End of summer is here. Man it flew by fast!! In Toronto we have the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) Air Show all weekend. It’s fun!!
Mad Max 2: Road Warrior – back in 1982 George Miller released the sequel to his first film in this series set in Australia after an apocalypse. I decided to revisit this film after the most recent Furiosa just released and reviewed by me with Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth. The latest release lacks all of the things that made the Road Warrior movie some compelling and a success that drove the series forward. Mel Gibson is the young star who builds this successful role into super stardom. But what’s the difference? Same director. Many years later in a similar world. For me it’s the human heart and soul of the original. There were a band of people that you cared about. They were keeping their decency and humanity while fighting off the vermin of society, leftovers in an age when violence and might rule the day. The good guys wearing white are introduced after we see Max (the former cop) on the wild highways with chases and explosions. Everyone is seeking petrol which is in limited supply. Max has a dutiful and loyal dog who helps him greatly and early on meets up with a gangly stranger who has a flying helicopter contraption. They aren’t exactly friends as Max makes him a prisoner. Together they see a task, hoping to help the protectors of a refinery who seek new life and hope. The bad guys with two ferocious and merciless leaders just want what they want. The gas, and along with it the power. The intrigue begins along with the humanity in a few forms. The mercenary and loner learns a lesson about being human and having purpose.
The contrast is striking to Furiosa where it seemed the focus was on the crazy stunts and make up while losing any sense of connection. Humungous and his sidekick are played straight and intensely in Road Warrior. Hemsworth have made it a caricature. It is laughable how Hemsworth plays his role which is as disingenuous as the make up and prosthetic nose and chin that he wears. Sometimes it isn’t a good idea to remake what was a success. Having said that Mad Max: Fury Road was a decent episode in the series. There is always another movie to be made and more money to be made at the box office.
Find Me Falling: Netflix has released this romantic comedy starring Harry Connick Jr who plays a worldwide music star who has decided to move to the island of Cyprus. Cyprus is the third largest island in the Meditteranean in the eastern end of the sea close to Turkey, Syria and Greece. The scenery is very similar to Greece. His reasons for choosing this destination become apparent pretty quickly. He has decided to slow down, focus less on his career, and his first step is buying a piece of property which has an enticing cliff, but one that he learns has positives and negatives.
He is introduced to the local grocery store and woman in charge who sends along a pleasant young woman to deliver his purchases to him. Things happen. The reasons for his choosing Cyprus materialize with a history lesson for Harry and a woman on the island. The rest is fairly predictable. There are issues to be addressed and Harry needs to show that he is a changed man. He is hoping that his presence on the island shows that this is the case. Overall, this is a straightforward romantic comedy film set in a pretty location. I like the travel log as I have never been to Cyprus but it looks nice. I don’t need to meet Harry when I am there.
Love Is Blind UK: The Love is Blind franchise began in 2020 in the US has had six seasons. It has spawned eight (!!) international shows including Love is Blind Sweden, Love is Blind Mexico and now UK. I prefer watching where the contestants are speaking English and I don’t need subtitles but I have been told that Love is Blind Japan was very interesting to watch.
This season has 11 episodes and then a still unreleased episode 12 with having the contestants come back together in a reunion show. As in the US, the show puts together 28 singles who are unable to see the members of the opposite sex, but can speak with them in pods. The pods are small rooms with opaque seperators where each one of the dating couple can have a seat and just chat. The couples will continue with dating and chats, and only if they become engaged do they actually meet face to face. Then the next phase of the experiment occurs where the engaged couples head to an exotic beach location to explore their physical connection. Finally they come back to home (in this case London) and meet friends, families and utlimately decide if they want to actuall marry in the last episodes of the show. For the UK, we have six couples who passed the exotic destination test and went to the altar.
Of course this is mind candy. Reality TV with real lives impacted and at stake. I liked this season and those involved generally, because I think that they generally communicated well, and were in the show for the right reasons. A few were a little older, and this is beneficial to the overall feeling. They want to find their match, this is a new idea from the apps and online world which can be very superficial focusing on looks alone. By contrast the idea is these contestants fall for the person, the content of what they say, how they say it and their values. The intrigue happens when a contestant is choosing between more than one person and has to make a choice before ever setting eyes on these people. Of course for dramatic purposes those people have an opportunity to meet those people that they rejected. It all culminates with a dramatic finale with friends and family there, wearing full dress and tuxedo and deciding whether to marry or never see the person again. For me, I was cheering for many of the couples. Others may not seem ready, or have those around them who aren’t ready for them to be married (like a parent). I can say that I was surprised at a few of the end results. I do hope that there are more UK versions with their fun accents and hopefully people wanting to find love rather than their 15 mins of TV time. I think in this genre of dating reality shows that this was one of the better seasons. I have never professed to being immune from watching mindless TV!!
