I appear on “CTV News at 6” with anchor Andria Case to talk about the dystopian rom com “One Night Only” and the flavourless “Ice Cream Man.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 36:43)
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Renée Rodgers to talk about the dystopian rom com “One Night Only,” the rambunctious “Super Troopers 3” and the flavourless “Ice Cream Man.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with guest anchor Andria Case to talk about the dystopian rom com “One Night Only,” the rambunctious “Super Troopers 3” and the flavourless “Ice Cream Man.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 14:22)
I sit with guest host Jim Richards on NewsTalk 1010 to talk about big nme music artists offering $20 tickets to shows, a Celine Dion lotto, the latest “Heated Rivalry” swag and I tell you about the dystopian rom com “One Night Only.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with guest host Andrew Pinsent to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including the dystopian rom com “One Night Only,” the rambunctious “Super Troopers 3” and the flavourless “Ice Cream Man.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
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 dystopian rom com “One Night Only,” the rambunctious “Super Troopers 3” and the flavourless “Ice Cream Man.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “One Night Only,” a new romantic comedy starring Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner, now playing in theatres, two strangers attempt to make a connection on the one night of the year when pre-marital sex is legal. “How is anyone supposed to find something real on a night like tonight?”
CAST: Monica Barbaro, Callum Turner, Maya Hawke, Julia Fox, Molly Ringwald, LeVar Burton. Directed by Will Gluck.
REVIEW: Like a mash-up of “When Harry Met Sally” and “The Purge” (only with sex instead of murder), “One Night Only” takes a provocative premise and applies strict rom com rules to the story of two singletons looking for something more than a one-night stand.
“One Night Only” takes place in an alternate New York City where premarital sex is illegal every day of the year except one. “We wanted to go back to a time when sex was reserved for the sanctity of marriage,” says a government official. “Since our resolution passed, teen pregnancy is near zero, STIs are at record lows, and now it’s a badge of honor to be an incel.”
On that day two love-starved strangers, a pizza shop owner Owen (Callum Turner) and a hopelessly romantic jingle singer Allie (Monica Barbaro) have several meet cutes—“Your ears look like car doors,” she says. “Your legs don’t make any sense,” he says.—and begin a flirty and often funny cat and mouse game that will lead them across the city in pursuit of something more than a quick roll in the hay.
“One Night Only” is the rare rom com that uses fascism as a catalyst for the amorous action. But the ban on premarital relations, while central to the story, isn’t the entire story.
The only truly provocative thing in this sex comedy (rated 14A in Canada, R in the U.S.) is the dystopian premise. Strip away the story’s underdeveloped Orwellian satire and you’re left with a charming, mostly chaste search for connection.
Central to the film’s likability are Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner.
Barbaro, an Oscar nominee for her work as Joan Baez in the Bob Dylan-biopic “A Complete Unknown,” channels Meg Ryan with a combination of charm and chutzpah. Equally at home with the dramatic and comedic demands of the role, she’s an effervescent presence whether she’s emoting or doing pratfalls.
Equal parts aw-shucks, sincerity and swagger, Turner clicks with Barbaro as their “After Hours”-style adventures (without the edge of the Martin Scorsese NYC classic) keep them in one another’s orbit.
On one hand “One Night Only” feels like a missed opportunity to examine traditional values in the face of governmental overreach.
On the other, it’s a straight-ahead rom com with nothing on its mind except the happiness of its main characters. It’s no secret how this movie will end. If it comes as a shock, you’ve never seen a rom com, because these movies aren’t about the destination, they’re about the journey, and “One Night Only” is a fun trip despite its reluctance to fully engage with its political premise.
Quvenzhané Wallis, the eleven-year-old Academy Award nominee, kicks the old “Annie” to the curb in the opening minutes of the reimagined story of a spunky little orphan and her foster father.
The movie begins with a curly haired red head making a presentation in class. With a flourish, she finishes her show-and-tell with a few snappy tap dance moves. Next up is Annie (Wallis) who erases the old image of the Broadway waif with a spirited “Stomp” style opening number.
It doesn’t all work, but the update does make the old “Annie” seem as au courant as “Downton Abbey.”
Set in modern day New York City, “Annie” drops the “orphan” in favor of “foster child.” Abandoned by her parents, her only connection to them is a note scribbled on the back of a restaurant bill. That scrap of paper and her scrappy attitude sustain her as she lives with a group of plucky kids at failed singer Miss Hannigan’s (Cameron Diaz) Dickensian Harlem apartment.
Her ticket out of Hannigan’s hell hole comes in the form of a viral video shot by a citizen journalist. Chasing a stray dog down the street Annie is rescued by the city’s richest citizen and mayoral candidate Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx). Unscrupulous campaign manager Guy (Bobby Cannavale) sees an opportunity to humanize his candidate and asks Annie over for a photo op.
“It’s good PR for my campaign to be seen with you,” Stacks explains to the little girl.
“If I came to live with you, you could become president,” she shoots back.
And thus Annie is invited to live in Stacks’s deluxe apartment in the sky. They form a bond and… blah, blah, blah. You can guess the rest.
Aside from a handful of songs, an overload of cute and shards of a storyline, the new “Annie” has little in common with the original musical. Director and co-screenwriter Will Gluck takes pains to make an “Annie” for a new generation but loses the spirit that made Broadway “Annie” so iconic.
“People love musicals,” he has Miss Hannigan say at one point. “Bursting into song for no apparent reason.” Except in good musicals there is always a reason for characters to burst into song. Annie doesn’t miss any opportunity to sing and dance—it even manages to turn taking out the recycling into a percussive event—but Gluck handles the transitions from dialogue to verse awkwardly. “Are you going to sing to me?” Hannigan asks Guy. “Is this happening?”
Worse, the music isn’t particularly memorable and bland, beat-heavy new school arrangements obscure the lyrics. The music is big, but the voices aren’t. Wallis has a much more natural singing style than he Broadway trained predecessors and gets lost in the mix. Ethel Merman she ain’t. The show was filled with showstoppers—“It’s the Hard-Knock Life” and “Tomorrow” among others—that are reduced in the film to aural wallpaper with choreography that could charitably be described as curious.
Wallis does plucky very well, but is rather one note, not just musically but personality wise as well. Foxx can sing but is saddled with the film’s second worst number, “I Don’t Need Anything But You,” (the “winner” is Diaz’s “Little Girls”) and Cannavale appears to be acting in a Christmas pantomime nobody told the rest of the cast about.
“Annie” is an attempt to recreate an icon for a new age but falls flatter than Miss Hannigan’s high notes.
