From marilyn.ca: “If you love going to the movies, but you’re never sure what to see, Richard Crouse has the answer! Check out these sure-to-be blockbusters to keep you entertained all summer!” They argue about “Finding Dory” and preview “The BFG,” “The Secret Life of Pets,” “Jason Bourne,” “Suicide Squad” and “Ghostbusters.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“Concussion” is a movie about the discovery of long-term neurodegenerative changes in professional athletes. That synopsis conjures up images of people in lab coats peering into microscopes and that is certainly part of the story, but there’s more. Add in a David and Goliath storyline, some romance and a condemnation of complacency and you’re left with a movie that has something important to say but doesn’t know exactly how to say it.
Will Smith is Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian forensic neuropathologist who happens to be on duty the night the body of football legend Mike Webster (David Morse) is delivered to the morgue. As a scientist Omalu can’t understand the events leading to Webster’s death. Why did the seemingly healthy man act irrationally and slowly waste away?
A study of Webster’s brain uncovers irregularities likely caused by concussions suffered on the football field. Naming the condition Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Omalu publishes his findings in a medical journal and almost immediately finds himself under fire from the NFL who feel the doctor’s study implies playing football is bad for your health. If it is bad for football, they suggest, it is bad for America.
Death threats and looming legal action punt Omalu and his new wife’s (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) lives into the end zone as new cases of CTE come to light.
“Concussion” is the kind of movie you know is going to feature at least one figurative Gatorade Shower, a feel good moment geared to excite audiences. The resolution of the David and Goliath angle is meant to be a crowd-pleasing story element. Smith plays Omalu as a proud, moral man, someone with the strength of his convictions who is pushed aside by an evil empire. When he is proven right—that’s not a spoiler, just historical fact—it should be a rousing moment but like much of the film it simply doesn’t quicken the pulse.
Smith is understated and strong as Omalu, bringing every ounce of his movie star charisma to the lead role. A script bogged down by a tagged-on love story and heavy-handed exposition, however, thwarts his good work. The core of the story—how the NFL ignored potentially life-saving information—should provide enough righteous indignation to fuel the movie but doesn’t. “Concussion” doesn’t back down from pointing the finger at the suits who demeaned Omalu’s work but it lacks the passion to truly work up a head of steam.
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
Adrian Martinez is “that guy.” You recognize his face but probably don’t know his name. He’s the actor you’ve seen in everything from American Hustle to The Amazing Spider-Man to this weekend’s Focus, standing just to the side of the main actors. He’s the sidekick to the stars, a moniker he wears proudly.
“Sidekick to the Stars?” he says. “That’s absolutely cool with me. I’m working and it’s the best film school in the world.”
From Ben Stiller, his “teacher” and Secret Life of Walter Mitty co-star, he says he learned “how to compartmentalize your energy. Nobody works harder than Ben Stiller. He was acting all day, directing and then editing.”
“Will Ferrell,” he says, “is surprisingly not funny on set except during the takes when he’s hysterical. I took discipline away from him.”
In Focus Martinez plays Farhad, a computer expert and associate of scam artist Nicky Spurgeon, played by Will Smith. It’s a small but important role, which gave Martinez the chance to watch Smith in action as they shot the film in New Orleans and Buenos Aires.
“From Will Smith I learned gratitude,” he says. “This is a guy who’s been doing this a long while and every day on set he was absolutely invested in the well being of everyone. He would gauge the temperature of the room and if he felt people were dragging he would just start dancing. Literally get jiggy with it. I felt, wow, this guy doesn’t have to do anything and he’s doing everything to lead the pack into the right place.”
He puts those lessons to work in a variety of gigs from comedy to drama, from big screen to small.
“I do television and commercials,” he says. “I don’t care. I just work. The way I’ve always seen it is that commercials are the haiku of acting, TV is like the short stories and movies are the novels. Whatever format you use as an actor you’re still a character whether it is six seconds or an hour-and-a-half.”
