Posts Tagged ‘Sarah Pidgeon’

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER: 2 STARS. “Nostalgia is overrated.”

SYNOPSIS: Set in the coastal town of Southport, North Carolina “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” the rebooted slasher film now playing in theatres, sees a group of friends menaced by a serial killer a year after they accidentally killed a man and covered up the crime. When they realize the killer is imitating the deadly hook-wielding fisherman who plagued the town in 1997, they ask Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the two survivors of the 1997 Southport massacre for help. “Nothing holds people accountable like a good old fashioned Fisherman murder spree.”

CAST: Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Billy Campbell, Gabbriette Bechtel, Austin Nichols, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt. Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.

REVIEW: You can’t keep a good serial killer down. “Scream’s” Ghostface and “Halloween’s” Michael Myers both recently made bloody comebacks and later this year “Saw’s” Jigsaw will be up to his ole tricks once again. Its’s nostalgia for the colourful villains of days past, but sometimes, as Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) declares in “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” “Nostalgia is overrated.”

She’s right.

There’s never been that much going on in the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” movies.

From the 1997 original through its sequels and the 2006 reboot, (“I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” and the reboot “I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer”), the films have consistently seemed like lesser versions of “Scream,” lacking its self-aware tone, meta commentary, and compelling characters.

The new trip down memory lane, a legacy sequel that unites new characters with returning members of the original cast, stays true to the franchise. There’s a new spin on the death that kicks off the action, a fresh crop of young victims and a deadly fisherman who is certainly nobody’s friend.

But none of it adds up to much.

The new characters are essentially bait for the serial killer without enough personality to make the audience care about what happens to them. In an effort to avoid the hook they scurry around the screen, with concerned looks on their good-looking faces, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that the movie values nostalgia over actual thrills. The kills, and let’s face it, that’s why we watch movies like this, aren’t grisly enough to be memorable, and neither are the characters.

When Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) says, “This whole experience has been, like, zero out of five stars,” it’s hard not to agree with her.

Strangely, the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” mid-credit scene (NO SPOILERS HERE) sets up the movie for a sequel, and, in two or three minutes, is more entertaining than the movie that came before it.

THE FRIEND: 3 ½ STARS. “the transformational power of companionship.”

SYNOPSIS: In “The Friend,” a new drama now playing in theatres, Naomi Watts plays a woman who must clean up the loose ends of her late friend Walter’s estate, including finding a home for his massive Great Dane named Apollo.

CAST: Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, Sarah Pidgeon, Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, Ann Dowd, Bing. Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel.

REVIEW: Dog lovers planning on seeing “The Friend” may want to add in a bit of extra cash for Kleenex into the weekly budget. An understated story about the transformational power of companionship, it will pull at your heartstrings like a Great Dane pulling on its leash.

Bill Murray plays Walter, an author, raconteur and university professor. He’s also the proud dad to a dog so large it puts the Great into Great Dane. Named Apollo, the dog was found abandoned and became Walter’s cohort in the months leading up to his death by suicide.

After the funeral Walter’s widow Barbara (Noma Dumezweni) approaches her late husband’s best friend Iris (Naomi Watts). “I wanted to ask you if you could take the dog,” she says. “This is what Walter wanted.”

Trouble is, Iris lives in a rent-controlled New York City apartment with a no dogs policy. Also, she doesn’t really like dogs, but something about Apollo’s grief at the loss of his master clicks with her, and soon the two are cooped up in Iris’s small apartment, despite the objections of her superintendent Hektor (Felix Solis).

“The Friend” is a gentle movie that is about much more than if Iris can finagle a way to get Apollo on her lease. This is a movie that, in very subtle ways, essays the difficult process of moving after a friend takes their own life, especially as the echoes of the life that once was still reverberate loudly.

It meanders and is occasionally repetitive, but the emotional stakes are very high. Watts plays Iris on simmer, gradually allowing her grief to come to a boil. Two remarkable scenes, one in a psychiatrist’s office, the other an imaginary confrontation, reveal the character’s depth without excessive sentimentality.

Murray, who appears only briefly, is a welcome presence, but it is Bing the Great Dane and his expressive eyes, who deserves top billing.

“The Friend” is a low-key but heartfelt film that is more than just a movie about a depressed, cute dog. It’s a movie about a depressed, cute dog that treats the dog’s feelings with grace and care.