CTV ATLANTIC: RICHARD AND TODD BATTIS ON NEW MOVIES IN THEATRES!
I join CTV Atlantic anchor Todd Battis to talk about the swords and sandals of “Gladiator II,” the origin story of “Wicked” and the WWII drama “Blitz.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Posts Tagged ‘Peter Dinklage’
CKTB NIAGARA REGION: THE STEPH VIVIER SHOW WITH RICHARD CROUSE ON MOVIES!
I sit in with CKTB morning show host Steph Vivier to have a look at movies in theatres and streaming including the swords and sandals of “Gladiator II,” the origin story of “Wicked” and the WWII drama “Blitz.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
WICKED: 4 STARS. “pays tribute to the stage show, but brews up its own cinematic vibe.”
SYNOPSIS: Set before Dorothy Gale blew into the Land of Oz, “Wicked,” the first half of the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, chronicles the unlikely friendship between Shiz University—Where knowledge meets magic!—students Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo), before she became the Wicked Witch of the West, and Galinda Upland (Ariana Grande-Butera), who later becomes Glinda the Good Witch of the North. “Are people born wicked,” asks Glinda, “or do they have wickedness thrust on them?”
CAST: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande-Butera, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, Keala Settle, and Peter Dinklage. Directed by Jon M. Chu.
REVIEW: A big, bold and brassy reimagination of the fifth longest-running show in Broadway history is an origin story that pays tribute to the beloved stage show, but also brews up its own cinematic vibe.
Fans of the show will be pleased to know the themes that made “the untold story of the witches of Oz” so popular have been maintained. As the fairy tale unfolds, it reveals commentary on identity, privilege and control woven into the story of Elphaba and Galinda’s friendship and the climatic showdown with Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) and the (not-so) Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum).
Elphaba is kind, intelligent and honest but suffers society’s slings and arrows because she looks and behaves differently than the norm. “I don’t cause a commotion,” she says. “I am one.”
She is the green-skinned outsider, misjudged by everyone from her father (Andy Nyman) to the student body of Shiz University who openly laugh at her. With powerhouse vocals (even when she’s singing a duet with a goat) Erivo guides the character along a journey from innocence to a certain kind of jadedness as she learns how the world really works. In doing so, facing racism and persecution, Elphaba, a character who is very specific to the story, turns into a universal avatar for the misunderstood.
When Madame Morrible strips her of her name, dubbing her the Wicked Witch, she is villainized by a powerful bully, but finds strength in that adversity.
Erivo’s intensity is countered by Grande-Butera’s bubbly, hair-flipping comedic take on the spoiled Galinda. “Something is wrong,” she says with wide-eyed wonder. “I didn’t get my way.” Her vocals soar, but it is the chemistry she shares with Erivo and the glittery gusto with which she attacks the role that is memorable.
Thematically and performance wise, “Wicked” gets it right. The beloved mix of lighter songs, emotional numbers and power ballads are expertly and lovingly rendered, and director Jon M. Chu fills the screen with constant movement and elaborate set design, but at 2 hours and 40 minutes—that just five minutes shy of the entire stage show’s runtime, including intermission—the movie feels overstuffed. Several scenes are overlong and over designed, despite Chu’s enthusiastic direction, as though the film is a little too in love with its own iconography.
In other words, Ain’t no rest for the “Wicked.”
Still, by the time “Wicked: Part One” gets to its finale, Elphaba’s transformation into the Wicked Witch and the rousing version of the show’s signature song, “Defying Gravity,” blows off whatever dust may have accumulated. It’s a showstopper that literally brings the curtain down until part two drops in theatres on November 21, 2025.
THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES: 3 STARS.
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” is an origin story, because what good is a franchise if it doesn’t splinter off in an origin story or two? The prequel set 64 years before the events of the successful Jennifer Lawrence franchise, is a big and bold movie about the future ruler of Panem that feels as though it may have worked better as a miniseries.
The new film centers on Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), scion of the once powerful Snow family.
Orphaned during a civil war that divided the nation of Panem into a wealthy Capitol city, where everyone seems to dress like the keyboard player of Spandau Ballet circa 1983, surrounded by twelve poverty-stricken Rocky Mountain districts, where everyone speaks like a Dolly Parton impersonator.
Coriolanus is living hand-to-mouth with his grandmother (Fionnula Flanagan) and cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer), trying hard to keep up appearances at his fancy school, and hoping to win an academic scholarship. “Look at you,” says Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage), Academy dean and creator of the Hunger Games. “Your makeshift shirt and your too tight shoes, trying desperately to fit in, when I know you Snows don’t have a pot to piss in.”