Deadpool & Wolverine: Those who read me, and know me, know that I am not a big superhero movie guy, and especially I have not been well engaged in the Marvel world. From Iron Man to Avengers to Fantastic 4 , X-Men and lesser lights like Ant Man. I am not even certain that I have watched all of the Wolverine movies. Be that as it may, with an open mind I ventured out to see Deadpool & Wolverine. I have seen the two prior Deadpool movies, enjoying the first and the in-your-face profanity and humour and less so the sequel. I think that Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool has found the proper role for him. As opposed to The Green Lantern. He just embodies it and the earlier moments of this movie has a recap where he calls out the odd premise in terms of dealing with Wolverine, who in his last movie (spoiler alert) managed to save a young lady but sacrificed himself. In short, he’s dead and buried.
So Deadpool is saddled with a task of ressurecting Wolverine. The strange aspect is the whole time travel thing and ,in this instance, another plain of reality which is like a dead zone wasteland. Things end up here that aren’t wanted back in the real world. For the Torontonian it is very funny to see the CN Tower looking like it was dropped from the original Planet of the Apes, half buried in sand. Deadpool is asked to bring back Wolverine, and the rest of the plot doesn’t really need to be further explained. But the real question was whether this was fun and was it necessary? I genuinely laughed out loud a number of times. That itself was saying something, because I don’t necessarily get all the inside jokes. Some of these jokes were from interactions with other characters, like Electra (yes, Jennifer Garner) or Gambit (played by Channing Tatum) that were very funny. I still cannot understand how a playing card can become such a deadly weapon but never mind – hardy the most taxing aspect of reality that affects one’s thougts for this movie. The level of gratuitous violence with blood spurting with endless people falling is a little overwhelming at times. The story of the leader of this void, and how she got here, is an interesting side light. The cameos are fun. Stay in the theatre past the ending credits to catch one last joke. It was funny. I have to admit that seeing Chris Evans not being Captain America, but rather the Human Torch in this Fantastic 4 role is different. In the end, does it all makes sense? Not really. It is a good laugh at times. Yes. Was there an ending where you roll your eyes? Oh yes. So….take this for what it is. It didn’t suck. I could follow it. I had some really good laughs.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: This was released in 2018, starring Lily James, the now ever-present Glen Powell, along with Matthew Goode and Penelope Wilton from Downton Abbey fame. It is set during WWII, and the aftermath. It is a wartime romantic film, focusing on the James character who is a writer and had exchanged some letters with a person in Guernsey. Guernsey is a small island of 24 square miles off the coast of France, closer to France than England. It is self-governing and not part of the UK although the British government has some financial responsiblity on the island. Guernsey was invaded by the Germans in WWII and occupied. The story focuses on a group of friends who one night during the occupation are stopped by a Nazi patrol and told about what they were doing. They use a made up literary society to try and avoid the Nazis and have an excuse for being out of doors beyond curfew. Although the film is fiction, there are a number of aspects as shown which reflect what happened on the island during the war. The story of this evening is recounted to James.
James as a writer is intriged by the story she is told and travels to the island to meet up with the people involved. Those residents involved that she meets and talks to have their own views and impacts from the war. Before her trip to the island, she is proposed to her by her American boyfriend (Powell) who likes to shower her with flowers. He heads back to the US. James’ character is British. The story unfolds. I won’t get into the details, but ultimately James needs to make some decisions about the story, her life, piecing together the details of what had actually happened and how she should want to have her life continue after the story is finished. Someone will get hurt, they always do. Someone else will find what it is to feel love and others will find new ways in which to direct their lives. Is it believable? Do I care about the people involved? Yes I think so. Despite that it isn’t all that compelling, nor anything worth seeking out. I wish that I had learned more about the occupation and the importance of Guernsey during the War. One would think that it would be very strategic. This is more personal than that involving specific individuals. I can’t recommend this.
First of all, this is my eldest son’s birthday today and I wanted to send a great big shout out to him! It’s a milestone birthday for him and I am a very lucky Dad to have him in my life. He makes me proud every day. Happy Birthday!
