Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less than a New York Minute! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the horror flick “Smile 2,” the Michael Keaton drama “Goodrich” and the political satire “Rumours.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Smile 2,” a new horror film now playing in theatres, strange happenings plague pop star Skye Riley on the eve of her world tour. As people around her die, their faces twisted into a horrifying “happy face” rictus, she digs deep to confront her dark past so she can get control and move forward.
CAST: Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Lukas Gage, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Peter Jacobson, Raúl Castillo, Dylan Gelula, Ray Nicholson, Kyle Gallner. Written and directed by Parker Finn.
REVIEW: Even if you’re not a fan of sequels, “Smile 2,“ the follow up to 2022’s “Smile,“ should turn your frown upside down.
The story of a metaphysical being that clings to a host – in this case a popstar named Skye Riley, played by a terrific Naomi Scott – asks some questions – What is real and what is not? Does a vomit leave DNA behind?– and delivers some truly creepy and inventive psychological thrills.
“Smile 2” specializes in jump scares, but director Parker Finn also stages several memorable scenes of psychological terror. A face that suddenly evokes Skye’s car accident is an unexpectedly cool image, but it’s a sequence of her persecution through her home that brings true horror. Staged somewhere between a mass zombie attack and a Broadway dance number, it’s one of the film’s best scenes.
Added to that are some very funny moments – mostly courtesy of Dylan Gelula as Gemma– that provide breaks from the mounting tension.
As Skye’s BFF Gemma, Gelula brings relatable, charm, while Ray Nicholson, as the pop singer’s deceased boyfriend does a very credible impression of his famous father Jack’s “Shining“ era.
Scott, however, Is the film’s MVP. On screen for 99% of the runtime, she sells the terror of someone who can’t be sure what is real and what is not.
The extreme ending may suffer by comparison to the recently released “The Substance,” but caps the movie with a sequence that’ll keep the gore hounds happy.
“Smile 2” is the rare sequel that outdoes the original, and actually made me curious about where the franchise—and if it makes bank this weekend, it will become a franchise—will go next.
By Richard Crouse – Toronto Star
Centred around a motel in a small Alaskan town, Sweet Virginia is a story of people and a place gripped by greed, frustration and murder.
“I’m originally from a small town,” says the Timmins, Ont.-born director Jamie M. Dagg, “so I’m really fascinated by how the lack of anonymity in small communities changes the dynamics and how people relate to one another where everyone is incestuously interwoven into the fabric of the community. Keeping secrets is really difficult.”
In the film, opening Friday, Christopher Abbott is Elwood, a dead-eyed psychopath who comes to town to do a job. He’s been contracted to kill a man. He does the hit, callously killing two innocent bystanders in the process. Waiting for his money, he checks into the motel run by Sam (Jon Bernthal, star of The Punisher on Netflix), a former rodeo star now sidelined by injuries. The two men strike up a friendship as Elwood grows edgy and unpredictable waiting for the person who hired him to cough up his fee… READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
Centred around a motel in a small Alaskan town, Sweet Virginia is a story of people and a place gripped by greed, frustration and murder.
“I’m originally from a small town,” says the Timmins, Ont.-born director Jamie M. Dagg, “so I’m really fascinated by how the lack of anonymity in small communities changes the dynamics and how people relate to one another where everyone is incestuously interwoven into the fabric of the community. Keeping secrets is really difficult.”
In the film, Christopher Abbott is Elwood, a dead-eyed psychopath who comes to town to do a job. He’s been hired by Lila (Imogen Poots) to kill her cheating husband. He does the hit, callously killing two innocent bystanders in the process.
Waiting for his money, he checks into the motel run by Sam (Jon Bernthal), a former rodeo star now sidelined by injuries. The two men strike up a friendship as Elwood grows edgy and unpredictable waiting for Lila to cough up his fee.
“These are communities where the ramifications of misdeeds are dramatically amplified,” says Dagg. “It often ripples across the entire population.”
Dagg, whose first film, River, won the 2016 Canadian Screen Award for best first feature, says the first actor to sign on for Sweet Virginia was Abbott. Best known for playing Marnie’s ex-boyfriend Charlie on the HBO comedy-drama series Girls, Abbott didn’t immediately seem like a good fit to play a cold-blooded killer.
“Then I watched (the movie) James White with Cynthia Nixon,” Dagg says, picking up the story. “He has incredible range. Both of us had issues with this guy being (as was originally written) a really charismatic, cool cowboy. We were both interested in pushing it into the person who was bullied in high school but could be the next Columbine shooter.”
The character is a viper, a deadly man with no remorse. Imagine No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh and you get the idea.
“I decided and Jamie agreed that Elwood is a character who inherently despises humans,” says Abbott. “It was challenging in making sure to avoid clichés. There are a lot of very good, very credible performances out there of quote-unquote ‘villains’. I found it challenging to respect the lineage of playing villains while trying to do my own thing with it.”