Finding a way to balance his professional and personal lives was a lesson he learned from a source off set.
“I have a nine-year-old daughter and she keeps it in perspective fore me,” he says. “The other day we were talking and I said, ‘Isn’t this great? I’m in Los Angeles but we can facetime and see each other.’ She said, very cogently, ‘You can’t hug in a facetime daddy.’ She doesn’t fool around. She brings it right home. I flying back to New York today and I can’t wait to hug her.”
Nicky Spurgeon (Will Smith) is a seasoned grifter from a long line of con men. His father and grandfather were flim flam artists and now he is passing along the tricks of the trade to Jess (Margot Robbie) a beautiful newcomer with a light touch—perfect for picking pockets—who just might get Nicky to break his golden rule of never getting emotionally involved with anyone.
When Spurgeon first spots Jess she is working a low level scam in a hotel bar. He teaches her how to use misdirection to pick pockets. “You get their focus,” he says, “and then you can take whatever you like.” Using a mixture of his methods and chutzpah they hit the rubes at the Superbowl in New Orleans, raking in over a million dollars in one week.
A nervy game of one-upmanship nets another big score, and Jess, thinking she is part of the team—both professionally and romantically—imagines a life of crime with Nicky until he unceremoniously dumps her, gifting her with $80,000 and a free ride to the airport.
Three years later Nicky is in Buenos Aires working a big job for billionaire Garriga (Rodrigo Santoro). To his surprise Jess is also there, but is she working an angle or has she gone straight?
One part Scorsese, one part Soderbergh, with a healthy dose of “The Sting” thrown in, “Focus” is a stylish crime drama more about the characters than the crime. Nicky’s maxims—“Die with the lie.”—set the scene, but the story is more about a commitment-phobe who loses himself over a woman. It works because of the chemistry between Smith and Robbie. They have great repartee, trade snappy dialogue and despite a gaping age difference, make a credible couple.
Smith hasn’t been this effortlessly charming in years and Robbie blends streetwise—“It’s a minor miracle I’m not a hooker right now,” she says.—with easy charm. The pair are a winning combo, reminiscent of the spark-plug chemistry between George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez in “Out of Sight.”
“Focus” could use a bit more focus in the storytelling—a late movie plot twist doesn’t ring true given the lead up to the big reveal—but it zips along at such a pace and is enough fun that you may not notice.
The phrase “Fun for the whole family” takes on a new meaning around Christmas time. The kids are on winter break, grandma and grandpa have come to visit and Cousin Ethyl still has last year’s gravy stains on her Christmas sweater. How do you keep everyone entertained once the gifts are opened, the eggnog is all gone and everyone is sick of turkey leftovers?
You go to the movies. Grandma might not enjoy the drug-fuelled excesses of Joaquin Phoenix’s latest, Inherent Vice and at 142 minutes Exodus: Gods and Kings is probably too long for young attention spans, but there are a couple of films opening in theatres the whole clan can enjoy.
Produced by Jay-Z and Will Smith the new version of Annie is “a modern re-imagining of a beloved musical…” Read the whole thing in the December issue of Movie Entertainment magazine on stands now!
By Richard Crouse – Metro – In Focus
In 2001 Denzel Washington won his first Best Actor Academy Award. The movie was Training Day and Washington’s performance as the corrupt Los Angeles Police Department narcotics officer Alonzo Harris established the actor’s propensity for playing ambiguous antiheroes.
Is there another A-list leading man who explores the dark side of his characters as often as Washington? Will Smith and Tom Cruise occasionally let the heroic side of their on-screen personas take a back seat, but Washington revels in mucking around in the mud. From Training Day to American Gangster, Safe House to Flight, he has crafted complex characters you wouldn’t want to sit next to on the bus.
