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 “Young Werther’s” study of complicated friendships, the end of life drama “The Room Next Door” and the audacious “Nickel Boys.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CP24 to talk about the big movies hitting theatres and streaming this week, including “Young Werther’s” study of complicated friendships, the end of life drama “The Room Next Door,” the audacious “Nickel Boys” and the diamond heist movie “Den of Thieve 2: Pantera.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the CTV NewsChannel to talk about “Young Werther’s” study of complicated friendships, the end of life drama “The Room Next Door,” the audacious “Nickel Boys” and the diamond heist movie “Den of Thieve 2: Pantera.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: “The Room Next Door,” the first English-language feature film from Spanish maestro Pedro Almodóvar, now playing in theatres, sees Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton play old friends brought together in a life-or-death situation.
CAST: Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola. Directed by Pedro Almodóvar.
REVIEW: Adapted from the novel “What Are You Going Through” by Sigrid Nunez, “The Room Next Door” is the story of two friends who lost track of one another when they became successful. Now a bestselling author, Ingrid (Julianne Moore) first met war correspondent Martha (Tilda Swinton) when they worked at the same magazine in the 1980s. As they found acclaim their paths diverged, with Martha always off on assignment and Ingrid making her home in Paris.
Decades later Ingrid is in New York when she hears that her old friend is undergoing an experimental treatment for cervical cancer. They meet and it’s like no time has passed.
They talk about old times; secrets are shared and then the bombshell. (MILD SPOILER AHEAD) Martha is ready to die but would like Ingrid to be there when it happens. Ingrid, whose latest book is about the fear of death is trepidatious and heartbroken but agrees. “It feels unnatural to me,” she says. “I can’t accept that something alive has to die.”
Essentially a two hander, there are several other characters, but it is the complicated, loving relationship between Ingrid and Martha that will linger in the memory. As they rekindle their relationship the sense that the clock is ticking hangs heavy over their scenes, and they make the most of every second.
Their reminiscences take on a certain weight, as Martha grapples with her legacy, as a writer and a mother, and Ingrid contemplates the legality of her involvement with her friend’s plan to take her own life. Their scenes are a masterfully performed emotional jumble of guilt, humor and regret.
“The Room Next Door” acknowledges the morality of the situation with compassion. The story, while bleak, manages to find a life affirming vibe, based on the interaction of the leads, as the movie winds through to the inevitable 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 almost epic “The Return,” the apocalyptic musical “The End” and the nostalgic disaster flick “Y2K.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“The Killer,” a new thriller starring Michael Fassbender, now playing in theatres before moving to Netflix on November 10, is a welcome return to genre filmmaking for David Fincher, director of “Se7en,” “Gone Girl” and “Zodiac.”
In the film’s first chapter the unnamed title character is holed up in a rented Parisian We Work office across the street from a ritzy hotel. There to kill a prominent man who should be checking in any day now, the Killer is a coiled snake, ready to jump into action.
When he does leave “the office,” he dresses in beige, like a “German tourist,” with no distinguishing features, (save for his Fassbender movie star good looks). He’s Mr. Nobody, unrecognized and unrecognizable.
He is there for one reason; to kill. He calls it an “Annie Oakley” job, a shot from a rifle at long distance. It’s not as exciting as some of his other gigs, like slipping poison into a person’s coffee or making the deaths look like accidents, but it pays the bills.
He lives by a considered set of rules, an existential credo for the business of death. “Forbid empathy,” he says. “Empathy is weakness.” “Anticipate, don’t improvise.” “Fight only the battle you’re paid to fight.”
He is careful, not prone to mistakes until the Paris assassination goes wrong and his bullet blows away his target’s companion, leaving the intended victim covered in gore, but very much alive.
An expert in the art of self-preservation, the Killer, through a circuitous route, under fake passports all carrying the name of old time sit com characters, beginning with Felix Unger, the meticulous half of “The Odd Couple,” eludes police. When he finally arrives at his home in the Dominican Republic, he finds his girlfriend has been assaulted, left near death in retaliation for his failed hit in Paris.
Asking himself, “WWJWBD”—”What Would John Wilkes Boothe Do?”—he jumps into action, vowing to get revenge on the people who attacked his girlfriend.
