I appear on “CTV News at 11:30” with anchor Andria Case to talk about the best shows and movies to watch this weekend, including the demonic “The Conjuring: Last Rites” and the non rom com “The Threesome.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 15:32)
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with guest anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about new movies in theatres including the demonic drama “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” the non rom com “The Threesome” and what’s happening at TIFF!
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 15:01)
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Roger Peterson to have a look at new movies in theatres, “The Conjuring: Last Rites” and “The Threesome,” and the opening night of TIFF 50!
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make the bed! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the demonic “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” the non rom com “The Threesome” and the gloriously gross “The Toxic Avenger.”
Watch 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 Conjuring: Last Rites” and the non rom com “The Threesome.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “The Threesome,” a look at modern romance now playing in theatres, an impulsive ménage à trois leads to double trouble for Connor, Jenny and Olivia.
CAST: Zoey Deutch, Jonah Hauer-King, Ruby Cruz, Jaboukie Young-White, Josh Segarra, Robert Longstreet, Arden Myrin, Kristin Slaysman, Allan McLeod, and Julia Sweeney. Directed by Chad Hartigan.
REVIEW: A charming, but uneven rom com about adult truths and consequences, “The Threesome” is as narratively messy as the situation it essays.
The action in “The Threesome” begins with an impetuous, slightly stoned ménage à trois between nice-guy Connor (Jonah Hauer-King), his longtime crush Olivia (Zoey Deutch) and Jenny (Ruby Cruz), a random customer at Olivia’s restaurant who was just been stood up by her date.
Long story short, months later Jenny and Olivia let Connor know he’s going to be a father twice over.
The resulting complications are the stuff of farce, but with a heart.
Director Chad Hartigan, working from a script by Ethan Ogilby, plays the situation for light laughs, but keeps one foot firmly placed on the ground. Ogilby introduces some very non rom com elements to the story, and it is the stark realities of the situation that add layers to what could have been standard fare.
The film’s biggest selling point are the three leads, Deutch, Hauer-King, and Cruz. They hold on tight as the story veers from heartfelt to humorous to chaotic, often in the same scene. If not for their wonderful dynamics, “The Threesome” might have ended up feeling more like a hygiene film about the importance of contraception than a complex look at accountability and adulthood.
Structurally “The Threesome” pays tribute to rom com tropes but never falls victim to the genre’s cliches, even as it gallops toward a rushed happily-ever-after ending.
The spirit of hillbilly grindhouse horror lives in the violent revenge flick “Ravage,” now on VOD.
Annabelle Dexter-Jones is Harper Sykes, a “GI Jane with a camera.” On a photographic assignment in the remote Virginia woods she witnesses and documents a group of men person to a pack of hungry dogs. Terrible things happen and she wakes up in a hospital bed, bandaged from head-to-toe, and being questioned by Detective Slayton (Michael Weaver). Convinced she is a “mountain tweaker who burned herself up in a meth lab,” he tries to coerce a story out of her.
In flashbacks the movie details, and I mean details with a capital D, the brutal story of Harper’s capture by the redneck ravagers, led by Ravener (Robert Longstreet), her revenge and what lies bandages.
If a movie with a title like “Ravage” appeals to you, then you likely know what’s in store. It’s a savage, uncompromising look at the cruelty humans are capable of. By definition the word means, “to devastate, waste, sack, pillage, despoil, to lay waste by plundering or destroying,” and that’s just the beginning in terms of how literally screenwriter and director Teddy Grennan takes the word’s meaning. It’s an unpleasant movie that doesn’t exactly celebrate the violence, there are no huge set pieces here, it more or less documents terrible things without lingering on the intricacies of the torture and killing, so I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.
In a short cameo from Bruce Dern is suitably creepy, mouthing dialogue about how, “torture is the barometer of a nation’s creativity.” It’s the kind of role he could do in his sleep, but his presence adds a sense of gravitas which is blown in the film’s final moments.
You will not see the final twist coming, and I will not tell you what it is, but know this, if you thought “Ravage” would be a (SPOILER ALERT) an ode to female empowerment, you will be taken aback and disappointed. Harper’s resilience, despite some boneheaded moves along the way, display a resourcefulness that suggests she will emerge bloodied but unbowed. The film’s sick ‘n twisted final few moments lay waste to that assumption in no uncertain terms.
“Ravage” is a no-frills thriller of the hunter and the hunted that attempts to address moral questions about violence and revenge but instead gets caught glorifying the them.