This weekend he’s back as Robert McCall, home improvement store manager by day, equalizer of odds by night. Based on the cult 1980s television show The Equalizer starring Edward Woodward, the film begins with the former black ops commando trying to leave his violent ways in the past. He meets his greatest adversary just when he thought that part of his life was over. Namely, the Russian mob leans on him after he tries to protect a young woman (Chloë Grace Moretz) from her pimp.
No other superstar seems as comfortable with moral haziness as Washington. In American Gangster, for instance, he was Frank Lucas, the one-time driver for a Harlem mob boss who rose to the top of the drug world by flooding the streets of Manhattan with cheap, high-grade heroin smuggled into the United States in the coffins of dead soldiers returning from Vietnam. He’s a dichotomy — bloodthirsty and ruthless, but he also attends church every Sunday with his mother.
In Flight, he played troubled pilot Whip Whitaker, an anti-hero who is functional in day-to-day life despite his predilection for wine, women and cocaine. He’s charming one minute, enraged the next and passed out on the floor the minute after that. Washington manages to subtly capture the ego and hubris that allows Whitaker to present a sober face to the public while bringing us into the messy world of addiction.
The actor has played his share of assorted good guys over the years — Ricochet’s cop-turned-attorney and Don Pedro of Aragon in Much Ado About Nothing — but it is his willingness to mine the heroism of the nasty men he plays that makes him one of the most interesting A-listers.
Richard’s new Cineplex.com column is now up and running!
“Making love on camera is such hard work,” says actress Julie Christie, “that there is no time for the libido to take over.”
Maybe so, but some good-old-fashioned romance does manage to blossom on movie sets. Just ask Brad Pitt or Goldie Hawn or Ben Affleck. Each of them met their current paramour while making a movie.
Let’s take a look at some of the greatest Hollywood on-set romances… READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
Hancock is unlike any other superhero. The Hulk, Batman and Daredevil all have serious personal issues but none have the PR problems that plague Hancock. When stopping crime and thwarting the bad guys the Los Angeles based superhero usually does more harm than good—the price tag for one rescue reaches 9 million dollars after he rips up streets, and damages buildings. He’s hated by the very people he tries to protect, and on top of it all suffers from alcoholism, anger issues, amnesia and very low self esteem. Dr. Phil would have a field day with this guy.
He’s anything but mild mannered. When we first meet Hancock (Will Smith) he’s passed out drunk on a bus shelter bench while a major crime takes place nearby. Awoken by a child who asks him to help, he sneers, rubs his unshaven face and tries to wrap his alcohol addled brain around the situation. After an orgy of destruction that sees the bad guys deposited atop the Capitol Records building, Hancock is criticized by everyone from politicians to television talking head Nancy Grace who says that he has no regard for anyone other than himself. When he saves the life of a big-hearted PR flack (Jason Bateman) Hancock is set on the road to career rehabilitation.
That’s just the first forty-five minutes. It’s jokey, action packed and essentially what you see in the trailer. It’s in the second half that Hancock deepens, becoming one of the very few superhero origin stories not to have originated in a comic book that actually works. I can’t give you any details without giving away some major spoilers and ruining the fun, but rest assured, director Peter Berg makes sure there is a good action to story ratio as the movie takes several unexpected turns.
In the lead role Will Smith is up to the task of adapting to the film’s ever changing demands, effortlessly shifting gears from the light tone established early on to the darker mid section and the mythic romance of the coda. He draws on his natural charisma and charm, infusing Hancock with highlights from his past films. There’s a dash of Men in Black’s wonky humor, a glimpse of his action hero of Independence Day, and a taste of Enemy of the State’s troubled paranoiac. Best of all there is absolutely nothing that echoes Wild Wild West.
Jason Bateman makes the best of a thankless role that could easily have been overpowered by Smith’s flashier part. Ditto Charlize Theron who takes the role of the love interest and makes it something memorable.
My major complaint is with director Berg. Buy a steady cam! Or at least a tripod! His love of wobbly cam work reaches new heights here. If you suffer from motion sickness I recommend popping a couple of Gravols before the screening.