Despite his hardships, A-student Coriolanus is a shoo-in to win the scholarship until Highbottom announces that the bursary will no longer be award for grades. As part of the upcoming Hunger Games, a televised gladiatorial death-match that pits kids, or “tributes,” from the districts against one another, Coriolanus will have to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from the impoverished District 12, given to bursting into rebel showtunes. If she survives the game under his leadership, he’ll get his scholarship and an entrée into the life of his dreams.
What begins as a battle for life and death, becomes a larger story of good vs. evil, of love and destiny, of opportunity and choice.
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is a big handsome movie with a lot on its mind. Fans of the series will know that Snow goes on to become a villain, an autocratic ruler with a sadistic side. This is how he got there, from outcast to insider, from protagonist to antagonist. The detailed descent into evil is born from his instinct for self-preservation that overrides whatever righteousness once resided in his soul.
Fans may enjoy the trip back top Panem, but “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” has a different feel from the originals. The first set of films were very much about Katniss Everdeen’s (who does not appear here) decency as a galvanizing symbol of rebellion against oppression.
This is the anti-hero’s journey, and, as such, it’s darker and not as action packed.
It’s a character study, divided into three sections and stretched to an over-long two-hours-and-forty-minutes. Each episode covers an aspect of the story, but, particularly as we get to the last section, the storytelling feels disjointed, rushed, as if there is too much story for one movie. The world building is interesting, and Blyth is suitably icy, but as we’re ushered through the episodic tale, it feels as if this could have used a different approach to fully flesh out the story. A mini-series might allow the time the story needs to feel fully realized.
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is a different beast than its predecessors. Lucy Gray’s musical numbers—it sometimes feels like “Hunger Games” done by theatre kids—add a new dimension, and the tone is different, but it is the study of the banality of evil that really sets it apart from what came before.
TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS: 3 ½ STARS. “generic but fun”
“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” the globe-trotting seventh installment in the “Transformers” live-action film series, is both a sequel and a prequel. Set in 1994, it wedges the story between the events of “Bumblebee,” set in 1987, and “Transformers,” which takes place in 2007.
Primarily based on Hasbro’s “Beast Wars” storyline, it reboots the franchise with a new cast and a new tribe of Transformers.
The story begins as Noah (Anthony Ramos), an unemployed Brooklyn-based electronics expert, desperate for cash to help his ailing little brother, steals a silver-blue Porsche 964 Carrera RS 3.8. What he doesn’t realize is that the car is actually a rebellious Autobot named Mirage (voice of Pete Davidson) with the ability turn invisible and create illusions.
Meanwhile, while working at a museum on Ellis Island, artifact researcher Elena (Dominique Fishback) discovers a bird sculpture with unusual markings and the symbol of the Maximals, the mostly peaceful descendants of the Autobots. More fuel-efficient than their ancestors, with a cry of “Maximals, MAXIMIZE,” they transform into animals like a western lowland gorilla (Ron Perlman), a peregrine falcon (Michelle Yeoh), a white rhinoceros (David Sobolov) or a cheetah (Tongayi Chirisa).
Inadvertently engaging a key for interdimensional space travel, Elena attracts the attention of the heroic Optimus Prime (voice of Peter Cullen), the Maximals, the dark, planet-destroying god Unicron (Colman Domingo) and an evil subgroup of the Decepticons called the Terrorcons.
“Once I have this key,” snarls Unicron, “I alone will reign supreme.”
If the planet is to be saved, the Autobots, Maximals, Noah and Elena must join forces, travel to a remote village in Peru and secure the all-powerful key. “This is about the fate of all living things,” says Optimus Primal (Perlman).
“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” delivers what fans expect from the franchise. The transformations from car-to-character are cool, the action scenes deliver the expected heavy metal punch, Optimus Prime is as stentorian as ever and the Maximals are underused, but pretty cool.
Director Steve Caple Jr. also adds in an appealing human element with the addition of Ramos and Fishback, and even the alien robots are imbued with a bit more soul—and in Mirage’s case, more personality—than usual.
It’s a shame then, that the simple story isn’t more interesting. The individual elements work well, in some cases better than in Michael Bay’s franchise instalments, but we’ve seen too many end-of-the-world scenarios in recent years. It may be Armageddon time, but familiarity breeds, well, maybe not contempt, but complacency. The stakes just don’t seem all that high because they’re hung on a predictable story with a generic superhero premise.
Having said all that, “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” is a good time at the movies. Sure, it could use a little more air in the tires in the mid-section and there is way too much exposition as we reach the end game, but it delivers what matters to fans: rock ‘em, sock ‘em robot action writ large.
