power of dreams, it’s satisfying and delicious, and tonally feels like a companion piece to the others rather than a revisit or a nostalgic look back.
Chalamet’s Wonka has little to do with the reclusive, narcissistic, judgmental character as played by Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp. He is still an eccentric outsider, but in this version he’s also the emotional core. King and co-writer Simon Farnaby flesh out his story, adding in a backstory that includes a strong connection to his mother and huge dollops of earnestness. That light and airy feel is balanced, somewhat, by the addition of nasty capitalists who want to crush Wonka’s dreams for their own benefit. But make no mistake, this is all chocolate and charm.
Chalamet plays Wonka as a charismatic oddball but without the cynicism that colors other portrayals of the character. The “Dune” star replaces cynicism with a delightfully clever naiveté, anchoring the film’s light and breezy tone. His Wonka pays tribute to, but isn’t an impression of Wilder or Depp. It fresh and fun work, with credible singing and dancing, even if the songs aren’t exactly earworms.
In their handful of scenes, Chalamet cedes the screen to Grant. In what is easily his silliest role ever, Grant finds the fun, playing a testy Oompa Loompa on a mission.
“Wonka” is a scrumdiddlyumptious family film for the holidays. A lavish movie, powered by pure imagination, it is life affirming, with a sense of wonder. It doesn’t enthrall in the same, off-the-charts measure that King’s “Paddington” movies do, but really, what other film does?
In 2011, I accused the first movie in the “Puss in Boots” franchise of neutering the once-charming character. We fell in love with the frisky feline, as voiced by Antonio Banderas, in the “Shrek” movies, but his journey from supporting to leading character was far from purrfect. The movies were predictable and worse, had none of the purr-sonality (OK. I’ll stop with the cat puns now) of the “Shrek” movies.
Now, one television series, sequel and video game later, comes “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” a movie, now playing in theatres, that raises the stakes.
The new film opens with the plucky ginger cat (once again voiced by Banderas) in a life-or-death battle against a fur-midable (last one, I promise) opponent. “I am known by many names,” he brags. “Stabby Tabby. El Macho Gato. The Leche Whisperer. I am Puss in Boots!”
He’s been in sticky situations before, but this one is different.
“I have bad news,” says the doctor who attends to his wounds. “You died.”
It looks like the end for Puss in Boots, until he reminds the physician, “Doctor, relax! I have nine lives!”
“And how many times have you died already?”
“Oh,” says Puss, “I’m not really a math guy.”
Turns out, Puss is on his last life and must give up his adventurous ways if he wants to survive.
Rather than become a lap-cat, the swashbuckling Puss, along with love interest Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) and chatty therapy dog Perro (Harvey Guillén), sets off to into the Black Forest to find the mystical Last Wish and restore the lives he lost. “I need to get my lives back,” he says. “Without them, I am not the legend.”
But after eight lives lived, Puss has many enemies, all of whom want track him down. “I find the idea of nine lives absurd,” says the Big Bad Wolf (Wagner Moura), “and you didn’t value any of them.”
Animation is generally thought of as entertainment for kids, but legends like Don Bluth and Ralph Bakshi made their careers creating films that addressed darker subject matter. Now, “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” is no “The Secret of Nimh” or “Fire and Ice,” but it is bleaker and more experimental than anything else in the franchise. Like the recent “Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio,” “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” treads into adult territory theme wise, with higher stakes than we’re used to in a film aimed at kids– the Cave of Lost Souls, anyone?—but does so with family audiences in mind.
The character of PiB may be in peril, but the flamboyance that made him such a scene stealer in “Shrek 2” is still on full display. He’s a huge personality in pocket-size, and Banderas brings a perfect combination of roguishness and righteousness to the voice work.
Fun, villainous voice work from Florence Pugh, John Mulaney, and Wagner Moura, as Goldilocks, “Big” Jack Horner and Big Bad Wolf / Death respectively, add some spice and beautiful animation lifts the adventure sequences skyward.
Best of all, the film’s underlying life lesson, that time is precious and we should enjoy it while we can—”When you only have one life,” says Kitty Softpaws, “that’s what makes it special.”—is nicely woven into the film’s fleet-footed, if slightly predictable plot.
“Empire of Light,” a new drama from director Sam Mendes, takes almost two hours to deliver the same magic-of-the-movies message Nicole Kidman’s AMC advertisement drove home in just one minute and one second.
Set in 1981, Olivia Colman plays Hilary Small, a lonely duty manager at a Margate cinema called The Empire. She is fastidious, detail oriented and on top of every little thing, even if she doesn’t really care for the movies she shows in their beautiful Art Deco auditoriums. “They’re for the customers,” she says.
Her personal life is as messy as her work life is ordered. An illicit affair with her boss, Mr. Ellis (Colin Firth), the theatre’s general manager, is a study in power imbalance and an unnamed mental illness leaves her unable to sleep and reliant on lithium to maintain equilibrium.
Stephen (Micheal Ward), a new theatre employee, fits in perfectly with the others, Neil (Tom Brooke), punk rocker Janine (Hannah Onslow) and projectionist Norman (Toby Jones) but really sparks with Hilary, even though she is many years his senior.
At the theatre romance blossoms between them, but in the outside world the rise of the National Front troubles Stephen, and he is regularly harassed by skinheads simply because he is a Black man living in Britain.
As Mr. Ellis prepares to host the regional gala premier of “Chariots of Fire,” events conspire to change the nature of Hilary and Stephen’s relationship, and perhaps the rest of their lives.
“Empire of Light” takes on a lot but does not seamlessly blend its many ideas into a whole. A study of racism, mental illness, power structures and the transformative power of the movies, it is splintered into too many pieces to work as a cohesive story. When Mendes focusses his camera on Hilary and Stephen the movie finds its power, when he does not, it drifts.
Colman, in the film’s most demanding role, once again proves her remarkable ability to inhabit a character. Hilary is a complex person, and as her depression grips, she boards an emotional rollercoaster. Colman carefully and sensitively portrays that aspect of Hilary’s life in a terrific performance, filled with humanity and sympathy.
Opposite Colman in the film’s best scenes is Ward. As Stephen, in a career making performance, he brings empathy to the film. In one of his early moments, he helps a pigeon with a broken wing. That action could have served as an overworked metaphor, given his budding relationship with the damaged Hilary, but instead establishes Stephen’s innate decency in a world that does not always return the favor. Conversely, Ward’s steeliness comes through in several scenes of outrageous racism.
At its heart “Empire of Light” is a love letter to film and grand old movie palaces like The Empire. But once again, Mendes uses the metaphors like a jackhammer on concrete. In an impassioned speech, Toby Jones, who calls the theatre’s projectors his “babies,” explains the magic of the movies to Stephen. “Still images with darkness in between,” he says. “If I run them at 24 frames a second, you don’t see the darkness.” Jones delivers the line with breathless reverence, as if the idea that film as a panacea for all that ails us was something new instead of a clunky metaphor. The “Cinema Paradiso-esque” veneration is well intended, but, given the film’s essaying of racism and mental illness, feels overstated and trite.