The script, originally titled Tonight, He Comes, made the rounds in Hollywood for a decade before star Smith and director Berg came on board, bringing this strange and surprising story to the screen. An unusual mix of humor, romance and dark subject matter Hancock stands apart from other superhero movies by daring to be different.
Richard Matheson’s 1954 novella I Am Legend is no stranger to screen adaptations. Originally filmed in 1964 as Last Man on Earth it starred Vincent Price as Dr. Robert Morgan, the only survivor of a world-wide epidemic who is being hounded by zombified plague victims. A few years later it was updated with flared trousers and afro hairstyles as The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston’s hairy chest and clenched teeth. Now the sci fi classic is being given a third life—it’s a tri-make—with Will Smith as government virologist Robert Neville, in what is certainly the loudest version of the story ever committed to celluloid.
The film begins, however, with quiet contemplation. Smith and his trusty dog Sam are alone in New York City, now an overgrown shell of a city where deer run wild in Times Square. Their daylight hours are spent searching for food, hitting golf balls into the Hudson and setting up a welcome wagon on NY’s South Street Seaport for any stray survivors. So far none have shown up.
At night though, things get a bit more complicated.
Once the sun goes down pasty-faced plague-infected zombies come out to play, and they like to play rough. For three years Neville has carefully avoided contact with the beasties; he’ll occasionally trapping one to try out a newly concocted antidote but that’s it.
Soon though his luck runs out and his quiet life is upended when he stays out after sundown and the ghouls attack. The confrontation temporarily unhinges him and he decides on a suicide mission to kill himself and as many of the zombies as possible.
His death wish is thwarted by a woman (Alice Braga) and her young son (Charlie Tahan) who appear out of nowhere and save him from a grisly death at the hands (and mouths) of the hungry flesh eaters. He should be happy to see the pair, but after three years of solitude his social skills have deteriorated somewhat. She tries to convince him to join her on a trip to a “safe” community in Vermont. He’s convinced there are no other survivors, let alone a community of them living in the mountains and tries to get her to stay put in his heavily fortified hide out.
Unfortunately for them the creatures of the night have discovered their hiding place. At this point the movie literally ends with a bang. After a smart and stylish first half it’s as if the filmmakers decided to pay homage to one of Will Smith’s older films, only this time it’s called Bad Boys III: When Angry Zombies Attack. Bullets fly, mayhem ensues and many actors in whiteface scream into the camera. It’s loud and chaotic and seems like it belongs in another movie.
Luckily, however, I Am Legend starts strong with powerful images of a deserted New York City. The tranquility of the once vibrant city is beautifully captured, but when that stillness is shattered, as it is when a herd of deer bolt through deserted streets, it is breathtaking in its effectiveness.
Without a word—after a short prologue the opening ten minutes or so are largely dialogue free—director Francis Lawrence has created a visual world in which something has obviously gone horribly wrong—its solid show me-don’t-tell-me filmmaking. Couple that with amazing set design and visual effects and the film rates as first class eye candy.
Will Smith, along with a buffer-than-buff physique, also brings some chops to the role. We first meet him in full movie star swagger mode, but as the movie progresses he convincingly portrays Neville’s gradually deteriorating mental state. It’s not going to earn him an Oscar nod, but it’s good work.
Unfortunately not everything else works as well. Neville’s habit of talking to mannequins is silly and off putting. It’s something out of a b-grade sci fi flick, not a smart slice of speculative fiction. Overall screenwriter Akiva Goldsman does a good job of updating the material, but references to Bob Marley’s personal philosophies seem a bit staler than the three year old can of Spam Neville finds lying around.
Then there is the ending. While some might find the action-packed finale exciting and climatic, I found it typical, easy and not nearly as interesting as the first half of the film.
I Am Legend is a good sci fi movie but with a bit of tweaking at the end it could have been a great one.
