Posts Tagged ‘Jane Horrocks’

CTV News Toronto at Five with Zuraidah Alman: Richard on What to Watch!

I join “CTV News Toronto at Five with Zuraidah Alman” to talk about the end-of-the-worlder “Leave the World Behind,” the pretty cluckin’ good “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” and the psychological thriller “Eileen.”

Watch the whole thing by downloading the CTV News app.

CTV NEWS ATLANTIC AT SIX: RICHARD ON WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND!

I join “CTV News Atlantic at Six” anchor Todd Battis to talk about the end-of-the-worlder “Leave the World Behind,” the stop-motion animated “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” the psychological thriller “Eileen” and Barbenheimer on streaming!

Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 27:30)

 

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY DECEMBER 08, 2023.

I joined CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres.  Today we talk about the end-of-the-worlder “Leave the World Behind,” the pretty cluckin’ good “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” the Japanese animated fantasy film “The Boy and the Heron” and the psychological thriller “Eileen.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

 

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND REVIEWS FOR FRIDAY DECEMBER 8, 2023!

I  join CTV NewsChannel anchor Roger Peterson to talk about the end-of-the-worlder “Leave the World Behind,” the pretty cluckin’ good “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” the Japanese animated fantasy film “The Boy and the Heron” and the psychological thriller “Eileen.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

CFRA IN OTTAWA: THE BILL CARROLL MORNING SHOW MOVIE REVIEWS!

I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the end-of-the-worlder “Leave the World Behind,” the pretty cluckin’ good “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” the Japanese animated fantasy film “The Boy and the Heron” and the psychological thriller “Eileen.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

CHICKEN RUN: DAWN OF THE NUGGET: 3 ½ STARS. “mix of charm and craft.”

“Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” a new stop motion animated film from Aardman Animations and playing in theatres this week before moving to Netflix next week, comes with great eggs-pectations. The original film, 2000s “Chicken Run,” is a beloved classic of British humour, heartwarming and heavy on the charm.

But can a sequel, twenty-three years in the making, be all it’s cracked up to be or will it lay an egg?

The new film picks up years after revolutionary chicken Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) and American circus rooster Rocky (Zachary Levi) escape the prisoner-of-war style Tweedy’s Industrial Farm. The happy couple now celebrate their freedom, living on an island bird sanctuary, far from the dangers of humanity, with friends Babs (Jane Horrocks), elderly rooster Fowler (David Bradley), Bunty (Imelda Staunton) their rat BFFs Nick and Fetcher (Romesh Ranganathan and Daniel Mays) and daughter Molly (Bella Ramsey).

“Life doesn’t get better than this,” Ginger says. “We’ve put the past behind us. We have Molly to think about now.”

It’s a wonderful life, but Molly, who has her mother’s rebellious spirit, feels fenced in. “You can’t make me stay here,” she tells Ginger.

Molly flies the coop, eager to check out Fun-Land Farms, a new operation on the mainland. With her feather-brained friend Frizzle (Josie Sedgwick-Davies) they soon discover the new farm is a processing plant for, you guessed it, chicken nuggets.

“Behold the dawn of the nugget,” says evil plant owner Mrs. Tweedy (Miranda Richardson).

It’s up to Ginger, Rocky and Company to come to the rescue. “Last time we broke out of a chicken farm,” says Ginger. “This time we’re breaking in.”

Like so many sequels, the story has bloated from the simplicity story of the 2000 film. But despite the food-for-thought subtext involving fast food and heavier plotting, “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” is still nimble and action packed.

The original “Chicken Run” was a riff on World War II great escape style films. “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” pays homage to the first movie, but leans into the James Bond and “Mission Impossible” franchises as inspirations for the wild poultry action.

Most of all, there is something welcoming about the Aardman stop motion animation. The house style is bold and beautiful, vivid and uncluttered, but it is the eccentric characters that really appeal. With their large eyes and exaggerated mouths and eyebrows, the Plasticine characters brim with personality and unmistakably come from the same creators that gave us the cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his mute and long-suffering canine side-kick Gromit.  Shot one frame-at-a-time, the animation feels handcrafted and organic, and has a warmth most CGI kids flicks don’t have.

“Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” is pretty cluckin’ good. It’s an entertaining, family-friendly mix of charm and craft.

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL REVIEWS FOR “STAR TREK BEYOND” & MORE FOR JULY 22.

Screen Shot 2016-07-22 at 9.12.55 AMRichard sits in with Marcia McMillan to have a look at the continuing adventures of the USS Enterprise “Star Trek Beyond,” the family-friendly “Ice Age: Collision Course,” Edina and Patsy’s drunken adventures in “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” and the ‘are you afraid of the dark’ movie, “Lights Out.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS: THE MOVIE: 2 STARS. “an overlong sitcom episode.”

Screen Shot 2016-07-17 at 2.04.10 PMAny film that includes “:The Movie” in its title is bound to be little more than a larger version of the TV show, videogame or whatever the source material may be. “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie,” based on the popular British TV show about best friends bonded by a shared enthusiasm for heavy-drinking and drug abuse, is true to form in that it is less a movie than it is an excuse for some sitcom nostalgia.

Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley) are hard-living socialites on the edges of London high society. Edina is a washed-up PR agent, trying desperately to maintain her lavish lifestyle. She’s not out of money, her “cards are broken.” Patsy is the fashion editor of a snooty magazine who injects foetus blood into her face every morning to stave off the effects of partying and age.

When Edina’s plan to sell her memoir to a huge publisher fails—“You think your life is interesting, but it isn’t,” she’s told. “It may be worth living but it’s not worth reading.”—she becomes determined to recruit fashion icon Kate Moss as a client. Thus begins a wild journey that includes suspected manslaughter, a sham marriage, worldwide grieving and more self-absorption than you can shake a bottle of Bollinger Champagne at. Self absorbed and on the run from a murder charge, Patsy and Adina confront their age and try to keep the party going.

“Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” isn’t exactly absolutely fabulous. That’s the easy joke, which is appropriate because this movie goes for the easy joke time after time. It certainly doesn’t reinvent the wheel and makes up for its lack of inventiveness with a parade of cameos from British luminaries like Lulu, Emma Bunton, Joan Collins and Graham Norton. In all there are 60 celebrity drive-bys. The only one missing is a Benny Hill.

The leads are broad characters in the sitcom tradition, prime examples of the dangers of arrested development. Luckily both can deliver a line—“Leopard skin and liver spots… that’s old age camouflage.”—with dead precision and will do almost anything to get a laugh and the over-the-top reaction to Kate Moss’s disappearance is very funny (“She will either have drowned or be very, very wet.”), I just wish there were more laughs to be had. I think fans of the television show will still get a kick out of Edina and Patsy’s co-dependence and enabling—it’s the glue that binds them together—but for everyone else the movie will feel like an overlong sitcom episode.