Be Kind, Please Rewind

It’s his Third World Premiere. He’s the…

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Week of March 9, 2018

Scalping tickets to a Redskins’ game is double racist. First up…

Thor: Ragnarok

Norse gods only answer prays containing key words, like, mead, wench or beheading.

But if this action movie is to be believed, there may not be many deities left to worship.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and his adopted brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) must prevent their newly freed sister Hela (Cate Blanchett) from destroying the Nine Realms. In the process Thor is captured by an intergalactic slave trader (Tessa Thompson) and sold to the ruler (Jeff Goldblum) of a battle planet for gladiatorial games.

Powerless without his hammer, the god of thunder must learn to rely on others, including Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), if he hopes to save Asgard.

Better than both of its predecessors by leaps and bounds, especially in terms of action, acting and humour, director Taika Waititi manages to bring levity to what is essentially Thor’s darkest saga yet. 

Incidentally, the only people who’d mourn Asgard’s ruin are white supremacists.  Green Light 

Lady Bird

The best thing about Catholic school is that it accepts pregnant virgins as students.

However, it’ll be awhile before the pupil in this dramedy even gets a miraculous kiss.

Quirky Catholic high school senior Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) struggles to find her place amongst her straight-laced peers as she waits to live out her Ivy League College fantasy far away from her overbearing mother (Laurie Metcalf). It’s not until she joins the school play that she finds her calling, and her new boyfriend.

But her affluent new friends begin to affect how Ladybird perceives her status, her family and her old friends.

Although it comes with all the angst, awkwardness and senseless rebellion you’d expect, it’s the hilarious and touching mother-daughter dynamic that elevates writer/director Greta Gerwig’s vision, and sets it apart from your standard coming-of-age account.

Moreover, teenage girls hate their mothers up until they need them to babysit.  Green Light

 

I, Tonya

Watching girls perform vertical splits in their panties is only allowed during Olympic figure skating.

Sadly, the skater in this dramedy has been banned from ever flashing audiences again.

From an early age, Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) had been pushed by her abusive mother (Allison Janney) to be the best on the ice. Despite the cruelty, she grew into a talented skater.  

Her abusive boyfriend Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) sees that Olympic potential, but also a threat in her main rival, so he hires Tonya’s bungling bodyguard and his dimwitted crew to assault Nancy Kerrigan at the ice rink.

A bizarre true story made even stranger by turning the violent event and its participants into a comical situation executed by white trash caricatures. While the cast is impeccable, the directing, especially the green-screen work, is terrible.

And while the Winter Olympics frowns on clubbing competitor’s kneecaps, Disney On Ice doesn’t.  Yellow Light

***Succor Mom***

Terms of Endearment

Being your child’s best friend is better than being their parent because you can always ditch them for cooler friends.

Mind you, the mother and daughter duo in this dramedy is connected at the hip.

Overbearing Aurora (Shirley MacLaine) becomes even more domineering when her husband dies and she’s left to raise Emma (Debra Winger) alone. While the pair share a special bound, when Emma’s husband (Jeff Daniels) is relocated that bond is strained.

To cope with loneliness Aurora courts her neighbour (Jack Nicholson). But when Emma’s health takes a dramatic turn she heads home to her mother.

James L. Brooks’ seminal tearjerker, this Oscar winner based on Larry McMurtry’s best-seller was an emotional powerhouse when it was released in 1983. However, overtime its weepy ending and its mother-daughter dynamic have lost a lot of their initial impact.

Incidentally, the one thing that always reunites daughters with mothers is a bad husband.

He's a Mother's Milkman. He's the...

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Be Kind, Please Rewind

He’s Shakespeare in the Parka. He’s the…

Vidiot

Week of March 2, 2018

To ski or not to ski? First up…

 

Murder on the Orient Express

Most train slayings occur when tramps board a boxcar filled with drunken hobos.

However, the choo choo in this mystery is too ritzy for silly rail yard homicides.

While returning to London aboard the famed Orient Express, the equally eminent Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is propositioned by a fellow passenger (Johnny Depp) looking to hire the detective to protect him for the duration of their journey.

It’s not until the man turns up dead does Poirot grasp the seriousness of his offer. Intrigue, as always, Poirot gathers the other passengers/suspects (Willem Dafoe, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Josh Gad, Penélope Cruz, Daisy Ridley) and interrogates them.

In the latest adaptation of Agatha Christie’s whodunit, Branagh manages to pull off her meticulous sleuth, but stumbles as the film’s director. While the reveal is still a classic, the real crime is the underutilized supporting cast.

Sadly though, most killers in train related deaths are drunken engineers.  Yellow Light

 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Without roadside billboards out of control vehicles would just careen into an empty farmer’s pasture.

Luckily, the small-town in this drama has an excess of advertisement opportunity.

Fuming over the fact that the local sheriff (Woody Harrelson) still hasn’t arrested any suspects in the rape/murder of her teenage daughter 7-months ago, Mildred (Frances McDormand) purchases ad space on three billboards and uses them to taunt the sheriff and his inept and racist deputy (Sam Rockwell).

Messing with the authorities, however, only brings the hammer down harder on Mildred, her family and her friends. Fortunately, everyone else in Ebbing is as fed up with the law enforcement as her.

In spite of its many strong performances and complex script that blends comedy with its tragedy, this fictitious narrative comes off as unrealistic, malicious and laughable at the end.

Besides, to really distract drivers from the road you need 3 digital billboards. Yellow Light

 

Coco

When returning for the Day of the Dead, the biggest obstacle Mexican ghosts face is scaling Trump’s metaphysical wall.

