I appear on “CTV News at 11:30” with anchor Andria Case to talk about the weekend’s best movies and shows including Matthew McConaughey in the character study “The Rivals of Amziah King,” the Disney+ documentary “Travis Barker Louder Than Fear” and the Bigfoot movie “Sawtooth Mountain” on Tubi.
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 12:15)
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about the fantasy of “The Magic Faraway Tree,” the horrors of “Insidious: Out of the Further,” the character study of “The Rivals of Amziah King” and the drama of “Late Fame.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 18:26)
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 15:15)
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Akshay Tandon to talk about the fantasy of “The Magic Faraway Tree,” the horrors of “Insidious: Out of the Further,” the character study of “The Rivals of Amziah King” and the drama of “Late Fame.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “The Rivals of Amziah King,” a new crime thriller now playing in theatres, Matthew McConaughey stars as a beekeeper whose life is upended by the return of his estranged stepdaughter and violent business rivals. “Get ready, my little chickadee. Bees only swarm when they are ready for a fight.”
CAST: Matthew McConaughey, Angelina LookingGlass, Jake Horowitz, Scott Shepherd, Rob Morgan, Tony Revolori, Kurt Russell. Directed by Andrew Patterson.
REVIEW: Set in the backwoods of rural Oklahoma, “The Rivals of Amziah King” stars Matthew McConaughey as the title character, a beekeeper and bluegrass musician who runs the biggest honey operation in his area. “I know the weather. I know the bees. I know the point where anyone else would give up and I won’t.”
His life is changed for the better when his foster daughter Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass) reappears in his life. As the pair become reacquainted, making the most of their second chance at having a meaningful relationship, Amziah opens his heart and business to the young women.
But as their efforts to create a true family business are threatened by powerful rivals looking to undo everything Amziah and Kateri have built.
“This isn’t just theft. There’s a design and a cruelty to this. Someone loaded up everything he built and took it all away. And I’m going to find them and I’m going to take it all back.”
“The Rivals of Amziah King” feels like two films.
With no spoilers I can tell you that the first hour is a hang out movie disguised as a character study of Amziah. In McConaughey’s hands he is a bigger-than-life man, who doesn’t speak, but rather pontificates, on bees, life and whatever else strikes his fancy. He’s a William Faulkner-esque character, a distinctly southern person, poetically earthy with a deep reservoir of humanity and spirituality.
Director Andrew Patterson takes his time, allowing us to get to know Azmiah, Kateri and other members of the tight knit community through storytelling, music and lots of talk about bees. In fact, it sometimes feels like “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Bees but Were Afraid to Ask” would be a better title but there’s a sanctity to Amziah’s connection with the bees that is intriguing.
Which is why it comes as such a surprise when around the hour mark, the movie drops its tone poem tendencies in favor of shift toward crime thrills and revenge. It’s not an easy fit, and the movie loses much of its heartfelt charm as it becomes about stolen bee colonies and amateur sleuthing.
Up until that part, however, “The Rivals of Amziah King” is a wonderfully offbeat movie that creates a beautiful portrait of community that sprouted up around its central character.
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.
