I sit in with CKTB morning show host Steph Vivier to have a look at movies in theatres and streaming including the wonderful “Anora,” the intriguing “Conclave,” the interspecies bromance “Venom: The Last Dance,” the revenger thriller “Seeds” and thr rock doc “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band” on Disney+”.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
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.
“The Irishman,” starring septuagenarian powerhouses Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino, is based on “I Heard You Paint Houses” Charles Brandt’s book about a man who claims to have offed mobster Crazy Joe Gallo and Teamster Jimmy Hoffa. It’s familiar territory for the trio of stars, all of whom have made a career out of playing wiseguys, and for director Martin Scorsese, but it feels different. The heady, rambunctious filmmaking of “Goodfellas” and “Casino” is gone, replaced by the richly, contemplative tone of a man at the end of his life wondering if he did the right thing.
De Niro is Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran, an 82-year-old World War II veteran, truck driver, union leader and hitman. He developed his deadly skills as a combat veteran in Italy, talents he put to use as an associate of Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), head of a notorious crime family.
Now wheelchair bound in a retirement home Frank recounts, in flashback, how he rose from smuggler to hitman to Bufalino’s inner circle. “It was like the army,” he says. “You followed orders.” It’s a wild story that reads like it was torn out of the pages of a colorful twentieth century history book. In Frank’s tale crime and politics are bedmates, bound together by power struggles between the underworld and Washington, involvement in elections and even the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
Frank rise is accelerated when Bufalino gives him the job of overseeing Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino). Hoffa ushers Frank through the corridors of power and becomes a family friend but when the Teamster’s actions threaten to expose his mafia co-conspirators Frank is pressed to choose between his loyalty to Hoffa and Bufalino.
Much has been written about “The Irishman’s” three-and-a-half-hour running time and the movie hocus pocus that de-ages the leads, allowing them to play their characters from cradle to grave. Don’t buy into the distractions. Scorsese wrestles the story and technology into shape, making a film that plays like a requiem for the kind of characters that made him famous. Unlike the cocky “Goodfellas,” which is all about the rush, “The Irishman” is ripe with themes of loss and legacy, regret and mortality. It’s about the consequences of the life Frank chose for himself and is a devastating portrait of a forgotten man who did terrible things out of a sense of duty.
Lead by the trio of marquee actors, the cast is uniformly fine. Anna Paquin as Frank’s daughter takes a role made up of sideways glances and terse dialogue and turns it into a damning condemnation of Frank’s work. She conveys depths with just a turn of her head. Bobby Cannavale as the colourfully named Felix “Skinny Razor” DiTullio and Ray Romano as a mob lawyer add interesting hues to an already colorful story.
The holy trinity, De Niro, Pesci and Pacino, hand in late career work that feels like the culmination of a lifetime of character studies. This is an examination of men who live by a brutal code that leaves little wiggle room for mistakes and disrespect but each actor find ways to humanize their characters. Rich in detail, these actors riff off one another, finding internal rhythms in the repetitious way they speak to one another.
Pesci lets go of his famous “Like I’m a clown? I amuse you?” film persona to present understated work that is equal parts loyalty and menace. Pacino plays an over-the-top character with an unhinged gusto that breathes life into someone who is now a name from the history books but was once, as is said in the film, as popular as Elvis with the working man.
Strong work abounds but De Niro has the resonate moments. The look on his face as (MILD SPOILER ALERT) he makes the grim trip to Detroit to kill his friend is stoic but pained. Placed in an unthinkable position he grims up but you can sense the wheels turning in his head. He fuels a remarkably tense thirty-minute lead up to a senseless act of violence that will have you leaning forward in your seat.
It’s in the film’s elegiac final moments that De Niro brings all of Franks humanity to the fore. “You don’t know how fast it goes until you get there,” he says. It’s a quiet, unhurried analysis of a man’s final days as he looks back that erases the memory of De Niro in movies like “Dirty Grandpa,” reminding us why he was thought of as the best actor of his generation.
“The Irishman” is an event, a movie that feels like the obvious conclusion to the gangster stories the director and cast have been telling for decades.
By the time actress Gloria Grahame passed away in 1981 at age 57 she was largely forgotten. A new film, “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool,” aims to remind of us of the Oscar winner’s—she won the Best Supporting Actress award in 1952 for The Bad and the Beautiful—life, legacy and love.
When we meet Grahame (Annette Bening) she’s in the “whatever happened to” phase of her career. Hollywood is a distant memory and she’s now trading on whatever cache her name still holds, performing “The Glass Menagerie” in English regional theatres. Ailing, she calls on Peter Turner (Jamie Bell), a former lover and much younger man who once moved to New York to be with her. He’s now back at home in working-class Liverpool, struggling to make it as an actor.
As Grahame becomes sicker and sicker the movie moves along a fractured timeline to tell the story of their love affair and how sickness shattered their bliss and eventually brought them together again.
Director Paul McGuigan uses some slick camera tricks to jump around in time from the first blush of their relationship to the end and every point in between. Doors open in the present to reveal a scene in the past. It’s showy but dreamy, as though we are hopscotching through Peter’s memory.
Bell is a sweet, sensitive and thoughtful boy-toy whose sparks with Bening. He’s very good but this is Bening’s movie. Her Grahame is a wonder, effervescently flirty one second, frail the next. She is the keeper of a heartbreaking secret agenda and a vain woman facing the abyss. It’s remarkable stuff that sits comfortably alongside her stellar recent work in “The Face of Love,” “20th Century Woman” and “Rules Don’t Apply.”
“Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool” is a three Kleenex film that will make you want to go back and check out Grahame’s real life movies. If you haven’t already, check her out as the temptress with an eye for James Stewart in “It’s a Wonderful Life” or as Ado Annie in Oklahoma! She was a great talent and Bening does her justice.
