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 decadent period piece “Hedda,” the kid-friendly monster flick “Stitch Head” and the comedy-drama “Novelle Vague.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with Deb Hutton on NewsTalk 1010 to go over some of the week’s biggest entertainment stories and let you know what’s happening in theatres. We talk about Alan Hamel’s new project, an AI clone of his late wife Suzanne Sommers, the career of Chuck Spadina and have a look at the new rock biopic “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I joined CTV NewsChannel to have a look at new movies coming to theatres including the rock biopic “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” the Broadway drama “Blue Moon” and the psychological drama “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”
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 rock biopic “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” the Broadway drama “Blue Moon” and the psychological drama “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: An inside look at the creative process of an iconic performer, “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” is an up-close-and-personal look at the making of his 1982 album “Nebraska,” a turning point in Bruce Springsteen’s career. “It’s like he’s channeling something deeply personal and dark,” says Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong).
CAST: Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Gaby Hoffmann, Marc Maron, David Krumholtz. Directed by Scott Cooper.
REVIEW: Compared to other rock bios “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” is unlikely; as unlikely as Bruce Springsteen following up his biggest hit to date, the upbeat, jangly “Hungry Heart,” with the stark, downbeat “Nebraska.”
Set in the early eighties in the weeks and months after the close of the phenomenally success tour for “The River,” the film begins as a standard rock biography. Springsteen’s manager John Landau (Jeremy Strrong) is the buffer between a record company hungry for another record, preferably laden with big hits, and an artist (Jeremy Allen White) struggling to find himself in this wake of fame that came with his new, widespread success and the pressure to “hit it out of the park again.”
Springsteen’s journey “to find the real among the noise” leads him to a rented house in Colts Neck, New Jersey. Equipped with only a lo-fi Teac Tascam 144 four-track cassette recorder, he records the sparse demos inspired by the meditative crime drama “Badlands” intertwined with memories from his troubled childhood. The songs are stark, introspective and the polar opposite of what the record company is expecting.
“Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” is a quiet, minor chord portrait of an artist at a crossroads. But what begins as a story of an artist struggling with the pressures of fame and a greedy record company soon turns to the fight for artistic integrity as depression and isolation take hold.
“I know who you are,” says a car salesman, recognizing the rock star. “That makes one of us,” Springsteen replies with a straight face.
Director Scott Cooper, who also wrote the script based on the 2023 book “Deliver Me from Nowhere” by Warren Zanes, avoids most, but not all, of the rock bio genre’s trappings to deliver a brooding character study of a man battling depression as he is cut loose from the world he came from and thrust into an uncertain future.
It sounds like a cliché, but Jeremy Allen White channels Springsteen. His singing voice doesn’t quite match the Boss’s power, but in the film’s contemplative moments, and there are many, White is not afraid to leave space around the performance. His take on Springsteen is a vibe, as reliant on the character’s unspoken moments as it is on what the character actually says.
The movie does rock out from time to time with some randomly inserted concert footage (While “Born in the U.S.A.” was written for the “Nebraska” album, the inclusion of the full-band rave-up here may please fans but feels out of place) but works best when it focusses on White’s stripped-down performance.
The film is really a solo act.
The singer’s relationships are given a short shrift. His courtship of Jersey girl Faye Romano (Odessa Young) is underwritten and, considering how large The E Street Band looms in Springsteen’s mythology, they are barely a presence here. It’s in his bond with longtime manager Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) and the complicated relationship with his father (Stephen Graham) that he shows the kind of emotional vulnerability that lies at the heart of the performance.
“Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” is a solemn movie that drags in its latter section as Springsteen fights for the release of the starkly poetic “Nebraska.” The tortured artist’s insistence on musical integrity is commendable but feels repetitious by the film’s end.
Still, Cooper’s focus on the artist’s path, on resilience, on forgiveness and not simply Springsteen’s Wikipedia page, is admirable.
SYNOPSIS: In “Venom: The Last Dance,” the final instalment of the “Venom” franchise, and now playing in theatres, Tom Hardy returns as Eddie Brock, former investigative journalist whose body plays host to extraterrestrial symbiote Venom, whose presence imbues him with super-human abilities. Imagine an anti-superhero Jekyll and Hyde situation where Ed and Venom are a hybrid, two beings in one body, and you get the idea. Pursued by soldier Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), scientist Dr. Payne (Juno Temple) and powerful alien supervillain Knull (Andy Serkis), the dynamic duo are on the run to save themselves and the world. “Eddie,” says Venom, “I’m with you to the end.”
CAST: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach, Andy Serkis and Stephen Graham. Written and directed by Kelly Marcel.
REVIEW: More an interspecies bromance comedy than end of the world movie, “Venom: The Last Dance” is a frat party of a film, complete with swearing, booze, dancing and a disregard for the rules (in this case, the rules of storytelling).
Episodic in nature, the story ping pongs between the misadventures of Eddie/Venom, the military alien warehouse Area 51, the Paris Casino in Las Vegas and the back of a Volkswagen Westfalia Camper.
The disparate puzzle pieces fit together to form a fast paced, if disjointed, whole, but most often, the movie feels like it’s biding its time, waiting for the climactic battle scene, which, when it comes, takes up about a third of the film’s runtime with frenetic, often hard-to-follow alien-on-alien action.
