Jeff Wells

Gabrielle Marceau is a Toronto-based writer, film critic, editor and instructor. She writes film and pop culture criticism as well as poetry and fiction. Her work has appeared in Cinemascope, Sight and Sound, Reverse Shot and Leste magazine. And she has written adversely of Women Talking, which was adapted and directed by a fellow Toronto person and Canadian Sarah Polley. This strikes me as significant.

Excerpt: “True to its title, the film is chock-full of conversations — moral, practical, theological — that feel, more often than not, formulaic and dry. The characters are not simply mouthpieces for different sides of an argument, but neither are they fully realized.

“They are Salome (Claire Foy) and Mariche (Jesse Buckley), voicing righteous, satisfying anger; Greta (Sheila McCarthy) and Agata (Judith Ivey), interjecting with wisdom and pragmatism; two young girls whose presence reminds us of what’s at stake; and Ona (Rooney Mara), the philosopher, who turns their arguments over and over in her soliloquies, until they are smoothed into benevolent sentiment. If there were a main character, it would be Ona; but her equanimity is frustrating, and her monologuing perhaps the most jarringly monologue-like of the cast.

“The performances are hindered by an approach to storytelling that is literal to the point of obnoxious. (A prime example: over a character’s rhapsodic plea that the community’s young teenage boys be allowed to go with the women should they leave, we see dreamy shots of boys playing in the fields and chatting warmly.)

“The film feels suspended in an unreal world, an effect only heightened by the inexplicable blue tint of the cinematography and the tedious shots of empty church pews and silent kitchens. And though the film is based on a real story — for her 2018 novel of the same name, Miriam Toews was inspired by a Mennonite community in Bolivia where over a hundred women reported being assaulted by men in the community — it cannot transcend the inherent artificiality of allegory.

“[Women Talking] feels as isolated from its real-world analogue — the #MeToo movement and the revelations of sexual misconduct in the film industry — as the colony is from the outside world.”

Friendo: “Seriously, she could win. What Danielle Deadwyler, Viola Davis, Till director Chinonye Chukwu and Woman King helmer Gina Prince-Bythewood have unintentionally done is power her chances.”

HE: “Agreed. That wasn’t their intention, of course, but it was obvious what effect their sore-loser schtick was having when Michelle Yeoh essentially said they should suck it up, lick their wounds and wait in line, like she did for years.”

Words can’t describe how thoroughly repulsed I am by the idea of watching yet another DCU Warner Bros. film, not to mention one that insists on torturing me with the return of General Zod (Michael Shannon)…Lord!

How do I know that The Flash (Warner Bros., 6.16) will be equal to being roughed up by gorillas? The fact that Andy Muschietti is the director, that’s how.

Ten years ago I had dropped to my knees in praise of Mama, a subtle, suggestive horror film which Muschietti directed and co-wrote (and which was produced by Guillermo del Toro). And then Muschjietti sold his soul by directing It (’15), which was aimed at morons by throwing subtlety to the wind, and then It Chapter Two (’19).

Let me get this straight: There are two Bruce Waynes in The Flash, one played by Michael Keaton and another by Ben Affleck, neither of whom are spring chickens. But only Keaton suits up as Batman…right?

Keaton’s version of Wayne hails from an alternate universe. Put another way The Flash ignores Batman Forever (1995, Val Kilmer) and Batman & Robin (1997, George Clooney), in which Keaton was a non-entity. Affleck, on the other hand\ “reprises his DCEU role as Bruce Wayne / Batman, the original version of Wayne from Barry’s timeline and the leader of the Justice League.” Which means it’s some kind of multiverse bullshit, right?

It’s odd, but I honestly can’t remember much of the plot of True Lies. I remember the double-life part (Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s Harry Trasker is a secret agent of some kind) and Tom Arnold playing his best friend and Jamie Lee Curtis‘s strip-tease-in-a-hotel-room scene. But I don’t remember the plot-thread stuff. Honestly? I’ve only seen it once and have never watched it at home. There’s a reason for this.

I hate the Fast franchise…HATE IT! Principal photography began in April 2022, and finished in August (four and a half months). The locations included London, Rome, Turin, Lisbon and Los Angeles. Costing a grand total of $340 million (not counting marketing), Fast X (Universal, 5.19) is the fifth-most expensive film ever made.

It would be truly wonderful it it were to underperform. The Movie Godz would rejoicce.

By most indications the “cylindrical, silverish gray” object that was shot down on Friday was not a space ship piloted by aliens.

Ack Ack Ack! https://t.co/r7pcUZegfp pic.twitter.com/W1LwiWm4uC

— Larry Karaszewski (@Karaszewski) February 11, 2023

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Copyright schmopyright. Why am I watching this? It’s not coming to me.

Every now and then a “people’s movie” comes along…a movie that critics don’t get or even disparage, but which Hollywood Elsewhere surprisingly enjoys along with Joe and Jane…let’s make it Jane Popcorn in this instance. Green Book (mostly shat upon by the woke know-it-alls) was a people’s movie; ditto Bohemian Rhapsody. And now Steven Soderbergh‘s Magic Mike’s Last Dance — partially pissed upon by critics but reportedly really enjoyed by women and gays, hence the current theatrical release rather than straight-to-streaming.

