I join CP24 to talk about Sydney Sweeney’s “Christy,” Jennifer Lawrence in “Die My Love,” the Netflix historical drama “Death By Lightning” and the Tracy Morgan comedy “Crutch.”
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 Sydney Sweeney’s “Christy,” the historical drama “Nuremberg” and Jennifer Lawrence in “Die My Love.”
Listen to 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 Sydney Sweeney’s “Christy,” the historical drama “Nuremberg” and Jennifer Lawrence in “Die My Love.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Die My Love,” a new psychological drama now playing in theatres, Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) leave the hustle and bustle of New York City in search of a quieter life on a rural Montana ranch. As the couple welcome a child, Grace begins to feel isolated, trapped and acts out in unpredictable ways. “I’m right here,” she says to Jackson, “you just can’t see me.”
CAST: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield, Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek. Directed by Lynne Ramsay.
REVIEW: A non-linear, stream-of-consciousness look at one woman’s breakdown, “Die My Love” is not a movie you “enjoy” in the traditional sense. Like the recent “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” a psychological drama that mined similar territory, “Die My Love” is a confrontational, difficult watch.
The difference is in the execution.
While neither film can be called pleasurable, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” displays a sense of purpose missing from “Die My Love.”
Both feature compelling, raw performances from their leads, but “If I Had Legs” gives the viewer something to hang onto story wise. “Die My Love” has a premise—woman has a breakdown after moving to the country—but is frustratingly shy about fleshing out a complete narrative. The result is a film that feels like a series of escalating events rather than a cohesive whole.
The glue holding the entire thing together is Lawrence, whose fearless and ferocious performance physicalizes the character’s inner turmoil in increasingly unpredictable and upsetting ways. Crushed by postpartum depression and isolation, her behavior spirals, captured by director Lynne Ramsay, who co-wrote with Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, in a series of loosely connected vignettes. With little-to-no narrative accompaniment, however, the incidents, while often shocking, become repetitive and drain away the film’s power as a portrait of postpartum and human frailty.
Lawrence’s portrait of psychological collapse is raw and challenging cinema but as a vehicle for the performance “Die My Love’s” mix of reality and delusion falters.
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Scott Hirsch to talk about the strange sci fi of “Mickey 17,” the kid-friendly “Night of the Zoopocalypse” and the suspense of “Seven Veils.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift” for “Booze & Reviews!” This week I talk about “Mickey 17,” a movie with double the usual amount of Robert Pattinsons and tell you the history of double drinks.
Listen to Shane and I talk about the life of Dolly Parton’s dearly departed husband Carl Dean, and what actor won a Guinness Book of World records Award this week HERE!
Have double the fun on Booze & Reviews with my review of “Mickey 17” and a history of double drinks HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make some toast! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the strange sci fi of “Mickey 17,” the kid-friendly “Night of the Zoopocalypse” and the suspense of “Seven Veils.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
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.
Richard joins NewsTalk 1010’s “Moore in the Morning” host John Moore to talk about AMC theatres bumping up the price for “The Batman” tickets this weekend.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
