I sit with NewsTalk 1010 host Deb Hutton to talk about Bryan Adams and his new single “Lake Ontario,” why people are flooding back to the movies, the rerturn of Jennifer Lawrence to a multi-billion dollar franchise and I review “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 26:280
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll. This week we talk about the passing of Patrick Stewart and I have a look at the new movies coming to theatres including the family dramedy “& Sons,” the crime drama “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,” and the historical drama “Fatherland.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to wind your watch. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the family dramedy “& Sons,” the crime drama “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,” and the historical drama “Fatherland.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: in “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” John Turturro plays a pickpocket who gets in over his head with some very bad people with deep pockets.
CAST: John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Will Price, Tatiana Maslany, Steve Buscemi. Written and directed by Noah Segan.
REVIEW: A story of crime and nostalgia, “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” is a showcase for John Turturro’s restrained portrayal of a man out of time. “I spent my life in people’s pockets,” he says.
Turturro is Harry Lehman, a veteran pickpocket whose best days are behind him. In an increasingly cashless society, pickpocketing wallets is less profitable than ever, and even the watches he’s able to lift aren’t worth what they once were. With a disabled wife at home, he’s in desperate need of quick cash but when he steals and fences a valuable USB stick from Dylan (Will Price), the son of a powerful crime family, he puts his beloved life in danger.
In a race against the clock to protect his vulnerable wife from the ruthless Dylan, Harry must rely on decades of criminal know how to get the USB back. “You know the consequence of stealing from a family like mine,” Dylan says. “There’s no coming back from this.”
Like its main character, “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” is a throwback. It breathes the same air as other movies that celebrate New York’s old-school seedy side like “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” “Fat City” and “Pickup on South Street.” Henry is an anachronism, an aging thief hanging on to the old ways in a city that is constantly changing.
Turturro captures Harry’s world weariness in a tender performance that emphasizes the character’s charm and tenacity, with a hint of regret. Harry is a skilled, but low-level criminal who values the art of the “lift” as much as he does the money he makes doing it. A virtuoso of a craft that is quickly becoming obsolete, he struggles to find a place for himself in an evolving city.
Turturro’s charismatic but understated work is echoed by co-stars Steve Buscemi and Giancarlo Esposito. The trio bring a wistfulness to the story that may be an uncommon tone for a crime drama but works here as a portrait of broken people on the fringes.
“The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” is a lion-in-winter character study, wonderfully performed by Turturro, in a film that celebrates a kind of often-forgotten characters pushed aside by changing times.
SYNOPSIS: In “Klara and the Sun,” a new science fiction film from director Taika Waititi, an obsolete companion android attempts to bond with a sick girl. “Until recently, I didn’t think that humans could choose loneliness. That there were sometimes forces more powerful than the wish to avoid loneliness.”
CAST: Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Mia Tharia, Aran Murphy, Steve Buscemi, and Natasha Lyonne. Directed and co-written (with Dahvi Waller) by Taika Waititi.
REVIEW: Co-writer and director Taika Waititi turns the whimsey up to 11 in this adaptation of a based on 2021 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Set at a time of unprecedented genetic enhancement and social division, “Klara and the Sun” begins with a solar-powered Artificial Friend named Klara (Jenna Ortega) longing to be chosen as a companion.
When she is selected by a sick teenager named Josie (Mia Tharia), she carefully studies her new owner and her family, learning about their emotions, rituals, and relationships in order to aid the sick girl in any way she can.
As she comes to know her human family, Klara learns that love is a combination of happiness, pain and sacrifice.
A techno fairytale, “Klara and the Sun” features some great, whimsical performances and visuals but is let down by a story that skims along the surface of what it means to be human. No amount of sunny optimism and cutesy pop psychology can make up for the script’s lack nuance and abundance of Hallmark-esque sentimentality.
Ortega hands in a spirited, but one-note, performance that relies on saucer-eyed looks and awkward, robotic movements. An overload of quirky, its committed, but it feels like a cartoon rather than a conduit for the story’s poignant aspects.