Abbott says he’s been inadvertently researching this role for years.
“I read books on psychology,” he says, “even books like The Psychopath Test. I used something I read in that book for this part. It is part of my job as an actor that, no matter how bad a character is, is to justify or feel sorry for him. That’s the fun of it. How do you have a soft spot for a murderous psychopath?”
Sweet Virginia takes place against a backdrop of duplicity and dread but Abbott says bringing this story of menace to the screen was relatively trouble free.
“Jamie created an atmosphere where we were able to play as actors,” says the actor, “and he really enjoyed watching us, which gave us confidence to go further and do more. It was a nice marriage that way.”
Dagg concurs. “My first film, River, was a challenging film to make. This film was sort of easy. The next one is probably going to be hell! These things are not supposed to be this easy.”
Centred around a motel in a small Alaskan town, “Sweet Virginia” is a story of place and people gripped by greed, frustration and murder.
Christopher Abbott is Elwood, a dead-eyed psychopath who comes to town to do a job. He’s been hired by Lila (Imogen Poots) to kill her cheating husband Mitchell (). He does the hit, callously killing two innocent bystanders in the process. Waiting for his money he checks into the motel run by Sam (Jon Bernthal), a former rodeo star now sidelined by injuries. The two men strike up a friendship as Elwood grows edgy and unpredictable waiting for Lila to cough up his fee.
“Sweet Virginia” is a tense and tawdry neo-noir about people on the edge. Much is left unsaid by characters whose life histories are hinted at but never explained. Sam’s limp and shaking hand suggest trauma, Elwood’s rage is illuminated in a one sided phone to his mother while Lila remains a mystery, a small town cipher. Bernthal and Poots perform with understated grace. Abbott is a coiled spring but with enough moments of humanity to prevent becoming a stereotype.
Director Jamie M. Dagg builds atmosphere all the way through. The tiny town and the twin senses of isolation and desperation bring all the story elements together to a slow boil. There is some action but this is a character study, not a police procedural or even a morality play. It’s part “Double Indemnity,” part “Blood Simple,” taking place in treacherous shadows with very little light.
“Sweet Virginia” takes place against a backdrop of duplicity and dread as Dagg maintains an air of menace that keeps things interesting.
From director Jamie M. Dagg: “Sweet Virginia” is being released on Friday December 1 through Elevation Pictures in Canada on iTunes etc. It will also be screening in the following theatres for a week.
If you would like to listen to me blather on about the film, I will be doing a Q & A in Toronto with Richard Crouse after the 7:00pm screening on Saturday Dec 2nd:-) That’s this Saturday. Thanks!
Watch the trailer HERE!
Toronto, ON Cineplex Yonge & Dundas Cinemas
Vancouver, BC Cineplex Park Avenue
Montreal, QC Cineplex Odeon Quartier Latin
Ottawa, ON Cineplex South Keys
Calgary, AB Cineplex Eau Claire Cinema
Winnipeg, MB Cineplex Cinema City McGillvray
Halifax, NX Cineplex Cinemas Parklane.
“La La Land” reinvents the traditional big screen musical by playing it straight. The original songs and new story feel like something Gene Kelly would approve of but not quite recognize as the form he helped perfect in Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Aspiring actress and barista Mia (Emma Stone) and serious jazz pianist Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) can’t help but meet cute. He honks his horn at her during a traffic jam. She flips him off. They meet again in a restaurant. She’s about to compliment him, he’s rude to her. Worse yet they bump into one another at a pool party where he’s playing with a 80s cover band, playing a-ha covers for be-bopping drunks. Third time is a charm and they finally connect, for real. Flirting, dancing and singing they build a relationship as they construct careers in modern day Los Angeles.
The real and the unreal collide in a film that values naturalism in an unnatural genre. Mia and Sebastian burst into song, dance on city streets but do so in the most unaffected of ways. It looks and feels like an old-school musical—the camera dances around the actors and it’s always magic hour—but Stone and Gosling are very contemporary in their approach to the material. Woven into the romantic, joyful script are real comments on the setting—“That’s LA, they worship everything,” says Sebastian, “but value nothing.”—a sense of the pleasure and pain that accompany passion, whether its for a person or a career and melancholy when things don’t quite work out. It’s a movie that dances to it’s own beat. By times bright and garish or atmospheric and moody, it’s never less than entertaining.
Gosling is a charming leading man and equal match for Stone whose remarkable face and expressive performance give the movie much of its heart. Director Damien Chazelle is clearly smitten with his leading lady, allowing his camera to caress her face in long, uninterrupted close-ups.
