CTV NEWSCHANNEL: ‘It feels like an infomercial’: Richard on ‘Melania’ doc
I join the CTV NewsChannel to have a look at the documentary “Melania,” the desert island drama of “Send Help” and the déjà vu of “Shelter.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Posts Tagged ‘Sam Raimi’
NEWSTALK 1010 WITH DEB HUTTON: MELANIA, MINNEAPOLIS, AND MORE!
I sit with Deb Hutton on NewsTalk 1010 to go over some of the week’s biggest entertainment stories and movies playing in theatres. We talk about the documentary “Melania,” why Donald Trump called Bruce Springsteen “not a talented guy,” the big players at the Grammys and I review Rachel McAdams in “Send Help.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
CTV NEWSCHANNEL: RICHARD’s MOVIE REVIEWS FOR FRIDAY JANUARY 30, 2026!
I join the CTV NewsChanel to talk about the desert island drama of “Send Help,” the déjà vu of “Shelter” and the awesome animation of “ARCO.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
YOU TUBE: THREE MOVIES/THIRTY SECONDS! FAST REVIEWS FOR BUSY PEOPLE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make a smoothie! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the desert island drama of “Send Help,” the déjà vu of “Shelter” and the awesome animation of “ARCO.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SEND HELP: 3 ½ STARS. “a nasty piece of work but in a good way.”
SYNOPSIS: In “Send Help,” the new survival thriller starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien now playing in theatres, the power dynamic changes between a mousy office worker and her arrogant boss when they are stranded on a deserted island in a desperate fight for survival.
CAST: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Edyll Ismail, Dennis Haysbert, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang, Thaneth Warakulnukroh, Emma Raimi. Directed by Sam Raimi.
REVIEW: “Send Help” has a jump scare or two, gallons of blood and some grisly moments but this isn’t Sam Raimi in full-on horror mode à la “Drag Me to Hell.” Instead, it’s kind of like a viciously humorous mash-up of “Survivor,” “Gilligan’s Island” and season four of “The Apprentice” with a side of “Misery.”
Rachel McAdams plays Linda Liddle, a genius with numbers, but socially awkward office worker in the Strategy & Planning department of a large company. After seven years of keeping her head down and doing the work, she is passed up for a promised promotion when the owner of the company dies, and his arrogant son Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) is put in charge. “I need someone who can charm a room, who can make a deal, somebody who golfs,” he sneers. “Does that make sense?”
When the company jet goes down during a work trip to Thailand, Linda and Bradley wash up on the shore of a deserted island, the lone survivors of the crash. As she uses lessons learned by watching the reality show “Survivor” to nurse him back to health, he takes every opportunity to remind her who’s boss. “Watch how you speak to me. You work for me. You got a problem with that?”
But when it becomes apparent the teachings of the boardroom don’t apply to life on a desert island, the power dynamic changes. “We’re not in the office anymore Bradley,” she says. “OK?”
“Send Help” is a nasty piece of work. In a good way. Director Raimi, working from a script by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, sets up a study in control dynamics that allows for maximum meanness and brutal betrayal all covered with a lush layer of uncomfortable laughs.
Essentially a two hander, the real success of the film relies on its leads.
As the gauche Linda, McAdams leaves behind the glamour of many of her most famous roles to embrace the character’s awkwardness and rage. The island situation offers Linda a sense of control she’s never experiences before and she is willing to go to extremes to maintain it. It’s a wacky, violent and unpredictable performance that allows McAdams to use the full arsenal of her talent. Behind the million dollar smile she’s funny, feral and furious, and it’s a blast to see her do something we’ve never seen her do before.
As toxic manchild Bradley, O’Brien isn’t as flashy as McAdams but manages several memorable moments. His chewing of food alone—which ranks on par with Denis Quaid’s mastication work in “The Substance”—could have earned this movie an R-rating for its unpleasantness. Misophoniacs beware.
“Send Help” is a twisted crowd-pleaser powered by frustration, empowerment and fun lead performances.
BOY KILLS WORLD: 2 ½ STARS. “a ballet of bullets with buckets of blood.”
Blood drenched and brutal, stylish and silly, “Boy Kills World,” a new action comedy starring Bill Skarsgård, and now playing on theatres, is a pure and simple story of revenge.
