I join CTV Atlantic anchor Todd Battis to talk about the drama “Sharper Corner,” the gleefully gory “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” the cringe comedy “Friendship” and the musical drama “Hurry Up Tomorrow.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with guest anchor Sean Leathong to talk about new movies in theatres including the gleefully gory “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” the cringe comedy “Friendship” and the musical drama “Hurry Up Tomorrow.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 16:12)
I sit in with hosts Jim Richard on NewsTalk 1010 to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” This week we talk about Mike Myers’s first appearance on a Second City stage in thirty years and James Earl Jones’s new AI gig. We also talk about the gleefully grotesque “Final Destination: Bloodlines.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with CKTB morning show host Steph Vivier to have a look at movies in theatres including the cringe comedy “Friendship,” the gleefully gory “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” the musical drama “Hurry Up Tomorrow” and the comedy “Please, After You.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including the cringe comedy “Friendship,” the gleefully gory “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” the musical drama “Hurry Up Tomorrow” and the comedy “Please, After You.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: Brutally choreographed kills return to the big screen in “Final Destination: Bloodlines.” The sixth film in the bloody franchise, now playing in theatres, sees college student Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) plagued by gruesome nightmares. Her search for answers leads to her grandmother Iris (Gabrielle Rose) and a deadly family secret. “I always knew this day would come,” says Iris. “I held him off for years. He’s a relentless son-of-a-bitch and won’t stop till he finishes the job.”
CAST: Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Rya Kihlstedt, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger, and Tony Todd. Directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein.
REVIEW: You don’t go to a “Final Destination” movie for the tightly crafted story. The franchise is a vehicle for impossibly complicated Rube Goldberg-esque chain-reaction kill sequences, where one small thing sets off a domino effect that ends in a bloodbath.
The stories simply don’t matter much. They are a framework for the action. In keeping with franchise tradition, “Bloodlines,” the first “Final Destination” movie in fourteen years, has more of a premise than a story.
You don’t go for the story, you go to see terrible things happen to people.
More importantly, you go to feel the anticipation before the terrible things happen.
“Bloodlines” builds suspense, planting clues to the oncoming carnage with sound cues—pay attention to the songs playing on the radio—messages on street signs and clever foreshadowing. Directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein provide just enough information to allow us to sense what awful thing is about to happen but not enough to spoil the fun.
The result is an absurd good time at the movies that paints the screen with gallons of plasma, dark humour and a poignant send off to the late, great Tony Todd, a veteran of four of the franchise’s films.
“Final Destination: Bloodlines” is a crowd-pleaser. I wish it leaned into practical effects over CGI but the inventiveness of the action is merrily macabre enough to provide the dopamine hit you expect from the “Final Destination” series.
Richard’s review for “Candyman” is quoted in an article from Screenrant.
Read it HERE!
There is nothing sweet about the Candyman.
The supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, first played by Tony Todd in the movie of the same name 1992, returns in “Candyman,” now playing in theatres, reframed by co-producer and co-writer Jordan Peele for a new generation.
In this “spiritual sequel,” “Watchmen’s” Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays artist Anthony McCoy, a visual artist who grew up in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green neighborhood. Almost three decades ago, Candyman, a vengeful spirit with a hook for a hand, summoned by anyone brave enough to repeat his name five times into a mirror, terrorized the area.
The towers Anthony and his family lived in are gone, torn down in the name of gentrification. Anthony and his partner, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris), take their place among the trendy millennials who now live in Cabrini-Green’s luxury lofts.
Anthony’s painting career isn’t going great guns, so when a long-time area resident William Burke (Colman Domingo) tells him of the urban myth (or is it true?) of Candyman.
“Candyman ain’t a he,” says William. “Candyman’s the whole damn hive. Samuel Evans, run down during the white housing riots of the ’50s. William Bell, lynched in the ’20s. But the first one, where it all began, the story of Daniel Robitaille. He made a good living touring the country making portraits for wealthy families. Mostly white. And they loved it. But you know how it goes. They love what we make, but not us. They beat him, tortured him. They cut off his arm and jammed a meat hook in the stump. But a story like that. Pain like that. Lasts forever. That’s Candyman. Candyman is how we deal with the fact that these things happen. That they’re still happening.”
Anthony finds inspiration in the story but as he delves into Candyman’s macabre world, he unwittingly opens a passage to supernatural terror and violence that transforms his body, mind and exposes his own personal connection to the legend.
“Candyman” is a horror film, but it’s interested in more than making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Most great horror isn’t simply about the scares. “Frankenstein,” for example, is enriched by ideas of science and technology run amok, “The Wolf Man” examines the polarities of good and evil in all of us and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” has compelling things to say about mass hysteria. “Candyman” is a scary, timely reinterpretation of a classic horror movie character that brings the story into ripped-from-the-headlines context.
A study of trauma in the Black community, “Candyman” expands the scope of the original to suggest that the Candyman isn’t singular. In the new film William says, “Candyman’s the whole damn hive,” representing all Black men who have been lost to race-based violence.
The theme is front and center but director (and co-writer) Nia DaCosta doesn’t shy away from the body horror—Anthony’s transformation includes some memorable fingernail horror and more—or the Candyman’s violence. The kills are suitably bloody, often shot in interesting ways, like through the mirror of a make-up compact dropped on the floor. It’s brutally elegant and never forgets to add a helping of horror with its story.
“Candyman” is a movie that succeeds on two levels, as a comment on the echoes of historical racism that can be heard today and as a horror film that’ll scare the pants off of you.