Fortunately, the deceased in this animated-musical has no one on the other side to visit.

More concerned with being a musician, like his grandfather (Benjamin Bratt), then joining the family business, Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) steals his dead abuelo’s guitar. But when he strums the instrument Miguel is spirited to the land of the dead, where he must work with a disgraced skeleton (Gael García Bernal) to get back home before he joins the dead.

A vibrant and colourful adventure that utilizes elements from the Mexican holiday to weave a touching tale about family, tradition and life after death that is accompanied by a handful of toe-tapping tunes and spirit animals, Coco offers terrific insight into this misunderstood holiday.

However, instead of visiting with family most ghosts return to Mexico for the donkey show.  Green Light

***Murder Mystery Meat***

Murder by Death

The best thing to bring with you to a murder mystery dinner is a rock-solid alibi.

Regrettably, the guests in this comedy have only brought motives.

Determined to prove himself the master sleuth, eccentric millionaire Lionel Twain (Truman Capote) invites the world’s most renowned detectives - Inspector Wang (Peter Sellers), Sam Diamond (Peter Falk), Dick and Dora Charleston (David Niven, Maggie Smith), Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lanchester), Milo Perrier (James Coco) – to dinner at his secluded manor estate. Later, the masterminds must solve Twain’s murder before morning if they hope to claim the million-dollar prize money.

Playwright turned screenwriter Neil Simon’s sardonic send-up of murder mystery authors, like Agatha Christie, their penchant for swanky locales, like a millionaire’s mansion, and their virtuoso detectives, like Hercule Poirot, Murder by Death’s wonderful lampooning is marred only by Sellers’ racist Charlie Chan impersonation.

Incidentally, when entertaining detectives be sure to lock the liquor cabinet.

He’s a Reasonable Doubting Thomas. He’s the…

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Be Kind, Please Rewind

He’s an Uphill Battle Scar. He’s the…

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Week of February 23, 2018

Old dogs can’t remember new tricks. First up...

Darkest Hour

The only employers who have a workforce over the age of 70 are Wal-Mart and Parliament.

So it’s no surprise that the political party in this drama would elect a senior as its new head.

Displeased with Neville Chamberlain’s kowtowing to Hitler and his swelling Nazis movement, Britain’s Labour Party moves to oust him as Prime Minister and replace him with a Lord from the Royal Navy, Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman).

Faced with the daunting decision of either capitulating or combating the encroaching threat, Churchill not only seeks advice from his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) and secretary (Lily James), but also the commoners.

While it can get bogged down in political minutia at times, Oldman’s turn as the portly Prime Minister, along with the spirited dialogue and rousing speeches, keep this reasonably accurate historical biography from becoming boring.

Incidentally, the darkest hour is the best time to break and enter. Yellow Light

Daddy’s Home 2

To keep your father busy when he visits be sure to loosen every screw in the household.    

Fortunately, the families in this comedy have plenty of activities to keep their dads from their tool-belt.

When their daughter declares that she hates Christmas ever since her mother (Linda Cardellini) divorced her father Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) and married Brad (Will Ferrell), the two families decide to spend the holidays together for the first time. But past problems and new revelations threaten to undermine the blended family when Dusty’s father (Mel Gibson) and Brad’s dad (John Lithgow) show up to celebrate.

While it has a sprinkling of serviceable gags that poke fun at the season, overall this ineffective sequel to the average original struggles to make its pap material palatable or even slightly plausible.

Besides, even Jesus had two Christmas: one with Mary and Joseph and one with God and his new girlfriend.  Red Light

 

The Cloverfield Paradox

The worst thing about life on an international space station is that Russian and American astronauts always collude to rig movie night voting.

Sadly, the crew in this thriller won’t live long enough to complain about this week’s selection.

While in the throes of an energy crisis, Earth launches representatives from around the world (David Oyelowo, Daniel Brühl, Chris O'Dowd, Gugu Mbatha-Raw), along with a particle accelerator that will tap into alternative energy sources, into space. But when the accelerator opens a portal to an alternate reality, a bevy of behemoths are unleashed on Earth.

The third installment in the cryptic Cloverfield franchise, this Netflix distributed sequel sheds some light on the origins of the monsters plaguing our planet, but its slapdash and incongruous script simply feels shoehorned into the larger narrative.

And while giant monsters don’t necessarily ease our energy crisis, their carcasses will help with global food shortages.  Red Light

***Bollocksmith***

 

Sid and Nancy

Like EDM musicians, Hip-Hop artists and Pop vocalists, Punk rockers can make millions without ever knowing how to play a musical instrument.

Case in point, the maladroit bassist in this drama.

At the height of the Sex Pistols’ popularity, crusty punker Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman) is introduced to American groupie Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb). Although he’s warned by his band mate Johnny Rotten (Andrew Schofield) and their manager Malcolm McLaren (David Hayman) to steer clear, Sid is drawn to Nancy and her stash of heroin. 

The volatile union inevitably destroys the band before terminating the star-crossed lovers themselves in true punk fashion.

While Oldman’s acting début manages to electrify, auteur Alex Cox’ 1986 adaptation of the 1978 events marginalizes lead singer Rotten’s importance in the band’s success, while glamourizing Vicious’ drug abuse and his bad musicianship.

Incidentally, if drugs didn’t kill Sid Vicious, hearing himself in a car commercial would’ve.

He's an Anarchy Cutter. He's the...

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