A Quiet Place: Day One: In 2018, the original and surprise sci-fi thriller hit A Quiet Place was released. I was a fan of the John Krasinski story, with his direction, along with him acting with his wife in real life Emily Blunt. The premise was a subtle but important turn on the typical alien invader story. In that story the alien creatures were seemingly without weakness, and were roaming freely through the US and in this smaller US farming community. The movie follows a family and three kids struggling through this invasion. The sequeal released in 2020 continued on with the story for Emily Blunt and family.
This story has nothing to do with Emily Blunt and her family. It is a prequel set in NYC with all new characters. The primary character here, named Samira, is played by Lupita Nyong’o who is a woman stricken with cancer in a hospice facility. The is alone with her cat, and is down on her life and life in general. Then the unexpected for those in the film happens as images and events very reminiscent of 9-11 takes place throughout the city. Raining down from above come these meteorites which are these blurs as attacking creatures with devastating effect.
Buildings are falling, dust flies, fires begin, explosions occur and people are wiped out. In all of this madness we follow Samira who works to navigate her way to safety. Crawling under trucks, running through dusty streets in clouds of dust with an unseen danger, clearly killing these people around her. In all of this, she inexplicably manages to keep her cat close to her. Of course one has to check reality at the door at times. In this case I thought about the practicalities of trying to film these scenes with an adult cat, without Nyong’o being scratched and bitten to shreds. But in the film, with all the chaos going on around her, she still manages to find her cat. Not just once. There was a moment about halfway through the film when in my head I said “if she finds that cat one more time in all of this, I have to stop the film.” I stopped it. Incredibly!
Having been a fan of the first effort especially, I feel as though this story was a cash grab, taking advantage of the goodwill built up in the earlier films. The first film works especially because of the family angle. Mom, Dad, kids and how they interact. Emily Blunt’s character was also pregnant in the first film, and you just agonize with her as she is about the give birth in the scenes. That isn’t present here, despite the best of intentions in trying to gain sympathy for Samira’s cancer condition and diagnosis. She meets some random people who help her, show humanity and give her hope. From a character who talks to her therapy group about how her life was “shit” then before everything happened. I do think that life in North America in 2024 doesn’t have people generally appreciate just how good things are for us. Life even 100 years ago, let alone 400 years ago would have been. She learns some lessons, but as an audience member it didn’t work for me. So I am not able to recommend this. Unfortunately.
House of the Dragon Season 2: The second season of this series finished last Sunday with the eighth and final episode. Apparently there are two more seasons to go. We get to see the trials and tribulations among the Targaryan family as they battle for the crown of the departed King Viserys. There are two camps, Viserys’ daughter Rhaenyra, who was promised the crown by her father in no uncertain terms, but then the son of Viserys’ second wife Aegon. Aegon is one of a few heirs with Alicent Hightower and Viserys.
But as a season, I don’t think it ends in a way that is Game of Thrones worthy. I know that I will harp on this, but if you are marketing this series, and using the Game of Thrones theme song, then you must expect some comparisons with the original series. This doesn’t have the same families and characters weaving amongst each other (although there are some), nor the number of locations within Westeros and beyond. In this way it seems like GOT Lite. This season also didn’t end with an expected cliff hanger.
This feels more as pieces were being placed on a board and then the movements are going to take place later on. I like some of the placements, with the moves being made on both side of the potential battle (Aegon and family versus Rhaenyra and allies). I also note that the women seem to be more stable leaders than the men, certainly within the Targaryen family where the men and boys show themelves to be power hungry and viscious. The one episode where the dragons battle as I wrote about earlier was excellent. But the last couple of episodes have once again moved into more plot heavy dialogue. I wish that it moved quicker. I wish that there were episodes like the dragon battle episode. It seemed that Game of Thrones was able to build off on one another on multiple fronts. I will continue to watch. I do like the production values. I also generally like the actors, and the performances. But the quality of the story and writing seems more borrowed from Wolf Hall or The Other Boleyn Girl or the Tudors, all having to deal with the Henry VIII. Of course it is not completely this story but there are certainly elements of it.
The Bikeriders: So I was intrigued with this film when I saw that the cast included Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, Michael Shannon and Jodie Comer was being promoted. It is an impressive cast with Hardy, who has done some laudable work although recently nothing memorable (no I can’t say that Venom is something to be proud), but also Austin Butler as Elvis and Comer who was outstanding in Killing Eve. The plot seemed to be a mixture of Sons of Anarchy and Good Fellas. I was hoping for the best.
