Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to do a high five! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the thrills of “Black Bag,” the speculative “Can I Get A Witness?” and the psychological satire of “Opus.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I joined CP24 Breakfast to have a look at new movies coming to theatres, including the spy drama “Black Bag” and the psychedelic psychodrama “Opus” and the Crave comedy “The Trades.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with CKTB morning show host Steph Vivier to have a look at movies in theatres including the thrills of “Black Bag,” the speculative “Can I Get A Witness?,” the psychological satire of “Opus,” the action of “Novocaine” and the aniimated antics of “The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift” for “Booze & Reviews!” This week I review the espionage thriller “Black Bag” and suggest drinks that real spies–not movie spies–drink when they are on assignment.
Listen to Shane and I talk about why the TV show “Severance” is making dogs go wild HERE!
What would a real spy order at a cocktail bar? Listen to “Booze & Reviews” and find out!
SYNOPSIS: In “Black Bag,” a new thriller from director Steven Soderbergh, and now playing in theaters, Michael Fassbender plays a methodical spy who must choose between his country and his wife when a dangerous device is stolen, and she is a prime suspect.
CAST: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, and Pierce Brosnan. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp.
REVIEW: “What’s on the menu?” asks Kathryn Woodhouse (Cate Blanchett) asks her husband George (Fassbender) at the film’s start.
“Fun and games,” he replies, and he ain’t lying.
Like John le Carré meets “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “Black Bag” is a dialogue driven spy drama fueled by star power rather than fire power.
Steven Soderbergh, working from a script by his frequent collaborator David Koepp, creates a stylish, slick and suspenseful London-based thriller where people say cool spy things like, “This ends with someone in the boot of a car.”
At the helm is Fassbender. A master spy and happily married man, he’s a buttoned-down character in the John le Carré mode. He’s not a James Bond style bruiser. He’s reserved, a cold fish who once even put his own father under surveillance, concerned only with data and gathering cold hard facts. After one eventful dinner with all his suspects he says, “That was the rock, now I watch the ripples.”
Still, he generates heat in his scenes with Blanchett. They’re both spies, and as such, live in a world where there are secrets and not everything is what it seems to be. Their cat and mouse relationship is effervescent, providing sex appeal, domestic drama and intrigue as the limits of loyalty are tested. Their relationship just may give new meaning to the term, “I would die for you.”
A strong supporting cast—“Industry’s” Marisa Abela, “Mank’s” Tom Burke, “No Time to Die’s” Naomie Harris, “Bridgerton’s” Regé-Jean Page and Pierce Brosnan—add much but the real star here is Soderbergh and his crisp, fast paced and stylish filmmaking. Offset by a chic electrojazz score by David Holmes (who also scored “Out of Sight” and the “Ocean’s” trilogy), “Black Bag” slowly untangles its web of deception and keeps you guessing until the end.
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to do a high five! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about Amy Adams in “Nightbitch,” the ghost story “Presence” and the sky high “Flight Risk.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the CTV NewsChannel anchor Roger Peterson to talk about Amy Adams in “Nightbitch,” the ghost story “Presence” and the sky high “Flight Risk.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: “Presence,” a new ghost movie directed by Steven Soderbergh and now playing in theatres, sees a dysfunctional family, Rebekah (Lucy Liu) and Chris (Chris Sullivan) and their teenagers, Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Calliana Liana), move into a newly renovated hundred-year-old house. As the hard driving Rebekah dives head long into work, Chris flounders, Tyler reveals a mean streak, and Chloe mourns the loss of her best friend. When things mysteriously move on their own, and shelves crash in Chloe’s bedroom, a question arises, Are the odd events manifestations of Chloe’s grief or is there a strange presence in the house? “There is mystery in this world,” says Chris.
CAST: Lucy Liu, Julia Fox, Callina Liang, Eddy Maday, West Mulholland, Chris Sullivan. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp.
REVIEW: Told from the point of view of the ghost, the scares in “Presence” are muted and not particularly supernatural. The horror here is the carefully observed, callous behavior between several of the characters.
Using a flamboyantly handheld camera, Soderbergh personifies the ghostly presence through camera movement. We see what the ghost sees, and that otherworldly surveillance reveals a family at odds with one another. Rebekah favors her athletic son and thinks that Chloe is being self-indulgent. “She cannot take us down with her,” she says. Chris grapples with family issues, fearing for the health of his marriage while Chloe acts out, drinking and hanging out with her brother’s strange friend from school (West Mulholland).
The result is a quietly unnerving movie—an emotional roller ghoster?—that values tension over outright frights.
It’s a stylish, visually interesting twist on a ghost story, so it’s a shame the characters aren’t well developed enough to engage the audience on anything other than a superficial level. As Chloe, Liang does much of the heavy lifting, but she’s surrounded by underwritten characters.
Add to that a third act twist that is much more conventional than you’d hope for a movie with this pedigree, and you’re left with a ghost story that entertains the eye but won’t move the spirit.
It’s pretty clear that the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns left people feeling numb and slightly disconnected. To remedy this, “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” character Maxandra Mendoza (Salma Hayek Pinault) has a plan for a show unlike anything anyone has ever seen. “We’re going to wake up [the audience] with a wave of passion they’ve never felt before,” she purrs. Trouble is, I’ve seen the movie, and I’m still waiting for the wave of passion.
When we first meet wealthy socialite Maxandra she is the soon-to-be-divorced trophy wife to billionaire philanderer Roger Rattigan (Alan Cox). When she meets Mike Lane (Channing Tatum), a former superstar male dancer, now fallen on hard times, she is smitten. Broke and saddled with a failing furniture business, Mike is now bartending in Florida, working for tips.
When Maxandra offers $6000 for a striptease, the resulting acrobatic lap dance changes both their lives. “You gave me this magical moment,” she says, “that made me remember who I really was.”
Seeking to reclaim agency after her husband’s bad behaviour, Maxandra hires Mike to move to London and take over the Rattigan, the old West End theater where she worked as an actress eighteen years before.
“I want every woman that walks into this theatre to feel that a woman can have whatever she wants, whenever she wants,” says Maxandra.
The other movies in the “Magic Mike” franchise were a mix of swivelling hips and social commentary. They essayed the Florida’s real estate bust, the downturned economy, temptation and decadence. Those themes gave the movies some depth, a reason to engage the brain before the clothes came off.
The new one touches on the pandemic as the reason for Mike’s financial woes, but only briefly. The offhand mention feels like a plot device, a throwaway. The grand statements and subtext of the first two films has been watered down into a “Pretty Woman” style rom com, with a side of swivel, about how an upscale Chippendales show can have life altering effects. We’re never really told what those effects are, nor are they particularly obvious, but Maxandra never shuts up about them, so they must be in there somewhere amid the erotic “So You Think You Can Dance” numbers.Tatum brings his trademarked likability to the character and has good chemistry with Hayek Pinault, but overall, the heat has been turned down to a simmer. Abs are exposed, groins are ground but it feels very been-there-done-that. The inspiration that made the first film such an unexpected pleasure is missing, replaced by a tepid story and aimless eroticism.
“Magic Mike’s Last Dance” is essentially a Mickey and Judy, “Let’s put on a show” movie, but with more underwear and less enthusiasm.