CYRANO: 4 STARS. “probably the history’s most case of catfishing.”
The story of French army soldiers Cyrano de Bergerac and Christian and the beautiful Roxanne is probably the history’s most case of catfishing. Written as a play in 1897 by Edmond Rostand, the love story of “Cyrano” has been reimagined as a musical by director Joe Wright.
When we first meet Roxanne (Haley Bennett), she is prepping for a date with Duke De Guiche (Ben Mendelsohn). She’s not enthusiastic; she’s holding out for real love, but the family is broke, and as her nanny says, “Children need love. Adults need money.”
What she doesn’t know is that her lifelong friend, King’s Guard swordsman Cyrano (Peter Dinklage), a little person with a larger-than-life personality, has been in love with her since the first time he laid eyes on her. “Even her imperfections are perfect,” he says to his best friend Le Bret (Bashir Salahuddin).
He has never told her—“My fate is to love her from afar,” he says—and may not get the chance to once she gets an eyeful of King’s Guard recruit Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr) and falls instantly in love.
Trouble is, Christian has no idea how to speak to her. For that, he turns to the brilliant and eloquent Cyrano to be his voice. Cyrano provides the words of love for Christian to woo Roxanne. He pens letters, provides lists of conversational witticisms and even literally provides Christian’s voice in the story’s famous balcony scene. Roxanne is utterly smitten with Christian, thinking he has the body of a warrior and the soul of a poet. “Every day I think can’t love him more,” she says, “then another letter arrives and my heart expands to love him more.”
It’s a bizarre love triangle, one that seems destined to leave Cyrano heartsick and alone.
“Cyrano” is an adaptation of the original Rostand play and the Off-Broadway musical by Bryce and Aaron Dessner of The National, with lyrics by Matt Berninger and Carin Besser. Director Wright dovetails the two expertly, creating a film that pays tribute to its 124-year-old roots and the modern adaptation.
The bones of the story are intact but the presentation feels fresh. Wright is a stylist, creating the 17th century setting in a swirl of camera movement, interesting settings and sumptuous costumes. His trademarked baroque style has been dialed back from the (admitted beautiful) excesses of “Anna Karenina” and “Pan,” but his visions are as memorable as ever. One sequence, where Cyrano dispatches ten adversaries, is a startling bit of uncut camera choreography that will make your eyeballs dance.
The director weaves the music into the dialogue sequences seamlessly, avoiding the abrupt song-and-dance reality-breakers of so many musicals. The actors don’t suddenly start high-stepping either. It’s a more naturalistic approach that focusses attention, for better and for worse, on the emotion of the songs. As much as I liked many of the tunes, the lyrical quality varies, from the eloquent to the elementary.
Dinklage stretches his wings here as the romantic lead, the comedian and warrior. Cyrano is an outsider with a big heart who has resigned himself to being a background player in love. It’s a wonderful performance, made all the more poignant in the film’s closing minutes (NO SPOILERS HERE!).
“Cyrano” is a deeply romantic movie, a musical and a testament to the importance of real human connections, rendered in high style but always with a real, beating heart.
I CARE A LOT: 3 ½ STARS. “a truly mean-spirited movie that ends with a bang.”
In an early scene in “I Care a Lot,” the new thriller starring Rosamund Pike as professional legal guardian to the elderly Marla Grayson, says “I care. I care a lot,” referring to her wards, but it soon becomes clear that she really only cares for one thing. Money.
If you were to look up the word irredeemable in the dictionary you may well find a picture of Marla Grayson alongside the definition. She is an elegantly dressed, smiling viper who takes advantage of the old and infirm for profit. She’s a court appointed guardian who swoops in, cuts off family members as she sequesters her wards in care homes that feel more like prisons while she siphons their bank accounts and sells their homes to cover her exorbitant fees.
When Grayson and girlfriend Fran (Eiza González) pay off Dr. Karen Amos (Alicia Witt),a crooked doctor who gussies up medical records so Grayson Guardianship can take control of her patient’s lives.
On the face of it their latest mark, Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), seems like a perfect victim. Wealthy and without family, she’s vulnerable and just waiting to be bilked. Or is she? Turns out Jennifer has some secrets, and worse than that, some very important and dangerous friends. “I’m the worst mistake you’ll ever make,” Jennifer hisses at Marla.
With stories of elder abuse making front page news far too often, “I Care a Lot” provides a modicum of revenge, turning the tables in a delicious way.