For instance, the Volkswagen dwelling alien hunters, led by the ever-reliable Rhys Ifans, add little, except for a few minutes on to the film’s scant runtime. Ifans and family sing a song, but their musical contribution pales compared to their real purpose—to be victims in need of rescue in the film’s final moments.
The star of the show is the interplay between Eddie and Venom. It’s a smart-alecky double act, with Hardy playing Eddie as a bit of a bubblehead, and Venom as the reckless, sharp-tongued alien. It’s Abbott and Costello, housed in one body, with an extra-terrestrial twist.
The first two films in the franchise—“Venom” (2018) and “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” (2021)—often felt unintentionally funny. The new movie embraces the absurdity of the character(s) and, as a result, Eddie/Venom’s odd-couple bickering is the film’s highlight.
What it is not, is emotional. Their bond is played for laughs, up to, and including, a montage of their happiest moments together set to Maroon 5’s syrupy tune “Memories.” Don’t expect a poignancy or to shed a tear. There’s nothing wistful about the final outing between Eddie and Venom. It’s all fun and games until it isn’t.
“Venom: The Last Dance” is an action-packed time waster that zips through the story in just ninety minutes (plus an endless credit roll and two lame post credit scenes) to wrap up the current iteration of the character, while opening the door for future sequels.
SYNOPSIS: “Young Woman and the Sea,” a new period sports drama starring Daisy Ridley and now streaming on Disney+, is the true story of the “Queen of the Waves,” American swimming champion Gertrude Ederle. Her story of triumph includes winning a gold medal at the 1924 Olympic Games, and later, becoming the first woman to swim the twenty-one miles across the English Channel.
CAST: Daisy Ridley, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Stephen Graham, Kim Bodnia, Christopher Eccleston, Glenn Fleshler. Directed by Joachim Rønning.
REVIEW: A classic underdog sports movie, “Young Woman and the Sea” is a handsomely mounted and passionately performed biopic. Old fashioned in the best of ways, it leans into its inspiring, against all odds story with crowd-pleasing vigor.
Told in chronological order, there aren’t many surprises in the retelling of Ederle’s story, but the portrayal of resilience and perseverance in the face of the era’s sexism, and the physical demands of the sport, make for good family viewing.
Physically and emotionally, Ridley convinces as Ederle. Her ocean swimming scenes, shot in amid fierce currents and chilly temperatures in the English Channel and the Black Sea, translates the swimmer’s struggle, and the drama of the event, to the screen in a way that shooting against a green screen in a pool simply could not. Her blue lips, the treacherous black water, and whatever lies bneath, become characters in her struggle as the viewer is immersed in the journey.
As Ederle, Ridley is a mix-and-match of determination, kindness and tenderness. It’s a bit hagiographic, but suits the movie’s old school tone.
Dusted lightly with schmaltz, “Young Woman and the Sea” is predictable, but its sheer pluckiness and eagerness to uplift earns it a recommendation.
Richard sits on on “CTV News at Noon” to review the latest Tom Hanks’ film “Greyhound,” now streaming on Apple TV+ and talk about what the new TV season might bring.
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 45:48)
Tom Hanks is the above the title star of “Greyhound,” a new naval thriller now streaming on Apple TV+, but the star of the film is the tension that takes hold in the first ten minutes and does not let go.
Set during the onset of the United States’ involvement in World War II, Hanks plays Commander Ernest Krause, a stoic sailor on his first command. His mission is to lead an international convoy of 37 Allied ships across the North Atlantic with a wolfpack of German U-boats in hot pursuit. Running out of depth charges and fuel, the convoy needs air cover which is hours away.
That’s it. “Greyhound” Isn’t so much story driven as it is propelled by the action. In a breathless ninety minutes director Aaron Schneider, working from a script written by Hanks, adapted from C. S. Forester’s 1955 book “The Good Shepherd,” ratchets up tension, creating an old-fashioned action movie that mines a life and death situation for real cinematic thrills. That being said, there’s no fight scenes, you never see the face of the enemy and the only dad bodies are wrapped in linen, getting a proper burial at sea.
Inspired by the Battle of the Atlantic, the movie takes place completely on board the USS Keeling (Call sign “Greyhound”). Krause is in the ship’s claustrophobic helm for ninety percent of the running time, barking orders, peering through binoculars, making hard decisions with consequences that will affect the lives of hundreds of people.
Hanks plays Krause as a man with nerves of steel who hides his concern behind his furrowed brow. In the heat of battle every second counts and both Hanks and Schneider understand that the mental gymnastics required to do the job must be front and centre. This is a movie where the fiercest action is verbal. Sure, there’s gunfire, torpedoes and explosions, but the exciting stuff comes from Krause’s mental perspective. Never have coordinated turn equations and rudder work been this exciting.
“Greyhound” was originally set for a theatrical release. The more sweeping shots, those of the ships as specks in the vast ocean, feel like they would have benefited from the big screen treatment, but the story, driven by intellect, the effectiveness of team effort and old-fashioned thrills, works well in any format.