The plot focuses in a real biker club that happened back in the 1970s in the Midwest. Tom Hardy started as a guy who liked his motorcycle and gathered up some friends to have a motorcycle racing club. He called them the The Vandals of Chicago. They grew in numbers. But I am getting ahead of myself, because the story starts well into the history with the Austin Butler character in a bar and refusing to take off his “colours” (the bike jacket). He was already a member, and he was already married. There is a voiceover where his wife, played by Jodie Comer explains that he was a fiery, independent man who was very loyal to a fault. She talks through her romance with him and her being part of this gang of riders. As it grows it gains members who are not too loyal to the leadership of Hardy nor to its principles.
The story carries on but for me it was a weak effort. I wouldn’t think that succession of the leader is an important as one might think. I also wouldn’t think that Comer who, knowing fully what she was get into, would be so surprised at how things end up turning out for her. The same could be said for Hardy, who mumbles through mostly of his lines, and doesn’t really show himself to be full of leadership material. But maybe that’s the point – from a guy who who came from humble wants and beginnings to leading a very large multiple city gang. In the end I feel as though this was an opportunity missed. This cast deserved a better story with people who were more than typecast thugs.
Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1: Kevin Costner won the Oscar for directing back in 1990 with Dances with Wolves. It seems like he enjoys spending more time on horses and in nature. The success of Yellowstone has allowed him more time and a place of power to do another western project it would seem. This is the effort.
The story is set in multiple states at the end of the 1800s. The west is being explored and populated by immigrants. There are advertisements in the easter coastal cities to encourage a move the wild wild west. Land and opportunity for those who are willing to work for it. Of course there are the indigenous tribes who have populated the lands for many generations. Although the concept of ownership of the land is different they have experienced those immigrants and their armies who take without offering anything. So there are conflicts with innocents who deserve better. From various States we move to a smaller community conflict with a revenge story with two brothers. It is somewhat similar to Unforgiven.
So where does Costner fit into all this? He is an individual who seems to have a primary focus on gold mining. He makes money here and there, and gets targeted by the local lady of the evening who sees him as a potential Sugar Daddy. Things happen and Costner ends up getting involved more deeply than he was hoping. His path changes and he takes on different responsibilities freely. The bad brothers who confront Costner’s character are laughably evil with a predictable outcome. Costner plays the bad ass “man with no name” alright, but not on par with Clint Eastwood.
The challenge of course with all this is that this is slow moving with not enough development of the characters or the underlying stories. This is part one, with factions including the indigenous populations, the army, the ranchers and individuals just trying to make their way in life. The foundation is laid here but for me I wanted to see more development of the characters. I won’t be anxious to catch the second episode, but one can hope that it addresses a story that is balanced and fair to how things happened as opposed to the versions that we have been privy to for many years.
Twisters: In 1996, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt starred in the original movie Twister, when a couple of competing groups of “storm chasers” were looking to better understand deadly tornadoes in the america midwest, and notably Oklahoma. Paxton and Hunt were former spouses, but then apart as they did the work of driving a caravan of trucks around looking for the storms. Now in 2024, a whole new cast of characters, unrelated to the original are coming to a theatre near you.
Featuring Mr Everything in film (not named Chalamet) Glen Powell, and also Daisy Edgar-Jones (previously in the forgettable Where the Crawdads Sing) and Anthony Ramos they play another grouping of individuals who is looking for how to understand and counteract the deadly effects of the storms. In present day, without addressing global warming (apparently on purpose to avoid being political) there is a record setting number of tornadoes popping up in Oklahoma and threatening the residents. But before the present day we have a flashback to Daisy (playing Kate Carter) who has a gift for anticipating where storms will go has an experience which has shaped her and those around her.
Performances for the most part are serviceable. Powell plays the handsome cad. Daisy the person with skills who has had an emotional setback looks to find a way to recover and find a new path. Then there is Ramos who also has had to deal with trauma and moving forward in his own way. The supporting cast doesn’t have a Phillip Seymour Hoffman nor an Alan Ruck or Carey Elwes.
For me, there were a number of predictable plot elements that take place, but for me it didn’t take away from the enjoyment of the film. Of course, like the original Twister, one has to check your realism somewhat at the door. For example, I don’t think for a moment that a pick up truck that has anchored itself into ashphalt would be able to stay in put within the fury of a tornado. I say this because of the force of the winds, that in the original movie was lifting up 18-wheelers and leveling buildings would have little difficulty with the pick up, but aldo add in the fact that all sorts of rocks and debris are within the high winds and swirling around like a hail of bullets. There are other times where rain or hail while in others there is none. Go figure. As for the humans, there are scenes with the impressive computer graphics with humans trying to keep themselves safe in extreme environments. It isn’t entirely believable. But notwithstanding that, I still enjoyed this. It was entertaining, despite some of the predictable twists. The twists were not entirely predictable, but in the end I cared about the people. There were some impressive scenes for the big screen and some fun music too. This was more enjoyable than most of the theatre films that I have seen, so that says something. Another good friend of mine saw this and didn’t like it at all. He felt that it was stupid and belonged on the Hallmark Channel. So not everyone will feel entertained by it. So, watch with an open mind and see how you feel if you choose to go.