A prologue paints a picture of a post-apocalyptic future. Fascist leader Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen) rules with an iron fist, using cruelty and unhinged televised murders called “The Culling,” featuring breakfast cereal mascots, to “make an example of those who pose a threat to the Van Der Koys.”
Into this, comes Skarsgård as Boy, a youngster left traumatized by Van Der Koy’s murder of his entire family. Deaf and mute, the orphaned Boy is rescued by enigmatic martial arts master Shaman (Yayan Ruhian). Years of training transform Boy from a small scared child, to a muscle-bound killer filled with rage, thoughts of vengeance and guided by an inner voice, courtesy of his favorite video game.
“I am an instrument, shaped for a single purpose,” his inner voice declares. “to kill Hilda Van Der Koy!”
With the help of resistance fighters Basho (Andrew Koji) and Benny (Isaiah Mustafa), Boy unleashes a deranged campaign of chaos that will lead him to the top echelons of power.
Recently “Monkey Man” mined some of the same territory as “Boy Kills World.” Both are films about avenging the death of a mother, both are high octane fight fests, but “Boy Kills World” replaces the solemn tone of “Monkey Man” with irreverence. The new film is essentially a series of cartoony, splatter-zone fight sequences hung around a simple story that sees Boy seek revenge using fists, knives, guns and even a cheese grater to an armpit.
“Boy Kills World” packs a wallop in those scenes, but does not deliver an emotional smackdown. Director and screenwriter Moritz Mohr floats a family story in the puddles of blood left behind by Boy’s rampage, but by the time we get there it is too little too late. We’ve already been desensitized by the ballet of bullets and buckets of blood. The tonal shift doesn’t work and goes on too long, but for genre fans, Skarsgård’s finely sculpted abs and twitchy action should satisfy.
DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS: 3 ½ STARS. “ridiculous and rad.”
The “Doctor Strange” movies are the trippiest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The mystical superhero’s introduction, 2016’s “Doctor Strange,” was a kaleidoscopic mix of images and ideas. The new film, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” starring Benedict Cumberbatch and now playing in theatres, kicks it up a notch. With a visual style that suggests M.C. Escher on an acid trip, it is a hallucinogenic ride that will make your eyeballs spin.
The action begins in Dr Stephen Strange’s (Cumberbatch) universe with the introduction of America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a teenager with the ability to navigate the multiverse and access portals into alternate realities. In the search for her parents, she has explored 73 universes, each with their own, unique sets of rules, all the while pursued by a demon who wants to steal her powers.
This is not sorcery, Strange says. As old Blue Eyes once sang, it’s witchcraft, so who better to consult than Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), former Avenger and powerful practitioner of witchcraft?
He’s looking for advice that will help him save America, but instead is sent off on a wild and dangerous trip into a series of alternate realities to fight a power that threatens to subjugate the entire multiverse.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” begins with a bang. A loud and proud action scene kicks things off with an exaggerated H.P. Lovecraft creature terrorizing Chavez. It sets the wild and wacky tone that applies to most of the picture. A mix of action, horror and comic book comedy, it recalls the sweet spot that made director Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” movies such a blast. Raimi brings a kind of anarchy here that is missing from the carefully controlled Marvel films and when it is fun, it’s really fun. There’s even a battle of the bands, a musical showdown, that is equal parts ridiculous and rad.
But there is much more to the story than interdimensional shenanigans.
At its heart “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” isn’t a story about magic, it’s a tale about the things we do for love. Whether it is Wanda’s search for family, ably brought to life by Olsen’s poignant performance, or Strange’s attraction to Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), this story has a strongly beating heart.
Unfortunately, it also has a bumpy, uneven script. As it careens toward the Marvel friendly climax it loses steam as the action becomes muddied and the script begins to sew up any loose ends left dangling across then universes.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” doesn’t have the weight of “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” another recent examination of the multiverse, but despite its unevenness, it’s a good, and sometimes gory, time at the movies.
HALLOWEEN WEEK 2021: teens alone in a cabin in the woods – what could go wrong?
Are there any more frightening words in a horror movie synopsis than “five friends head to a remote cabin”? That phrase has been the starting point for many scary scripts, conjuring up visions of ancient evil life forms, dangerous hillbilly types, mysterious incantations and lines like “No matter what, we have to stay together.”
The “cabin in the woods” genre is decades old, but almost always follows the same formula—five good-looking teens, say, a jock, a stoner, some hot girls, one a brainiac, and a party girl—go to a cabin, only one or two make it home.