If you assess it as a full package, as a 112-minute movie with a beginning, middle and end, Magic Mike’s last Dance is one-fourth euphoric and three-fourths mezzo-mezzo. The very beginning (totally buffed Channing Tatum, 41, doing a lap dance for Salma Hayek, 55) is genuinely hot, and the ending (a big erotic dance finale at a small London theatre featuring Tatum and 10 or 12 gifted washboard abs slink dancer-grinders) is so good it borders on the transcendent. I mean that.

Don’t worry about the in-and-out middle section in London, which takes up 70 or 75 minutes. Some of it drags, and some of it is okay. All that matters, trust me, is the opening and the ending.

This is going to sound gay but these two sections are so pulse-quickening that I felt stirrings…you know what I mean. Not actual wood due to the overwhelming focus on hot male bods but…well, ’nuff said.

Here’s what I texted to a friend after I emerged from last night’s screening:

“The erotic dancing is Magic Mike’s Last Dance, and I mean especially the shirtless, slinky-bod, dry hump stuff, is magnificent. Part ballet, part breakdance, part Nijinsky and Nureyev, part early ’50s Gene Kelly, part erotic West Side Story, part strip clup, part Babes In Arms…classier and more artified than the last two Magic Mike flicks, but when it gets going it’s really wild!

“The movie itself is somewhere between okay, pretty good and half-decent in an occasionally cliched (I’m not kidding about the Babes in Arms analogy), shuffling along, on-the-nose way. But if I’ve ever seen a turn-on movie for over-40 and even over-50 women, this is the puppy.”

CBC’s Eli Glasner: “If dry-humping was an art form, Channing Tatum would be Pablo Picasso.”

The dance-sex in this film is a much bigger turn-on than the suggested or simulated sex in Emma Thompson‘s Good Luck To You, Leo Grande…I’m telling you.

Soderbergh and screenwriter Reid Carolin are to be commended for investing in a romantic relationship between a 41 year-old guy (Tatum) and a 55 year-old woman (Hayek) — a difference of 14 years. Not as much as the 24 years separating French president Emmanuel Macron (born in ’77) and his wife Brigitte Trogneux (born in ’53), but residing in that general ballpark.

British actor Ayub Khan Din — best known for starring in Hanif Kureishi‘s Sammie and Rosie Get Laid — plays Hayek’s burly, bearded chauffeur. I was kind of shocked when I realized it was the same guy from Sammy and Rosie, which was 35 (going on 36) years ago. Din has put on at least 40 or 50 pounds, and his hair is almost completely silver, not to mention the beard.

Soderbergh shot Magic Mike’s Last Dance under his usual moniker of “Peter Andrews,” but it has to be said that a good portion of it (not the stage-dance scenes or the early lapdance sequence) looks muddy and subdued and generally underlighted. It reminded me of the work of my least-favorite cinematographer, Bradford Young.

Because she wasn’t sanctified or even discussed as a possible threat by the Wokester Award-Season Mafia. So vote for Reezie just to say “fuck you” to those bozo know-it-alls…Joey Berlin, Tom O’Neil, Clayton Davis. You’ve hated them all along, and now here’s your chance to make it count! Up with Reezie, down with Clayton!

Plus it doesn’t matter anyway as the whole Oscar pageant + cavalcade is slowly collapsing within itself…just ask Barry Diller! So vote for Reezie as a nice, friendly, “we’re all in this together” fuck-it gesture…as a message to the disintegrating established AMPAS order that says “we have the power now, not you”…as a “fuck you” to the Academy’s Identity Apology Museum….Cate Blanchett gave 2022’s best female lead performance and Michelle Yeoh is a classy lady who’s been working just as long and hard as Angela Bassett has (and I loved it when she politely told the sore loser Misogynoir crowd to go fuck themselves) but we’re voting Reezie all the same because “why not? and “who cares?”

A vote for Reezie, finally, is a vote for every divorced or separated, hard-working, under-paid and under-promoted actor in this industry who’s rarely been invited to the cool parties and has often felt obliged to shop at Trader Joes and Pep Boys and pay for a regular car wash ($16 and change) rather than a detailing.

…to “Repeating “Maverick” Mantra: Lightning Can Strike Again“:

Friendo: “This is a really good post, but I’m not feeling the Maverick-wins-the-Oscar scenario.”

HE: “Nor am I. It would be great if it happens though.”

Friendo: “It just didn’t catch fire as an Oscar movie.”

HE: “The #1 reason being that it ISN’T a traditional ‘Oscar movie’. Or even an untraditional one.

“But at least it (a) delivered on its own terms, (b) went the extra mile in terms of gutslam action realism and (c) wasn’t a woke instructional. And audiences really loved (c). And that fact — entertaining drama, well-jiggered actioner, no woke instruction — provided a lesson that the all-but-dead megaplex film industry needs to heed: Show Joe & Jane Popcorn a really good time with a little heart and pizazz, and they’ll return the favor in spades.”

Friendo: “Agreed.”

Malcolm Nance, 61, is an American author, media pundit and a “special executive for counterintelligence, terrorism, revenge, and extortion.” (Yes, the same words that formed the acronym SPECTRE, the bad-guy outfit featured in the ’60s James Bond films.) Nance is a former United States Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer specializing in naval cryptology, and last November he returned from a ten-month tour service in Ukraine. He joined the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine in March 2022. I really respect the guy.