6 Underground: This Michael Bay adventure-thriller is presently on Netflix. It was released back in 2019. Funny that it didn’t register with me five years ago. It seems to me that someone approached Michael Bay after seeing the success of the Mission Impossible movies (at that time there had been six released) and had made oodles of money. For this movie, the idea was to create a team of randomly skilled people and have them “dead” so that they are truly off the grid. They are not beholden to any government, but rather can choose to engage in dealing with problems as they identify them, in short they get to kill the “bad people” without worrying about treaties, ancillary world views and political fallout. They number each other for anonymity with Ryan Reynolds playing a billionaire tech guru known as One. This is how this operation is funded; never mind questions about getting cars, flights, purchasing anything or getting into any country without documents. But nevermind.
The true inspiration for me watching this was a longtime buddy of mine saying that the car chase through Florence was one of the most epic that he has ever seen. I was intrigued. I also know that Bond, Bourne and Mission Impossible had done respectively some impressive car chase sequences (quite a few in various Italian cities). The car chase in this movie was certainly on that level and one has to be impressed with the handling of the Alfa Romeo Quadrafoglio painted neon green zooming through the streets with two team members doing a medical procedure in the back seat! Yea! It is another level.
Bay knows how to “blow things up, real good” (borrowing heavily from departed Jim Flaherty and John SCTV) with many vespa riders getting the brunt of the damage. Let’s just say a crowded street in Florence during the day would have its fair share of collateral damage. But after the dust settles, some new members of the team arrive and show their skills, it becomes very reminiscent of other movies (like The Dark Knight and the extraction scene from Hong Kong). It is almost always feeling like a Call of Duty video game as the team enters into a new area. They are targeting a foul, ill tempered leader of a made up country for plot purposes. The writers try and inject heart into this team of strangers who One insists are NOT a family. They are focused on the mission at hand, and the individual takes second billing in order to meet the objective. I liked the car chase. I cannot recommend more than that. There are some typical Ryan Reynolds quips, some of which land for a laugh, but generally this $150M budget film (second highest in Netflix history) didn’t do well likely because it didn’t resonate with the audience in the same way emotionally than the other thrillers noted above. Some of the other team members have interesting stories and skills, but it once again seems forced. So for me, this is a pass.
Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies and Scandal: This three part documentary on Netflix tells the story of the earlier days of extra-marital affair Canadian company Ashley Madison and the fall out from the targeted hack that took place with them in July 2015 where they were boasting 37 million users worldwide. The exposure of the details of the customers, and later the details of personal emails of the CEO and others was a major wake up call for people generally and how much information that they wish to share with any website. The website turns out faked their cybersecurity protection system and it’s safety with sensitive data, and you learn how a person managed to get behind the firewall and put the company up for a ransom demand.
Interestingly, the demand was to shut down the site immediately and the hacker(s) will not proceed in disclosing the names and emails of the customers. The series brings forward a number of couples and those who were impacted by all of this. The insiders, who focused on the dollars and cents and wanting to go public on the stock market, to the users who had their names published. The more well known you were, like the couple pictured above who were well-known Christian Youtubers and Vloggers had their world turned upside down. Is this a call for sympathy? Many would say no. Show the cheaters for who they are. Others are more wary about those judging others and perhaps “those without sin should cast the first stone”. None of those involved on the company side are likeable. Some of the innocents caught unaware, were extremely sympathetic. The ongoing lesson is though that a business that professes to be 100% protected in this cyberworld, is just a hack away from this not being true. This was interesting.
House of the Dragon: Season 2: Episode 4 and 5: A short word to say that a week ago I was thrilled with Episode 4 entitled The Red Dragon and the Gold. For one and a half seasons I have been waiting for an episode like this to justify the use of the Game of Thrones theme song to begin each episode. To me, this isn’t Game of Thrones since it hasn’t kept the quick pacing and the unexpected twists and turns with the prominent characters. FINALLY, we have an episode worthy of its name. The second half of this episode with the ensuing battle after much build up, can live up to the hype of the show. I had been awaiting an episode where the advertisements talk about “riveting” and “best in class” would come about. So all I will say is, this episode of all of the ones before is fun to watch and satisfying to those Game of Thrones fans. Inasmuch as I was excited about this episode 4, last night we came back down to earth (literally and figuratively) with the chatter and endless discussion about “oh, what to do?”. It seems the family Targaryen is ripping itself apart limb from limb, while revealing why their sigil is a three-headed dragon.