The remade Evil Dead shakes up the formula to an extent. In it some handsome people head to an isolated cottage not to drink and party but to help Mia (Jane Levy) kick her addiction to drugs. The details are different, but the outcome—and this isn’t a spoiler, just a statement of fact—is the same and that’s what we like about the genre.
The most well loved “cabin in the woods” movies must be the first two Sam Raimi Evil Dead films. The original, and namesake of the series, was actually shot in a real life abandoned cottage. In it five friends go to a cabin in the woods (sound familiar?), discover a ‘Book of the Dead’ and unleash flesh-possessing demons. It made a star of Bruce Campbell and lead to a sequel, Evil Dead II, another cabin movie that is equal parts silly and scary.
Eli Roth made his directorial debut with Cabin Fever, a movie inspired by real life events. The idea for a film about a group of friends in a (you guessed it!) cabin in the woods, tormented by a flesh-eating virus and homicidal townsfolk, came to him as he worked on a horse farm. “I was cleaning hay out of this barn and got this infection on my face,” he says. The rash got so bad that, “I went to shave and I literally shaved a third of my face off.” It hurt, but he looked at the bright side. “I thought, ‘This is actually going make a great movie one day.’”
Sleepaway Camp—ignore the sequels, although the number two’s title Unhappy Campers is pretty great—sets the action at a summer camp. This gory slasher flick is most notable for a wild twist ending that has been called a “jaw-dropping, tape-rewinding, pause-and-stare-and-call-your-friends-over-to-stare” moment.
Metro In Focus: Tom Holland the next man up in Spider-Man’s web slinging suit
Play it again, Sam.
This weekend, Peter Parker swings back into theatres, but it’s not Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield behind the familiar red-and-black-webbed mask. Instead, for the third time in 15 years the web-slinging role has been recast. This time around, 21-year-old English actor and dancer Tom Holland wears the suit as the star of Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Holland’s extended Captain America: Civil War cameo in 2016 almost stole the show, displaying the character’s bright-eyed, boyish spark but this is his first outing as the title star. So far he’s getting rave reviews. After a recent critics screening the twitterverse lit up.
“Tom Holland is perfect,” wrote one poster, “He’s having the time of his life and it shows.” “I don’t want to spoil it,” wrote another, “but they found a way to make Spider-Man relatable like never before on screen, that’s where @TomHolland1996 shines.”
Spider-Man: Homecoming is poised to hit big at the theatres, breathing new life into a character we all know but it is also a shining example of the old adage, “The only constant is change.” Hollywood loves to reboot movies — we’ll soon see new versions of It, Flatliners and Blade Runner — but while the titles stay the same, the faces change.
Not everyone embraces the changes. When Garfield took over for Maguire in 2012 1234zoomer commented on The Amazing Spider-Man: “IS NOT GOING TO BE THE SAME WITHOUT TOBBY!!!,” (her uppercase and spelling, not mine), but Maguire was gracious, saying, “I am excited to see the next chapter unfold in this incredible story.”
Whether Holland acknowledges Maguire or Garfield is yet to be seen, but at least one replacement had the manners to recognize his precursor.
In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 007 No. 2 George Lazenby paid a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the original Bond, Sean Connery. After a wild battle to rescue Contessa Teresa (played by Diana Rigg) the new James Bond didn’t get the girl. “This never happened to the other fellow,” he says, looking dejectedly into the camera.
Connery went on to co-star in The Hunt for Red October with Alec Baldwin playing Jack Ryan, a character later portrayed by Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck.
In 2014 Chris Pine (who also took over the part of Captain Kirk in Star Trek from William Shatner) played the super spy in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. He admits, “We didn’t totally get that right,” but still has hopes for the series. “It’s a great franchise, and if it’s not me, then I hope it gets a fifth life at this point. I hope it’s done again and with a great story.”
The Batman franchise also has had a revolving cast. Since 1943 eight actors have played the Caped Crusader, including Lewis G. Wilson, who at 23 remains the youngest actor to play the character, and George Clooney who admits he was “really bad” in Batman & Robin.
Most recently Ben Affleck, dubbed Bat-Fleck by fans, has played the Dark Knight but probably the most loved Bat-actor of all time is the late Adam West. West, who passed away last month at age 88, admits playing Batman typecast him but says, “I made up my mind a long time ago to enjoy it. Not many actors get the chance to create a signature character.”