Pike revisits the cold and calculating character that won her raves in “Gone Girl” but ups the ante to plumb the depths of depravity. To describe the predatory Marla as a shark does a disservice to Great Whites. “Playing fair. Being scared, that gets you nowhere,” she says. “That gets you beat.” Seemingly born without a heart, she masks her viciousness with a veneer of professionalism and her well-practised mantra of “I care, a lot.” Pike is clearly having fun here playing cold and calculating, but never resorts to the usual villain schtick. Her composure is disarming but, like an Oleander bloom, cut her and she bleeds poison.
Wiest is devilishly engaging as a woman with secrets and Peter Dinklage brings a barely contained rage to his role (NO SPOILERS HERE) but it is Pike who dominates.
“I Care a Lot” is a rarity, a truly mean-spirited movie where the best you can do is find yourself rooting for the least terrible person to persevere. It sags in the last half hour, becoming slightly more conventional but ends with a bang.
THE CROODS: A NEW AGE: 3 ½ STARS. “caveman comedy and Paleolithic physical action.”
Seven years after DreamWorks’ “The Croods” reinvented and recycled “The Flintstones,” minus the brontosaurus ribs, for a new generation comes a sequel, “The Croods: A New Age,” now in theatres, available soon as a digital rental.
At the start of the new movie the Croods—Grug and Ugga Crood (Nicolas Cage and Catherine Keener) and their kids daughters Eep (Emma Stone) and Sandy (Randy Thom), son Thunk (Clark Duke) and Gran (Cloris Leachman)—have outgrown the cave. In the search for a new, safe home they come across a colorful paradise with walls to protect them from attack and plenty of food. “It sucks out there,” says Ugga (Catherine Keener). “It’s so much better here. Out there if no one has died before breakfast it’s a win.”
As they settle in they find they’re not alone. The Bettermans, Phil (Peter Dinklage), Hope (Leslie Mann) and daughter Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran), a family a rung or three up on the evolutionary ladder already live. They have modern conveniences like windows, irrigation, separate bedrooms and more. “It’s called a shower. You should try it!” The modern stone age family looks down on the Croods. In fact, they’d more rightly be named The Betterthans.
When peril comes their way the Croods and the Bettermans, despite their differences, learn they have more in common than they thought. In this story there’s room for both brains and brawn.
“The Croods: A New Age” hasn’t evolved much since 2013. Like the first movie it is still jam packed with loads of caveman comedy and Paleolithic physical action. The new one has a strong message of female empowerment and the recycles the original’s theme of adversity actually bringing people closer together. It’s a winning, if familiar, combo until the noisy, frenetic ending that, while eye popping, is all sound and fury without much payoff.
The voice cast gamely delivers the story. It’s fun to hear Cage as Grug Crood actually have some fun with a role these days. It’s a welcome step away from his direct-to-the-delete-bin action movies he’s been choosing lately. Stone brings a spirited and adventurous edge to cavegirl Eep, and Reynolds, as the romantic lead, proves that his comic timing translates very well from live action to animation. They trade the often-ridiculous dialogue with ease, milking maximum humour from the script.
“The Croods: A New Age” is chaotic fun, a movie aimed squarely at kids with just enough jokes about raising a family to keep parents interested.
LOOKING BACK AT 2017: RICHARD picks for the BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR.
THE GOOD (in alphabetical order)
Baby Driver: Although it contains more music than most tuneful of movies “Baby Driver,” the new film from director Edgar Wright, isn’t a musical in the “West Side Story,” “Sound of Music” sense. Wallpapered with 35 rock ‘n roll songs on the soundtrack it’s a hard driving heist flick that can best be called an action musical.
The Big Sick: Even when “The Big Sick” is making jokes about terrorism and the “X-Files” it is all heart, a crowd-pleaser that still feels personal and intimate.
Call Me By Your Name: This is a movie of small details that speak to larger truths. Director Luca Guadagnino keeps the story simple relying on the minutiae to add depth and beauty to the story. The idyllic countryside, the quaint town, the music of the Psychedelic Furs and the languid pace of a long Italian summer combine to create the sensual backdrop against which the romance between the two blossoms. Guadagnino’s camera captures it all, avoiding the pitfalls of melodrama to present a story that is pure emotion. It feels real and raw, haunted by the ghosts of loves gone by.
Darkest Hour: This is a historical drama with all the trappings of “Masterpiece Theatre.” You can expect photography, costumes and period details are sumptuous. What you may not expect is the light-hearted tone of much of the goings on. While this isn’t “Carry On Churchill,” it has a lighter touch that might be expected. Gary Oldman, not an actor known for his comedic flourishes, embraces the sly humour. When Churchill becomes Prime Minister his wife, Clementine (Kristin Scott Thomas) makes an impassioned speech about the importance of the work he is about to take on. He raises a glass and, cutting through the emotion of the moment, says, “Here’s to not buggering it up!” It shows a side of Churchill not often revealed in wartime biopics.