“Klara and the Sun” breathes the same air as “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” “After Yang” and “Robot & Frank” but without the emotional or intellectual impact those films provide.
SYNOPSIS: “Transformers One” is the origin story of the two Transformers titans, Optimus Prime and Megatron, and how they altered the fate of Cybertron forever.
CAST: Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Hamm. Directed by Josh Cooley.
REVIEW: “Transformers One” is the story of an ideological split that drives a wedge between two lifelong friends. Nope, it’s not the story of you and your college pal who has decided to vote for Trump, it’s the animated origin story of the leaders of the Autobots and the Decepticons, the twins towers of the “Transformers” series.
When we first meet them, Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry) are
Cybertronian workers who can’t shapeshift into cars, guns or anything else. They are designed for work, nothing more. Under the rule of Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm), who they view as a kind and benevolent leader, the pair work in the mines harvesting valuable commodities.
Before they become frenemies they have a great vibe, and the film is a fast-paced blast, filled with humor and heart. It’s a buddy movie, complete with good natured ribbing between the two, some slapstick shenanigans and a bit of playful competition before D-16 allows feelings of betrayal to colour his view of the world.
As their relationship sours, the film becomes darker, but that transformation brings with it an emotional element that while inevitable, also feels bittersweet.
Hemsworth, alongside Keegan-Michael Key as B-127 (ie: Bumblebee) and Scarlett Johansson as Elita-1, deliver solid voicework, but Henry is the MVP. On his way to becoming antagonist Megatron, D-16 has the biggest character arc, and Henry gives this bucket of bolts real personality and effectively conveys the sense of disillusionment that was the catalyst for his trip to the dark side.
The animation is slick and imaginative, although the battle scenes are often so frenetic it’s hard to discern who is fighting who. Still, the visuals sparkle, especially the inventive sci fi landscapes in the background of the above ground scenes.
“Transformers One” is a standalone movie, one that offers up copious Easter Eggs for longtime fans, and a top-notch, entertaining entryway for new fans.
The fourth and final instalment of the “Hotel Transylvania” franchise, which began in 2012, comes to Amazon Prime minus Adam Sandler, but with the addition of some monstrously heartwarming messages for kids.
When the animated action begins, Count Dracula (once voiced by Sandler, now played by Brian Hull) is on the brink of retirement. His daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) and her husband Johnny (Andy Samberg) are poised to inherit the hotel, but Johnny senses that Dracula doesn’t want him, a human, running things. Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan) and his Monsterfication Ray offers an answer. It turns Johnny into a winged monster, but when things go sideways, the ray also transforms Dracula and his monster friends into humans. “Being a human is the worst,” Drac complains of the movie’s “Freaky Friday” twist.
“You don’t recognize me?” asks Griffin (David Spade), the invisible man, after his human reveal.
“I have literally never seen you before,” says Mavis.
Mavis, Johnny and the Drac Pack head to a place deep in the Amazon, the only place where the transformations can be reversed, in search of a cure for their situation. “If we don’t fix you guys soon,” says Mavis. “You’ll be like this forever.”
Like the other, big screen entries in the “Hotel Transylvania” series this movie is loud and frenetic. The goofy, colorful action feels like it could be from almost any other animated movie but the characters and the fun voice work (from actors like Steve Buscemi, Kathryn Hahn, Jim Gaffigan, Molly Shannon, Keegan-Michael Key and Fran Drescher) cut through the noise.
They are all unusual characters, but they’ve found their community. They accept one another, like family does. “Transformania” highlights the family feel by allowing the Drac Pack and Johnny, characters we’ve been watching for three other films, to learn what it is like to see the world through one another’s eyes. It’s a lesson in tolerance and acceptance that feels earned, no matter how outlandish the story may be.
The life lessons are wedged between a monster mash of laughs and action, some of which parents may find headache inducing, but, like Dracula, kids should be able to sink their teeth into it.
