Posts Tagged ‘Tina Keeper’

CTV NEWS AT 11:30: MORE MOVIES AND TV SHOWS TO STREAM THIS WEEKEND!

I appear on “CTV News at 11:30” with anchor Andria Case to talk about the best movies and television to watch this weekend, including the hypnotic “Stellar,” now streaming on Crave, the documentary “Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make Believe” and the legal drama “The Burial.”

Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 38:45)

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY OCTOBER 13, 2023.

I joined CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres.  Today we talk about the legal drama “The Burial,” the documentary “Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make Believe,” the killer “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” and the hypnotic “Stellar.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND REVIEWS FOR FRIDAY OCTOBER 13, 2023!

I  join CTV NewsChannel anchor Renee Rogers to talk about the legal drama “The Burial,” the documentary “Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make Believe,” the killer “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” and the hypnotic “Stellar.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

 

CFRA IN OTTAWA: THE BILL CARROLL MORNING SHOW MOVIE REVIEWS!

I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the legal drama “The Burial,” the documentary “Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make Believe,” the killer “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” and the hypnotic “Stellar.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

STELLAR: 3 ½ STARS. “experimental in execution, hypnotic in effect.”

“Stellar,” a new film starring Elle-Máija Tailfeathers and Braeden Clarke, now on VOD and streaming on Crave, is about making a connection as a storm—or is it the end of the world?—brews outside.

Set in a Northern Ontario dive bar, the story revolves around two Indigenous strangers, She (Tailfeathers) and He (Clarke), as a storm rages outside. They meet, make a connection, unperturbed by the weather. They get to know one another, trading stories in Ojibwe and English, of lost loves, community and their deepest held feelings, as the bartender (Rossif Sutherland) grows agitated by the unsettling thunder and lightening.

Others come and go, including two Aunties (Billy Merasty and Tina Keeper) who ask if He and She know their way home, metaphorically. Then there’s a windbag professor (R.H. Thomson), in love with the sound of his own voice, who proclaims, “Knowledge is out foundation.”

“Your knowledge. Not required,” He replies.

Outside, the erupting storm is portrayed as another passing apocalypse in the timeline of Indigenous life. He and She are the calm in the face of the storm, resilient with an eye to the future. “I feel like the weather outside,” She says, “changing, challenging.” They are connected to nature, to their heritage, and to one another.

Strong visuals tell “Stellar’s” tale. Anishinaabe director Darlene Naponse blends the lyrical beauty of the love story inside the bar with cut-a-ways of the pollution and waste that mar the world beyond the bar’s walls. Her experimental, figurative treatment of the material creates a powerful, poetic allegory of Indigenous strength amid the storm of life, wrapped in a touching love story.

Mystical and metaphorical, “Stellar” is experimental in its storytelling, but hypnotic in its effect.

THROUGH BLACK SPRUCE: 3 STARS. “Beatty is a haunting and haunted presence.”

In “Through Black Spruce,” an adaptation of Joseph Boyden’s Giller Prize-winning novel, “Yellowstone” actress Tanaya Beatty stars as Annie Bird, a Cree woman from James Bay who travels to Toronto in search of her twin sister Suzanne, a model who disappeared without a trace.

As Annie explores the dark underbelly of the city’s fashion scene at home in Moosonee her Uncle Will (Mohawk actor Brandon Oakes) runs afoul of local drug dealers. They think Suzanne’s boyfriend ripped them off and want to talk to her about where he is. When Will won’t tell them he is beaten within an inch of his life.

“Through Black Spruce” comes with the weight of a backstory unrelated to what we see on the screen. The film, opening amid controversy over Boyden’s Indigenous identity and directed by Don McKellar, who is not indigenous, comes at a flashpoint in our cultural history regarding First Nations filmmakers and artists and who should tell their stories.

“Through Black Spruce’s” story touches on important issues. Annie’s grief over her missing sister puts a human face on the plight of missing First Nations women whose stories are rarely told let alone solved. The second story, Uncle Will’s struggle between the traditional and modern world, is played out in an interesting encounter with First Nations couple (Tantoo Cardinal and Edmund Metatawabin) in the deep woods.

As a narrative “Through Black Spruce” is split, connected in spirit, but separate. The story zig zags between the Toronto and Moosonee sections, laid out linearly. McKellar cuts back and forth, doling out the stories but the technique sometimes slows the film’s momentum.

More interesting than the structure are the performances. In subtle ways Beatty and Oakes both find psychological and cultural context for their characters, a framework missing from the script. As Annie, Beatty is a haunting and haunted presence. Oakes brings Will’s struggle with alcohol to vivid life.