It’s March 31, 1943, and Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) is chatting up the patrons at Sardi’s, a restaurant that will be hosting the production of Oklahoma! after their opening night. The buzz around this new musical is rumoured to be a hit for Hart’s collaborative composer Richard Rogers (Andrew Scott), who paired with Oscar Hammerstein II for this folksy endeavour. Hart, whether he knows it or not, tries to tune out and drown away his…
You’re a Millennial living through the aughts of Gen Z. You’re in high school, hastily finishing last week’s homework, and anticipating the wild shenanigans you’ll catch in the evening on MTV’s Jackass spin-off Viva La Bam, the network’s hit reality show starring skateboarder Bam Margera and his fellow band of Pennsylvanian misfits. In between harebrained spectacles and stunts, most likely involving destruction or pranks or both, rock and metal tunes would play over top of…
Movie musical maestro Bill Condon (director of Dreamgirls and Beauty and the Beast [2017], and screenwriter for Chicago and The Greatest Showman) provides a good stage-to-screen adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman. But, it’s also a reminder that sometimes a filmed version of a bottled staged show can’t overcome its blatant challenges. Most of 1993’s Tony award-winner takes place within a shared jail. Luis (soap star Tonatiuh) has been incarcerated for indecency and continues to experience other prejudices for…
Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror may be the the definitive time warp on the history and legacy of the cult hit, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the stage musical that preceded it, The Rocky Horror Show. Produced by World of Wonder (RuPaul’s Drag Race, Trixie Mattel: Moving Parts) and from the perspective of director Linus O’Brien (the son of Rocky Horror creator Richard O’Brien), the documentary works in a linear fashion; starting with…
Mercedes Bryce Morgan directs the provocative Bone Lake. While the press notes assure me that Mercedes Bryce Morgan is a single person, this messy and conflicted film feels as though it was a tug of war between three creatives named Mercedes, Bryce, and Morgan. Bone Lake is bookended by its best (and bloodiest) bits. The film kicks off with a stark naked couple, fearfully running away from crossbow arrows before being outrageously impaled. This opener is immature,…
Jimmy and Stiggs is, what I imagine, an accurate portrayal of what an alien invasion would be like in the company of strung-out and loudly belligerent meatheads with grudges and substance abuse. The question is: does that sound like a good time? The premise for Joe Begos’ hallucinatory horror, at the very least, sounds good on paper: former friends with a fractured relationship, and a reliance on four-letter expletives, have to work together to kill…
Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, Hotel) directs Megadoc, a feature-length fly-on-the-wall documentary about the making-of Francis Ford Coppola’s polarizing self-funded epic Megalopolis. The doc proves that cinephiles and critics alike weren’t the only people puzzled by last year’s movie – everyone featured in Megadoc is trying to make heads or tails of Megalopolis, including Francis Ford Coppola. The documentary is as much about Megalopolis as it is about collaborating with Coppola. The interviewed cast and crew are ecstatic to be…
With such surly sentimentality, Claudia Lonow’s D(e)ad could be the Lifetime movie-of-the-week on the unhinged and uncensored network in Swearnet. But, that isn’t a knock against Lonow’s very funny dramedy – it’s a compliment towards the film’s charm and the honesty behind grief as penned by screenwriter/star Isabella Roland. Brilliantly enough, while watching D(e)ad, the audience is always on the razor’s edge of laughing or crying. Daniel has been a lousy father and a brash…
In Light of the World, directors Tom Bancroft and John J. Schafer issue a fresh perspective on the story of Jesus for a young audience – a beautifully animated recollection told from the experience of Jesus’ apostle John. This film is another chapter for The Salvation Poem Project, a non-profit, Christian-based collective co-founded by Schafer that wants to find different ways to deliver devout stories to viewers. Up next is their video game Clayface. I…
I will go to the ends of the earth for actor Zoey Deutch (Flower, Buffaloed), but I have to draw a line at Chad Hartigan’s nonsensical romantic-dramedy The Threesome. An indie that positions the ambitious performer as a second, sometimes third, banana portraying a waffling love interest. Deutch plays Olivia, a sarcastic server, who incessantly teases guy pal Connor (Jonah Hauer-King of 2023’s The Little Mermaid). This sharp-tongued playfulness turns Connor on, but Olivia has…