All this to say that there are more episodes to be dropped in the coming sundays and I hope that there is more of episode 4, and less of episode 5. I do expect that there will be a bigger battle to come, and clearly the women are going to remain the key factors in any success or failure for their side, and they will need to foresake offspring, husbands, council members, military leaders to get there.
I have watched two quality documentaries on Netflix this past week and can recommend them both.
Open Heart: I am an NHL hockey fan, and always have been from my youngest days. I have carried on a passion for the game in the former job as an agent, but now still I am active with organizing and participating in hockey pools. I was told by a work colleague who knew that I was a hockey fan that I should check out this documentary. It is about goaltender Henrik Lundqvist formerly of the NY Rangers, who is an excellent Swedish goalie who was among the best at the position for many years. He has done everything he could for his beloved NY Rangers, except bring home a Stanley Cup championship. He came close, a Final series in 2014, ultimately a loss to the LA Kings. It was not his fault.
The story is not really a hockey story howver. It is a very human story about an aging superstar, who has been replaced (and not renewed for a new contract) with his former team, but he still feels in his late 30s that he has more to give the game, and of himself. I follow the game, but it didn’t click with me that Lundqvist had not signed with anyone after the Rangers. In fact, he did. He had a contract offer from the Washington Capitols, a team that needed someone of his skill. He had to take a physical before the contract and the ensuing training camp would take place. Then a routine check showed this excellent athlete, had a serious heart condition. The rest tells the story and what happens to him and his family. There are interviews with loved ones, and former teammates, and much with Henrik himself and even his therapist. He even has a twin brother who watches this handsomely dressed man go through this ordeal. The audience sees his struggles and the emotional ups and down. How does one react when the body you have relied upon all your life, turns on you, and begins to deliver a message that you aren’t interested in hearing. It unfolds, and I came away with a much deeper appreciation for the man, and a greater respect for the one that they called King Henrik. Well done King, we can all cheer you on and wish you best wishes as you turn over the hockey chapter in your life and move into something else.
Remembering Gene Wilder: This was another documentary that I watched over the past week. I liked Gene Wilder as an actor. I remembered a few of his films like Blazing Saddles, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as Willy Wonka, some films with comedy great Richard Pryor and of course Young Frankenstein. I regarded him as engaging and funny, but never a top flight movie star! This movie talked about his life, from those who remember him best, including some great actors and even Mel Brooks, who has outlived them all it seems, now at age 98.
I had remembered that he had been married to Saturday Night Live standout from the 1970s Gilda Radner. Most sadly Gilda shortly after marrying Gene, and trying to have a baby was found to have ovarian cancer at the age of 42!! Wilder as a boy always wanted to cheer up his mother, as she went through bouts of depressing among other things. By pure happenstance he got into acting, and landed a role that would introduce him to pivotal Anne Bancroft, married to Mel Brooks. The rest became history as Brooks and Wilder became best of friends and worked on many movies together. Wilder wrote and starred in Young Frankenstein which as a parody is pure comic genius at work. He had a great emsemble cast, with Marty Feldman, Teri Garr, Madeline Khan and Peter Boyle playing the monster, with an excellent cameo from Gene Hackman! Another move of fate was later after Gilda had passed away that he was working on a movie that focused on a man that was blind (Richard Pryon played a deaf man) and Wilder went to seek assistance with understanding how a blind person interacts with the world. He meets and has dinner with a woman who eventually would become his second wife.
All this to say that I learned something about Gene Wilder that I didn’t know before. I have a greater appreciation for his art and his acting. I think that he leaves behind some very funny and memorable movies, but more than that he seeme to impact those around him in a very positive way. Not all artists can be said to be that way. Well worth your time to watch.
