Posts Tagged ‘Paul Laverty’

CFRA IN OTTAWA: THE BILL CARROLL MORNING SHOW MOVIE REVIEWS!

Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to VOD and streaming services including Shia LeBeouf’s semi-autobiographical story “Honey Boy,” the eco-doc “Spaceship Earth,” the period dramedy “Emma,” the ripped-from-the-headlines “The Assistant,” the family drama “Ordinary Love,” the horror comedy “Extra ordinary,” the ugly divorce proceedings of “Hope Gap” and the neo-realist look at the gig economy “Sorry We Missed You.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 19:02)

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY MAY 05, 2017.

Richard joins CP24 to have a look at the weekend’s new movies, the giddy “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” the delicious documentary “Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent,” the bruising “First Round Down” and the grim and grimy “I, Daniel Blake.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS & MORE FOR APR 28.

Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Jennifer Burke to have a look at the big weekend movies, the giddy “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” the delicious documentary “Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent,” the bruising “First Round Down” and the grim and grimy “I, Daniel Blake.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

I, DANIEL BLAKE: 3 ½ STARS. “a portrait of nightmarish bureaucracy.”

For more than five decades Ken Loach has made powerful, realistic films about topics Hollywood steadfastly ignores. From “Cathy Come Home’s” bleak look at the inflexibility of the British welfare system to his twenty-fourth feature, “I, Daniel Blake,” the director has never wavered in his uncompromising approach to presenting social commentary on screen.

English comedian Dave Johns plays the title character, a Newcastle woodworker who suffers a heart attack on the job. He’s determined to get back to work as soon as possible but a paperwork snafu keeps him at home while his own computer illiteracy—“If you give me a plot of land I’ll build you a house but I’ve never been near a computer,” he says—stalls his plan to appeal his capability assessment. His once steady income reduced to dribs and drabs he protests, spray-painting, “I, Daniel Blake, demand my appeal date before I starve,” on a building. He is arrested and released but still waiting for his appeal date and the dignity of being treated like a human being, not a number on a file.

“I, Daniel Blake” is bleak. From Daniel’s grim spirit-breaking situation to Katie (Hayley Squires), a desperate single mom who prostitutes herself to make money to feed her kids, the movie is a portrait of nightmarish bureaucracy, privatized public services and despair. Brimming with the filmmaker’s passion and anger, it’s a movie that doesn’t offer much in the way of hope but plenty in the way of outrage. Loach’s approach is unsentimental, naturalistic. The first half contains some dark humour as Daniel tries to navigate Kafka-esque rules and regulations to collect his “jobseeker’s allowance” but by the time Katie is staving of starvation with stolen beans things take a bleak turn.