I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to talk about the winners and also rans at the Critic’s Choice Awards and why Timothée Chalamet is working at a ‘different level’ in ‘Marty Supreme.’
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Deb Hutton is off this week so I sit with Mark Twohey on NewsTalk 1010 to go over some of the week’s biggest movies playing in theatres. Today we talk about “Marty Supreme,” the zombie flick “We Bury the Dead” and the psychological thriller “The Plague.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I join the CTV NewsChanel to talk about the gameplay of “Marty Supreme,” the slithery charms of “Anaconda” and the tuneful “Song Sung Blue.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the CTV NewsChanel to talk about the gameplay of “Marty Supreme,” the slithery charms of “Anaconda” and the tuneful “Song Sung Blue.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Marty Supreme,” a new drama now playing on theaters, Timothée Chalamet plays an ambitious table tennis player who will stop at nothing in his pursuit of success and a lost dog. “Losing doesn’t even enter my consciousness,” he says.
CAST: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Kevin O’Leary, Tyler Okonma, Abel Ferrara and Fran Drescher. Directed by Josh Safdie.
REVIEW: I might normally be skeptical about a movie that gives Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary billing, just under names like Timothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow, but “Marty Supreme” is such a blast of pure energy I’m willing to let it go.
Set in 1952, “Marty Supreme” begins with the title character brash New Yorker Marty Mauser (Chalamet) working as a show salesman to finance a trip to the British Table Tennis Open. He’s a prodigy, a world class ping pong player who believes the sport is the next big thing, and he wants to be part of that wave.
His quest for fame and fortune, however, is more unpredictable than a no-look serve in a ping pong match.
Equipped with only his talent, determination and arrogance, Marty’s rise, fall and redemption put him in contact with actress Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), her cruel business mogul husband Milton Rockwell (O’Leary), a violent dog owner (legendary filmmaker Abel Ferrara) and the irate husband of his childhood best friend Rachel (Odessa A’zion).
At 2 hours and 29 minutes “Marty Supreme” is an epic, Sammy Glick-style story of a guy who feeds off confidence and daring. Marty’s a fast talker in a propulsive movie that zips along as quickly as the quips that spoil effortlessly from his lips. It’s an exhilarating ride, a pedal to the metal—or paddle to ping pong ball—experience that showcases Chalamet’s career best performance. A bundle of desperation and inner struggle hidden under a veneer of overt confidence, Marty is pushed to extremes by ambition and Chalamet gets every sweaty, eager beat exactly right.
But it’s when things aren’t going Marty’s way that Chalamet shines. A squirmy, humiliating encounter (NO SPOILERS HERE), reveals both defiance and vulnerability, and it is that push and pull, that duality, that illustrates Marty’s determination into high gear. Like all good sports movies, it’s not about the big match at the end, it’s about the journey to the match and with chaotic scenes like this, and many others, “Marty Supreme” is a hell of a ride.
Chalamet is supported by a top-notch cast, including Odessa A’zion, who, in a breakout role, is the warming element that keeps the stratospheric story earth bound.
No story about the American Dream on steroids would be complete without a money-grubbing meanie, a character who values cash and power over Marty’s ambition and talent. Safdie didn’t look much beyond “Shark Tank” when he cast Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary, who lends his smarmy reality show energy to the film. He delivers but delivers exactly what you would expect in a movie that defies expectations at every turn.
“Marty Supreme” is exceptionalism both in its story and execution. A grand tale of aspiration and consequences, à la “Boogie Nights” and “Goodfellas,” it’s one of the year’s best films.
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 gameplay of “Marty Supreme,” the slithery charms of “Anaconda” and the tuneful “Song Sung Blue.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Scott Hirsch to talk about the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” and the vampire drama “Nosferatu.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: Timothée Chalamet stars as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” an intimate portrait of four tumultuous years in the life of the “Blowin’ in the Wind” singer.
CAST: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Scoot McNairy, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz, P. J. Byrne, Will Harrison and Eriko Hatsune. Directed by James Mangold who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks.
REVIEW: From the surreal “Rocketman,” that turned Elton John’s life into pop art and the self-congratulatory “Bohemian Rhapsody” to the monkey business of the Robbie Williams biopic “Better Man” and Brian Wilson’s introspective “Love & Mercy,” music bios come in all envelope pushing shapes and sizes.
So, it’s a surprise that “A Complete Unknown,” the new film chronicling four years in Bob Dylan’s eventful life, from Greenwich Village newbie to the enigmatic superstar who was booed off the stage at the Newport Folk Festival for playing an electric guitar, is so straightforward.
A story about the man who wrote, “The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face,” could reasonably be expected to take some stylistic risks à la “I’m Not There,” Todd Haynes’s metaphoric retelling of the “Like a Rolling Stones” singer’s life.
Instead, “A Complete Unknown” is more “Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story” than “I’m Not There” or “Inside Llewyn Davis.” The storytelling is efficiently linear (although not all together factual) without the kind of flourishes that Dylan regularly applies to his songs.
But the back-to-basics approach benefits the movie, allowing Timothée Chalamet’s tour de force performance to shine.
Dylan is one of the most documented people of the twentieth century, a man who has inspired a million nasally impressions, and influenced generations of musicians, and yet remains somewhat unknowable.
As a result, “A Complete Unknown” lives up to its name. When we first meet Dylan, he’s an unknown commodity. Four years later he’s the voice of a generation, the most famous export of the folk scene, but in many ways, he remains an enigma.