I was away for the Canada Day long weekend and didn’t post last weekend. That, however, doesn’t mean that I didn’t see any movies. In fact, I have seen four consecutive movies all of which were in various levels of disappointment. Two of these were Netflix, one streamed and the other in the actual theatre. So there are some bonus movie reviews for this week. Wishing everyone a Happy Canada Day and also my American friends a Happy Independence Day. On to the movies:
Kinds of Kindness: Yorgos Lanthimos is a Greek filmmaker, and has an impressive catalog of work including The Lobster, Killing of the Sacred Deer, The Favourite, and last year’s Poor Things which provided Emma Stone with her Best Actress Oscar. Emma Stone is a familiar face in Lanthimos’ films. Others include Willem Dafoe, Rachel Weisz and others. With this background, I was interested to see what this new, quietly released film was all about. How was Emma Stone going to follow up in her performance in Poor Things. Added to this compilation story we have the incredible shrinking man Jesse Plemons. Together, the core characters play in three separate chapters of this film, playing three different and distinct characters. Each of these stories is odd and difficult to describe in any detail.
However much Stone is the focus in the previews and movie poster, she has little impact on the first story. That belongs to Plemons. For his efforts he was nominated for Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. This first chapter has Plemons looking to impress the older man played by Willem Dafoe. Dafoe wishes for a favour to be granted and when Plemons declines and Dafoe moves on, Plemons’ life is turned upside down. It reminds me a little about Trading Places with Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy where the two older gents bet that they can make a well-heeled artistocrat into a criminal. They succeed. Part Two has Plemons as a man who is an emotional mess about his wife who is missing. She has been gone for days. Stone is the missing wife. Dafoe plays her Dad. Plemons is a cop and has a partner. The police force are concerned about how he is acting. The story unfolds when it appears as though Plemons’ wishes have been granted! Odd things happen after that with surprising results. In the third act, Stone is a married woman with a young daughter but she has left the family to search for another woman. This woman apparently has amazing powers and has been very difficult to find. Stone is joined with Plemons in searching for this woman. There is a loose thread which holds these stories together, but it is a stretch. Getting there is a movie 2:45 in length and slow. It is also confusing, making little sense. I have no idea still upon reflection what kindnesses they were referring to in the title. There are dark motivations at work, with some gore in odd places. It is not uplifting in any way, and reveals certainly the darker side of the human condition. It is a stretch to call this a dark comedy. It is a drama and will not be for people who want a linear story and a straightforward message. I didn’t like this, and walked away shaking my head as confused as I have been after finishing a movie in quite some time. Other efforts by Lanthimos were for this viewer more satisfying and better all around, including the strange Poor Things. You have been warned.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga: In 1985, George Miller directed Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Miller had been well involved in the Mad Max story from the beginning in 1979 with a very young Mel Gibson. So when he returned to direct in 2015 Mad Max: Fury Road with Tom Hardy as Max it became a surprise hit. It also became a movie where Charlize Theron stole the movie with her performance of a woman named Imperator Furiosa and the memorable CGI and desert car chase scenes. Fast forward another 9 years, and Miller is putting his name as part of the credits for a new Mad Max prequel about the Charlize character Furiosa. Sadly what the made the rebooted Mad Max so fresh with new energy is missing from this prequel.
The world in which Furiosa lives in her youth and getting into her teens is this strange dystopia. Set in Australia we have a world where there are overlords who control various means of production. Max Max Fury Road focused on this Citadel, but there are others. There is of course the ongoing question through all Mad Max of where exactly does all the gas/petrol come from? It is most pronounced in this effort. So many vehicles, from trucks to cars and motorcycles. But keeping that aside, there is a story of a young girl who eventually becomes the sidekick of the powerful leader in the Citadel. She has some prior history with the weakest part of this whole story which is the Chris Hemsworth character, Dr Dementus. The acting is so over-the-top with an outrageous accent, with a strange beard, horrible prosthetic nose (not unlike Bradley Cooper in Maestro) and chariot-like motorcycle vehicle that makes little sense.
There is an odd dynamic between Hemsworth and the young Furiosa who as an older woman is played by Anya Taylor Joy who barely says anything throughout. That is another issue, because there are very few motivations or things learned about the pivotal character in Fury Road. But it falls flat.
The story is weak. The performances are odd, and it seems that the CGI is driving where the plot goes. CGI in my mind can enhance a storyline, turning a line on a script into a believable image on the screen. The hurry-up filming style is used time and again, with it all seemingly sped up, but also stunts that are unreal, with bodies and machines flying all over the place. One set piece moves into another, but it is like a comic book. I wasn’t connected with Furiosa and I didn’t care about where this all ends up, because you realize that it becomes the Charlize Theron version of the character. I think that this was an opportunity missed. Sadly Miller seems to have got caught up in it, and likely didn’t see where the end product is ending up. Of all the characters Tom Burke is close to a Max in this, and he is somewhat interesting. Overall, this is a miss, and I don’t see that it is worth the money for the theatre. This isn’t adding much to the overall Mad Max storyline.