The moody, coldblooded “The Killer” is a showcase for Fassbender, who hasn’t appeared on screen in four years. From Magneto in the X-Men films to the lead in Justin Kurzel’s 2015 version of “Macbeth” and “Alien: Covenant’s” android David 8 and the corrupt MI6 agent Paul in “Haywire,” he’s played villains before, but has rarely been this nonchalantly captivating. He sucks out much of the character’s humanity, leaving behind a deadly automaton, directed by the logistics of his job rather than any sort of moral compass. Life and death, for him, is transactional and part of the film’s pleasure is waiting to see when and if he will break and allow his humanity to shine through.
But despite the movie’s hardheartedness, director Fincher, working from a script by Andrew Kevin Walker builds-in a sense of fun. Fassbender’s deliberately robotic delivery is perfect as he deadpans lines like, “The Sunshine State. Where else can you find so many likeminded individuals… outside a penitentiary?”
“The Killer” is a slickly made, stylish thriller, with an anxiety inducing score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, that uses the central character’s aloofness as a hook to pull you to the edge of your seat.
For better and for worse, there is nothing quite like a Wes Anderson film. The director’s unique production design is all over his new sci fi comedy “Asteroid City,” but with this film it is clear that whimsy has finally replaced storytelling on his to do list.
This is a twisty-turny one. Like a set of nesting dolls, it’s a film, within a play, within a show hosted by a Rod Sterling-esque talking head (Bryan Cranston), within a teleplay written by playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton).
The bulk of the “action” takes place in Asteroid City, a remote New Mexico desert town—population 87—where Steve Carell’s motel manager hosts a Junior Stargazer convention. Gifted kids and their parents from all over the state convene to showcase their incredible, and often outlandish, inventions.
It’s an interesting group that includes recently widowed war photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman), father to “brainiac” Woodrow (Jake Ryan) and son-in-law to Stanley (Tom Hanks), movie star Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) and the rough-n-tumble J.J. Kellogg (Liev Schreiber). Along for the ride are singing cowboy Montana (Rupert Friend), teacher June (Maya Hawke), Dr. Hickenlooper (Tilda Swinton) a scientist from the local observatory and the fast-talking Junior Stargazer awards judge, General Grif Gibson (Jeffrey Wright).
When the convention is interrupted by a visiting alien, the whole thing is locked down for a mandatory government quarantine.
Despite the quirky tone and Anderson’s trademarked stylistic choices, “Asteroid City” is a serious film, albeit one laced with a healthy dose of absurdism. A study in how people deal with grief, and the true nature of love, Anderson’s characters experience existential dilemmas, angst born of loss and dissatisfaction. Threats are posed by nuclear bombs and life from other planets unexpectedly dropping by to say hello and children wonder aloud what happens when we die. A shroud of melancholic anxiety hangs over the film, like a shroud, but Anderson’s staging of the film, the meta story within a story structure, obscures the movie’s deeper meanings under layers of style.
The cast, particularly Johansson and Hanks, bring focus to Anderson’s unfocussed story, and Carell, Cranston and briefly Goldblum are having fun, but it sometimes feels the surfeit of characters are there more to decorate the screen than to forward the story.
“Asteroid City” may delight long-time fans, but casual moviegoers or newcomers to the director’s oeuvre may find the film’s mannered obtuseness off kilter and off putting.
“The Eternal Daughter,” now playing in theatres, is a gothic ghost story set at a hotel, but don’t check in expecting thrills and chills. This is psychological drama that plays upon the power of memories to create a sense of unease.
Written and directed by Joanna Hogg, the film stars Tilda Swinton in a dual role as screenwriter Julie Hart and her elderly mother Rosalind. Julie is in the early stages of writing a film about her relationship with her mother and has planned a stay at a stately, but remote hotel that once belonged to Rosalind’s aunt, in Wales. In the quiet of the Welsh countryside Julie hopes to mine her mother’s memories for details to enrich her screenplay.
When she was evacuated from London during the Blitz, Rosalind lived at the hotel, then a grand country mansion. Julie questions her about that time, “Were you aware of the war going on?” but Rosalind is reticent to dredge up some of the old memories. She remembers the happy times, but grows heartfelt when evoking the death of her brother, lost in the war during battle over the English Channel.