For six seasons on “Saturday Night Live” Pete Davidson has tempered humour with acute candor to forge a deeply personal kind of comedy based on his life experiences. His new film, “The King of Staten Island,” now on VOD, is his most self-confessional work yet.
Davidson plays Scott, a semi-fictional version of himself, as a directionless twenty-four-year old still living with his widowed mother Margie (Marisa Tomei). When he was seven his firefighter father was killed in the line of duty, leaving a wound on Scott’s psyche that has never healed. He’s so skinny and pale with such large dark circles under his eyes his on-and-off girlfriend Kelsey (Bel Powley) says he “looks like an anorexic panda,” and his patchwork of random tattoos leads a friend to call him a “human sketchbook.” He dreams of one day opening up a restaurant-slash-tattoo parlor but spends most of his time smoking weed and hanging out with his childhood pals.
When Margie becomes romantically involved with Ray (Bill Burr), a firefighter with a hair trigger temper, it forces Scott to confront the past tragedy in his life so he can move forward.
“The King of Staten Island” is an imagined version of Davidson’s life if he hadn’t found comedy and become famous. His father Scott was a member of Ladder Company 118 in Brooklyn Heights and died responding to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That loss has become the bedrock of his work and provides the emotional backbone of this film.
Director Judd Apatow is no stranger to making films with big hearts and dirty mouths. Like his previous films, like “Trainwreck,” he frontloads the story with outrageous laughs that slowly give way to a funny but more restrained resolution.
Along the way Davidson delivers a performance that lifts his patented millennial slacker routine to a new level. He’s a natural performer, charismatic and likeable, with a deep well of emotion that lies just beneath his pothead exterior. He’s a perfect vessel to tell a story about someone experiencing profound loss.
The supporting cast is terrific. Burr embodies the ragehead with a heart of gold, drifting through life while Tomei has an interesting arc as a woman who lets go of the past to find a new future.
The premise of “The King of Staten Island” doesn’t sound like the stuff of comedy but this story of how tragedy effects a family balances humour with heartfelt and humanistic observations in a very winning way.
The Invisible Man, Frankenstein, the Mummy and let’s not forget Dracula all make appearances in “Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation” but the new, animated Adam Sandler movie isn’t about the monsters, it’s about the importance of kindness and family.
At the beginning of the film Dracula (voice of Sandler) is feeling down, stressed out from the pressure of running his luxury hotel. On top of that, seems even the Prince of Darkness has trouble meeting women. He’s forlorn, hasn’t had a date in 100 years and his voice-activated dating app is no help. “I’m lonely,” he says. “You want bologna?” it replies.
Noticing her dad is depressed daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) arranges for a special treat; some time away with family and friends. “I figured you need a vacation from running everyone else’s vacations,” she says. She books passage on the monster cruise of a lifetime, a journey into the heart of the Bermuda Triangle.
Once onboard Drac immediately falls for Captain Ericka (Kathryn Hahn). The heart knows what it wants, even if it is a cold, un-beating heart. They hit it off, but it turns out Ericka might have an ulterior motive for returning Drac’s advances.
“Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation” is filled with the easy sentimentality that mars Sandler’s live action films. Good messages about acceptance—“We’re here, we’re hairy and it’s our right to be scary!”—tradition and finding your own way in the world—“ You have to honour the past but we have to make our own future,” says Drac.—are hammered home like a stake through the heart.
Surrounding the family friendly clichés are an untraditional cast of cute monsters and that’s the movie’s strength. The fun of “Hotel Transylvania 3” is in the details not the story. The kid friendly creepy crawlies, deadpan fish cruise ship staff, Grandpa Dracula’s (Mel Brooks) skimpy withered green body and Captain Ericka’s underwater craft that looks like it just floated in from “Yellow Submarine” are all a hoot. Come for the creatures, stay for the silly fun.
“Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation” doesn’t add up to much story-wise—music and dance numbers, though inventively staged, pad out the running time to feature length—but the messages of tolerance and kindness are important themes in today’s increasingly serious world. “Gotta be great-a than the hatas,” says one monster. That’s advice you can take to the (blood) bank.