From a trickily edited opening song-and-dance number in a traffic jam to a spectacular dance among the stars to heartfelt human feelings, “La La Land” doesn’t just breathe new life into an old genre it performs CPR on it, bringing its beating heart back to vibrant life.
In “Poltergeist,” the new reworking of the 1982 ghost-in-the-TV Tobe Hooper cult classic chiller, when Mom (Rosemarie DeWitt), “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” you know, of course, here’s loads to be afraid of… like crappy special effects and a story almost entirely devoid of thrills or chills.
Sam Rockwell and DeWitt are Eric and Amy, underemployed parents of three, Maddy (Kennedi Clements), Griffin (Kyle Catlett) and Kendra (Saxon Sharbino). Forced to downsize, the young family relocates to a rundown and apparently haunted home in suburban Illinois. The older kids aren’t thrilled with their new home but little Maddy loves it, immediately talking to the invisible spirits that also live there.
On their first full night in the place Maddy modernizes the most famous visual from the original film by sitting in front of the flashing big screen television. “They’re here,” she says and soon things get poltergeisty. Clown dolls attack the kids and Maddy disappears but is able to communicate with them through the television. And people say there’s nothing worth watch on TV now that “Mad Men” has gone off the air.
They discover the house was built on top of an old cemetery but are told the bodies were “moved to a nicer neighbourhood.” Freaked out, Eric and Amy call in experts, Dr. Claire Powell (Jane Adams) from the local university’s Department of Paranormal Research and reality show ghostbuster Carrigan Burke (Jared Harris) to rid themselves of the pesky poltergeist and rescue Maddy from the 500 channel universe.
“Poltergeist” would more accurately have been called “Paychequegeist: Good Actors, Terrible Movie.” I hope whatever money Rockwell, DeWitt and Harris were paid for this was worth it because cash must have been the only incentive to sign on for this movie. It certainly wasn’t the script and this one is likely going to come back to haunt them
Where to start? How about Rockwell’s reaction to Maddy’s disappearance? “If we call the cops they’ll blame us,” he says, opting instead to bring in a ghostbuster to locate his youngest daughter. Or how about DeWitt’s sly smile after overhearing a lover’s tiff between Powell and Burke? Her daughter is being tormented by malicious spirits who aim to drag her to hell but, hey, laughter is the best medicine, right? Yes, it’s laughable, but for us, not her.
There is so much wrong with “Poltergeist” it’s hard to know where to begin. Sure little Kennedi Clements could probably win an award for Best Scared Face of the Year but she’s more scared than anyone in the audience for this generic reboot will ever be.
Anne Hathaway is getting a lot of notice for her raw edged work in Rachel Getting Married, and rightfully so. The young actress best known as the goody-two-shoes star of The Princess Diaries and Ella Enchanted has, in recent years, been making moves to distance herself from the young adult mainstream with a provocative role in Brokeback Mountain and a high profile turn in The Devil Wears Prada. In Rachel Gettting Married she hands in tour-de-force work that marks her first completely adult performance.
Shot cinéma vérité style on a combination of grainy, handheld 35 mm and consumer video cameras the movie begins with recovering addict Kym (Hathaway) leaving rehab to attend the wedding of her older sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt). Old wounds are reopened as family Kym tries to readjust to life with an overbearing father (Bill Irwin), absent mother (Debra Winger) and her sister’s upcoming “happy day.”
Director Jonathan Demme has spent most of the last ten years making documentaries and it shows in every frame of Rachel Getting Married. It feels like a doc, from the jiggly camera work to the raw, Dogme style of emotional intensity. The film was shot without rehearsal and it shows, in a good way. Scenes are frequently shot in long, uninterrupted Robert Altman-esque takes and the actor’s reactions often feel spontaneous and that feeling of naturalness deepens the believability of the story. It feels intimate, free-wheeling and unpredictable.
At the center of it all is Hathaway, who, surrounded by a cast comprised of old pros like Debra Winger and Bill Irwin and newcomers like TV On the Radio singer turned actor Tunde Adebimpe, is the emotional core of the film. Her greatest feat here is to play an unlikable, self-centered person and still have the audience feel sympathy for her. It’s an intense, unvarnished performance that reveals the pain that lurks beneath Kym’s goth-like exterior. She’s tough and fragile; someone who is able to live with her past sins, but can’t get over them. It’s an award caliber performance that she has hinted at before but never delivered.
Also very good and award worthy is Debra Winger as Kym’s detached mother Abby. Winger works infrequently, she’s only made four films since Y2K, but her work as the damaged Abby, a woman who cannot come to grips with the wellspring of emotion that exists inside her, is spectacular.
Rachel Getting Married isn’t a perfect movie. It is a rambling film with that suffers from self indulgence from Demme, who pushes the audience’s tolerance for wedding music—no matter how eclectic—to new extremes but its great performances and tough emotional truths more than make up for unnecessary excesses.