Chalamet captures the voice and the physicality of young Dylan but isn’t weighed down by the superstar’s legend. Despite his documented life, Dylan, the man, the myth, the legend, is basically unknowable. He’s a cipher; a dancer to a song only he can hear. Chalamet plays him as a mysterious, sometimes imperious guy and most importantly, gets the essence of what made Dylan the voice of a generation. It’s the It Factor, the Rizz, the elusive quality that is impossible to define, but easy to spot.
Instead of attempting to unwind Dylan’s mystique director James Mangold, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks, wisely opts for a portrait of the time, the America and, in microcosm, the Greenwich Village folk era, that produced the singer. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the battle for civil rights indirectly hang heavy over the film, completing the portrait of the time that fuelled Dylan’s early work.
The songs, and there are plenty of them, most performed by Chalamet, are the product of these influences and act as a commentary on that chaotic period.
“A Complete Unknown” may not be revelatory in terms of its biography of Dylan, but it places the singer in context of his times, revealing a rich vein of history, personal and otherwise.
After 2021’s “Dune” was relegated to the small screen in the wake of pandemic related theatre closings, this weekend, the long awaited “Dune Part 2” brings the thunder, debuting on screens suitable for the story’s epic scale. The sci fi saga starring, well, almost everyone, in a sprawling cast headed by Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and the giant sandworms who are literally and figuratively the film’s biggest stars, will play exclusively in theatres.
Wrestling novelist Frank Herbert’s expansive story of a psychedelic drug called Spice and reluctant messiah Paul Atreides, into a comprehensible movie has confounded filmmakers for decades. Most notably, David Lynch adapted the 1965 novel into a noble 1984 failure. The story is complex, with many characters and big, brainy concepts.
As a result, the spectacle of “Part 2,” on its own, isn’t for casual viewers. The last movie ended with Fremen warrior Chani (Zendaya) saying “This is only the beginning,” which means the new film isn’t a sequel, or a reboot. It’s a continuation, the second part of the story director Denis Villeneuve began in 2021, and to understand the story, you have to see the first film.
Equal parts action packed and philosophical, “Part Two” picks up where “Dune” left off. Set 8,000 years in the future, Atreides (Chalamet) son of an aristocratic family, and once heir to the planet of Arrakis, a desolate, almost inhabitable place, but rich in the lucrative, and psychedelic Spice, that is home to the Indigenous Fremen people.
Betrayed by Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), the former steward of Arrakis, the family is all but wiped out, with Atreides and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), left in the desert to die. If they are to survive it will be with the help of the Fremen—including Chani and Stilgar (Javier Bardem), leader of the Fremen tribe at Sietch Tabr—who call Atreides “The Chosen One” and believe he is a prophet with the power to bring peace to their world.
“Part 2” sees Atreides embedded with the Fremin in a mission of revenge against the House Harkonnen, the treacherous Baron, his sinister nephews, the brutish Beast Rabban (Dave Bautista) and Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), who Atreides holds responsible for the death of his father. Fighting gallantly alongside the Fremin, he’s mostly unconcerned with their belief that he is their messiah. His feelings for Chanti and his thirst for creating a conflict that will place him within striking distance of Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken), his daughter Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), and Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother and the Emperor’s Truthsayer, Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling), are top of mind.
As the reckoning approaches, Atreides is plagued by terrible visions of the future.
There is so much more, but that is essentially the peg on which Villeneuve hangs his epic vision of Herbert’s tale. The director gives voice to the author’s study of vengeance, spirituality, fanaticism, liberation and conquest, articulating the story’s humanist nuances in the framework of a film that can only be described as a spectacle. It’s a bigger, wilder vision, an answer to the stately elegance of the first film.
The action sequences fill the screen. Villeneuve overwhelms the senses with grand images of desert warfare and Atreides sand surfing courtesy of giant “grandfather sand worms.” It’s blockbuster filmmaking writ large, exciting and laced with high stakes. Perfect for IMAX screens.
But the action sequences wouldn’t mean much if the film’s world building and characters didn’t set the stage. Arrakis is a sand swept hell, so immersive you’ll think you have sand in your underpants by the time the end credits roll. The vision of the planet is aided considerably by Greig Fraser’s gorgeous cinematography.
The devil, though, is in the details. On an arid planet, the Fremin syphon water from the bodies of their vanquished enemies to use in their cooling systems. Minutiae like this, and more, give the story depth, creating an exciting world for the characters to inhabit.
The stacked cast of a-listers deliver. Chalamet’s character comes of age on his hero’s journey, shedding any boyish traits Atreides may have had, to become a worm riding warrior and leader of armies.
Also making a mark is Butler as the eyebrow-challenged Feyd-Rautha (the part played by Sting in the Lynch’s adaptation). He maintains the rock star swagger of Elvis, his best-known role, but brings the danger as the sadistic nephew and heir.
It’s good stuff that showcases Villeneuve prowess, even if it feels rushed in its last act.
What Villeneuve isn’t good at, are endings. His first “Dune” film left audiences hanging, finishing up with no definitive ending. The end of “Dune Part 2” doesn’t dangle in quite the same way, but tensions are still unfolding as the end credits roll. Looks like we’ll have a “Part 3” coming in a couple years.
Despite the open-ended conclusion, however, “Dune Part 2,” with its stunning visuals, deep emotional core and good performances, suggests “Part 3” will be worth the wait.