The Disaster Artist: The key to pulling off “The Disaster Artist” is not recreating “The Room” beat for beat, although they do that, it’s actually about treating Wiseau as a person and not an object of fun. He’s an outrageous character and Franco commits to it 100%. From the marble-mouthed speech pattern that’s part Valley Girl and part Beaker from The Muppets to the wild clothes and stringy hair, he’s equal parts creepy and lovable but underneath his bravado are real human frailties. Depending on your point of view he’s either delusional or aspirational but in Franco’s hands he’s never also never less than memorable. It’s a broad, strange performance but it may also be one of the actor’s best.
Dunkirk: This is an intense movie but it is not an overly emotional one. The cumulative effect of the vivid images and sounds will stir the soul but despite great performances the movie doesn’t necessarily make you feel for one character or another. Instead its strength is in how it displays the overwhelming sense of scope of the Dunkirk mission. With 400,000 men on the ground with more in the air and at sea, the sheer scope of the operation overpowers individuality, turning the focus on the collective. Director Christopher Nolan’s sweeping camera takes it all in, epic and intimate moments alike.
The Florida Project: This is, hands down, one of the best films of the year. Low-budget and naturalistic, it packs more punch than any superhero. Director Sean Baker defies expectations. He’s made a film about kids for adults that finds joy in rocky places. What could have been a bleak experience or an earnest message movie is brought to vivid life by characters that feel real. It’s a story about poverty that neither celebrates or condemns its characters. Mooney’s exploits are entertaining and yet an air of jeopardy hangs heavy over every minute of the movie. Baker knows that Halley and Moonie’s well being hangs by a thread but he also understands they exist in the real world and never allows their story to fall into cliché.
Get Out: This is the weirdest and most original mainstream psychodrama to come along since “The Babadook.” The basic premise harkens back to the Sidney Poitier’s classic “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” In that film parents, played by Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, have their attitudes challenged when their daughter introduces them to her African American fiancé. The uncomfortable situation of meeting in-laws for the first time is universal. It’s the added layers of paranoia and skewered white liberalism that propels the main character’s (Daniel Kaluuya) situation into full-fledged horror. In this setting he is the other, the stranger and as his anxiety grows the social commentary regarding attitudes about race in America grows sharper and more focussed.
Lady Bird: Greta Gerwig’s skilful handling of the story of Lady Bird’s busy senior year works not just because it’s unvarnished and honest in its look at becoming an adult but also, in a large degree, to Saoirse Ronan’s performance. I have long called her ‘Lil Meryl. She’s an actor of unusual depth, a young person (born in 1994) with an old soul. Lady Bird is almost crushed by the weight of uncertainty that greets her with every turn—will her parents divorce, will there be money for school, will Kyle be the boy of her dreams, will she ever make enough cash to repay her parents for her upbringing?—but Ronan keeps her nimble, sidestepping teen ennui with a complicated mix of snappy one liners, hard earned wisdom and a well of emotion. It’s tremendous, Academy Award worthy work.
The Post: Steven Spielberg film is a fist-pump-in-the-air look at the integrity and importance of a free press. It’s a little heavy-handed but these are heavy-handed times. Director Spielberg and stars Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep are entertainers first and foremost, and they do entertain here, but they also shine a light on a historical era whose reverberations are being felt today stronger than ever.
The Shape of Water: A dreamy slice of pure cinema. Director Guillermo del Toro uses the stark Cold War as a canvas to draw warm and vivid portraits of his characters. It’s a beautiful creature feature ripe with romance, thrills and, above all, empathy for everyone. This is the kind of movie that reminds us of why we fell in love with movies in the first place.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: The story of a mother’s unconventional war with the world is simple enough, it’s the complexity of the characters that elevates the it to the level of great art.
Wonder Woman: Equal parts Amazon sword and sandal epic, mad scientist flick, war movie and rom com, it’s a crowd pleaser that places the popular character front and centre. As played by Gal Gadot, Diana is charismatic and kick ass, a superhero who is both truly super and heroic. Like Superman she is firmly on the side of good, not a tortured soul à la Batman. Naïve to the ways of the world, she runs headfirst into trouble. Whether she’s throwing a German tank across a battlefield, defying gravity to leap to the top of a bell tower, tolerating Trevor’s occasional mansplaining or deflecting bullets with her indestructible Bracelets of Submission, she proves in scene after scene to be both a formidable warrior and a genuine, profoundly empathic character.