A Family Affair: On the Canada Day weekend it was a Toronto Globe & Mail pick for the long weekend to be watching the latest Nicole Kidman and Zac Ephron romantic comedy vehicle. Joey King, unfamiliar to me, is familiar with younger viewers and is playing Nicole Kidman’s daughter, but also working for Zac Ephron who is playing a Tom Cruise-like agent, superhero.
For me I couldn’t get over all the plastic surgery on the screen, in a paper thin plot that was pretty obvious. Hollywood superstar doing one of many sequels to a formulaic series has the young personal assistant King thinking the movie needs to re-written. Her Mom, Kidman, happens to be a writer. After some tequilas the Hollywood star and Mom do what romantic comedies do, with predictable results from the daughter. All of this was forgettable, and it is surprising to see Nicole Kidman put her name to it. I am not a fan of Ms Kidman generally, and so this was not something to gain any points in my books. This is a hard pass and not worth your time.
Atlas: Like Nicole Kidman, I am left wondering why Jennifer Lopez would associate herself with this Netflix release Atlas. What do you get when you have a little bit of Avatar, a little bit of Interstellar, a little bit of Gravity, and a little bit of Alien and other parts of other movies with relationships between parents and kids and underlining guilt? The answer is that you have a movie that the sum of its parts from better movies doesn’t equate to a decent movie unto itself.
Lopez plays a woman, named Atlas, who’s Mom was instrumental in developing a new form of human-like Artificial Intelligence (“AI”). The AI takes the form of Canadian Simu Lui with blue contacts in. It seems that Atlas and AI robot were learning and growing up together.
In the end, Lopez needs to learn how to trust again, and in a situation much like TARZ in Interstellar there is this bond needed to run the Avatar-like machine/space ship that she is occupying. Things move ahead. Lopez is looking to track down the AI robot and prevent him from doing some sinister things. Time after time there are scenes taken from other better movies. I don’t feel the need to delve further into the plot because I think it is just tiresome. In short, this is a film not worthy of your time. There are other films including those listed as references from this one that you should check out instead.
Land of Bad: Netflix has just released a new film starring Russell Crowe (looking more and more well fed), Liam Hemsworth and Luke Hemsworth. The title though says it all – this is bad, make no mistake about it. It begins with a discussion about an area of the world near the Philippines, where there is active combat and a war going on that no one is aware. It is an Australian film, but about Americans. Funny that.
There is an operation that is required in this combative area and a young Liam Hemsworth is ordered by happenstance to join a veteran group of Special Ops soldiers who are going to look to find and return an intelligence CIA asset. Naturally there is chirping among the more experienced soldiers and the young inexperienced Hemsworth who is nervous about a high parachute drop and the nature of the unknown task ahead of them. This small group of soldiers is supported half a world away in a base in Las Vegas which has Air Force personnel using drones with accompanying weapons. The drones have the ability to watch over the operation and communicate the on-ground situation to the soldiers. Russell Crowe is an aging operator, who cannot even do up the uniform which he tries to wear and hides the fact with a bright yellow Hawaiian shirt.
The operation, naturally, runs into unexpected issues with the team suffering significant losses. Crowe is doing his best to explain why he sits in his chair at this age, while at the same time communicating to that strike team. I am not really clear as to why Crowe is given this role. Perhaps they wanted another Australian, like Hemsorth, to play a guy from Ohio, as Hemsworth does. My greater issue with the movie is that this makes it seem as though it is present day but rather than finding familiar real wars like Ukraine or Isreal and Palestine, there is this unknown “war”. When you look at the American resources that are used here, helicopters, F-18s, B-1 bombers, drones and personnel all over the armed forces, one wonders about this war. It creates no sympathy really for the young soldier as he stands, with all these well provisioned rebels in this massive bunker structure. Battles are undertaken, with plenty of bullets and hand to hand combat. There are clear enemies, but really? There is torture, there are other challenges for a singular solider with plenty of inexplicable actions by the rebels (like the whole issue of whether you don’t simply shoot an enemy you find in your territory). I would have expected the soldier to shoot first and and ask questions later. There are also way-too-convenient strikes being made which happen to coincide very neatly with an unpleasant consequence which seems to befall the lead character. Do I like this? Absolutely not. It is not compelling or interesting on any level. Within the first thirty minutes almost nothing takes place. The ending of course is not really in doubt, even when the ending of Platoon is virtually stolen frame for frame. This movie is a hard pass, and it is unfortunate that Russell Crowe who will associate himself with it.
Mondays With Robbie 