“You always said you had such happy memories here,” says Julie. “Oh mom, I’m so sorry. I feel so bad for bringing you here.”
“I did have happy memories here,” Rosalind replies, “but I also had other memories here and they’re all still alive.”
Despite her mother’s attempts to placate her, Julie is distraught at the pain she has caused by bringing Rosalind back to her childhood home. “It’s really difficult for me to think of her as being sad,” Julie says.
There is a fuzzy line between fantasy and reality in “The Eternal Daughter.” The old hotel, run by a tetchy front desk clerk (Carly-Sophia Davies), whose passive-aggression brings some humor to the staid situation, creaks in the night and shadows loom in the corners. It is the perfect Gothic breeding ground for Julie’s growing dread and paranoia. Director Hogg takes her time revealing the film’s direction, and whether or not characters, like the groundskeeper Bill (Joseph Mydell) are real or a figment of Julie’s imagination.
It’s not about thrills, it’s about mood. As the two women attempt to connect, to find a way through the memories to a real, tangible place, Hogg creates melodramatic psychological miasma that questions the very proceedings on the screen. There are no easy answers, as Swinton, masterfully playing both mother and daughter, explores the connection between reality, fantasy and memory, but the questions about identity left by the story will linger.
“Pinocchio,” the wooden boy with a lie detector for a nose and dreams of becoming a real boy bouncing around his sawdusty brain, is one of the most reimagined characters in children’s literature. Earlier this year Tom Hanks starred in a traditional remake of the 138 year-old-story that echoed the classic Disney film.
The Oscar winning director of “The Shape of Water” takes the story in his own direction in “Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio,” a stop motion retelling, now playing in theatres and coming soon to Netflix. In what may be the only version of the story featuring a cameo by Mussolini, the movie travels a different, darker path than previous adaptations.
Del Toro keeps the original story’s Italian location, but places the action between World Wars I and II. Woodworker Geppetto (voiced by David Bradley) is a skilled artisan, lovingly teaching his young son Carlo the ropes of the craft while working on large crucifix at a local church. When Carlo is killed in a bombing raid, Geppetto spirals into despair and alcoholism.
While soothing his loss with booze, the heartbroken Geppetto cuts down an Italian pine tree near his late son’s grave and builds a roughhewn puppet as a replacement for his boy. Gangly, with a long nose, the puppet sits slumped in Geppetto’s workshop until a magical Wood Sprite (voice of Tilda Swinton) breathes life into him and appoints Sebastian J. Cricket (voice of Ewan McGregor), a mustachioed insect who lives inside the puppet, as his guide and conscience.
The rowdy newborn, dubbed Pinocchio (voice of Gregory Mann), doesn’t make a great first impression on Geppetto or the local townsfolk. But as Geppetto warms to him, the locals, including fascist government official Podestà (Ron Perlman), don’t quite know what to make of him.
“Everybody likes him,” says Pinocchio, pointing to the still under construction crucifix. “He’s made of wood too. Why do they like him and not me?”
As Pinocchio tries to figure out his place in the world, he soon discovers that not everyone has his best interests in mind.
This is not your parent’s “Pinocchio.” Del Toro sticks to the bones of author Carlo Collodi’s original plot, but expands the story with a deep dive into what it means to be human, mortality, the weight of expectation and the horrors of fascism. It doesn’t sound particularly family friendly, but while there are some intense, nightmarish images, this is a fairy tale in the Brothers Grimm tradition. It speaks to the issues surrounding growing up, whether you’re made of wood or flesh and blood, and should be fine for kids ten and up.
Visually spectacular, the stop motion animation gives the movie a more organic feel than it may have had if rendered in computer generated images. Rich in detail and imagination, the film’s style mixes and matches dreams with nightmares to create a palette that paints the fanciful and the earthbound in equal measure.
“Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio” does something remarkable. Just as the Wood Sprite breathed new life into Geppetto’s puppet, Del Toro breathes new life into a very familiar and often-told story. He is buoyed by fine voice work and visuals, but it is the auteur’s allegorical stamp that really brings this wooden boy to life.
