Best of Black Sheep: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART ONE

Written by Steve Kloves

Directed by David Yates

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Ralph Fiennes

Harry Potter: Blimey, Hermione!

Everyone who experiences the Harry Potter saga on film can be categorized into two separate groups – those who have read the books beforehand and those who have not. Those who have read them have likely read them several times. They know exactly what each film will bring, just not how it will bring it. For the rest of us, the young wizard exists only on the big screen and never has his world looked so great or been as engaging as in HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART ONE. No matter which group you belong to though, the Harry Potter film experience is entering its final chapter and the anticipation is palpable.

Director David Yates has outdone himself this time out. Despite the enormous amount of pressure on his back to bring one of film history’s biggest franchises to a satisfying and successful close, he seems to be flying through the Harry Potter universe with incredible ease after piloting the last three films. Yates also helms the second half of “The Deathly Hallows” but first he has masterfully and delicately handled this decidedly dark first half, where nothing is as it was. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his most trusted allies, Hermione and Ron (Emma Watson and Rupert Grint) do not return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, like they do at the beginning of each previous installment. No, now this trio of role models to children the world over are officially dropouts, but with good reason of course. Harry must soon fulfill his destiny as the one who lived to vanquish he who used to not be named (psst .. that's Voldemort – Ralph Fiennes). I know how it sounds but if you made it this far, you must have bought into this already and it’s still surprisingly compelling.

I can only imagine that J.K.Rowling’s last book operated in much the same fashion as Steve Kloves’ screenplay. Kloves has written every one of the Harry Potter films and in HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART ONE, he oscillates between somber, dark, sometimes downright frightening moments and a warm, nostalgic yearning for seemingly simpler times. As the series nears its end, familiar faces, places and things resurface to honour both the history and the fans while new addition to the Harry Potter family, cinematographer, Eduardo Serra, lenses the Harry Potter landscape with depth and grandeur unlike anything I’ve seen in the first six films. The mounting magnificence of the Harry Potter films is infectious and to remain so fresh and relevant so many years later is some of the best magic I’ve ever seen.

For further Harry Potter Black Sheep reviews, just click the titles below:

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

INSIDIOUS

Written by Leigh Wannell

Directed by James Wan

Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne and Barbra Hershey

I hate to be the guy who does this but as I had to look it up before watching the movie, I feel justified in saying that if you look up “insidious” in the dictionary, you will learn that it means proceeding in a gradual, subtle way but with harmful effects. And so INSIDIOUS, director James Wan’s first hit since he exploded in blood-soaked glory onto the horror scene with SAW in 2004, is aptly named. Wan slowly draws you into his hyper-stylized haunted house and those harmful effects I mentioned, they begin to take hold.

The trouble with paranormal based horror films is that their build is usually intense and potentially brilliant but their reveal is ordinarily ridiculous. INSIDIOUS begins with great promise. The low lighting, bizarre imagery and frighteningly sharp score pull you into the nervous energy that permeates the walls of the house in question. A new family has just moved in and the lack of familiarity itself is a device to cause more anxiety in the characters. Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne play parents to young Dalton (Ty Simpkins), who has seemingly fallen into a coma after a mysterious experience in the attic. As it turns out though, it is Dalton, and not the house, that is haunted and unfortunately, the means with which Dalton’s rescue is orchestrated, which I will not spoil for you here, change the tone of the film so greatly that the subtlety required for it to live up to its name is all but lost completely.

That said, just because I wasn’t convinced does not mean that many believers out there will not be fully taken with INSIDIOUS. When it comes to the paranormal, you either believe or you don’t and it should be the filmmaker’s job to change the mind of even the most ardent of non-believer. While that didn’t happen for me here, I can say that the film gave me chills on more than one occasion. In fact, I had to distract myself when watching, which could mean that I’m not at all interested but in this case, it just meant that I was too scared to look.

Best of Black Sheep: Black Sheep interviews Matthew McConaughey

Once a Lawyer ...

The first thought I had when I saw that Matthew McConaughey was starring in Brad Furman’s THE LINCOLN LAWYER, a modern day dissection of just how far the legal system’s corruption reaches, was how could he not be sick and tired of playing lawyers at this point in his career.

McConaughey’s first big break was in Richard Linklater’s DAZED AND CONFUSED, but he was propelled into the stratosphere of stardom that we know him from, when he starred as Jake Briggance, a fresh, Southern lawyer taking a crack at his first big case in Joel Schumacher’s A TIME TO KILL. Clearly, he was pretty memorable for me as Briggance because it turns out he hasn’t set foot in a courtroom since – well, he hasn’t set foot on a courtroom set since then anyway. And here I was thinking that all the man ever played was lawyers. Fortunately, I did a little research before meeting him.

“I don’t want to say I like lawyers too much in real life but I sure do like playing one,” McConaughey jokes when we meet at the Thompson Hotel in Toronto, the latest pit-stop on his whirlwind of a press tour for his first film in two years. Speaking of whirlwinds, chatting with McConaughey is a lot like what I would imagine getting stuck in one is like. Ask the man a question and he will give you the long answer every time. I could hardly figure when to ask another question because I could never tell if he was done talking. That said, he is also charming, articulate and quite handsome. I’m pretty sure the same cannot be said of whirlwinds.

One of McConaughey’s favorite things to talk about? THE LINCOLN LAWYER. “When people like it, I can tell,” the veteran junket junkie proclaims. “And people are enjoying this film so there is stuff to talk about.” McConaughey plays Mick Haller, a recurring character in a series of legal novels written by Michael Connelly, a character he describes as both a “bottom feeder” and an “idealist”. Mick is a defense lawyer who defends whoever can pay him the highest price at the end of the day. He knows every loop and every hole to get around anything the system throws at him. It’s certainly a far cry from the greenery of Jake Briggance (pictured below).

“Jake was much more small town, just starting off,” McConaughey reveals when asked to compare the two roles. “Mick, this is the world he deals with every day. Everything is barter or a deal. Mick is a poker player.”

The world McConaughey is referring to is one of mistrust and questionable scruples, disguised as the almighty justice system. Mick is set to defend Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillipe), a hotshot realtor who has been accused of attempted rape and battery on a known prostitute. When it becomes apparent that Louis’s innocence may not be so clear cut, every facet of Mick’s life, from his relationship with his ex-wife (Marisa Tomei) to his work on previous cases, begins to fall apart.

“He’s juggling a lot of things; it’s a bit vaudeville,” McConaughey quips. “They can’t just all land at once.” If it didn’t appear as though they all would land at the same time though, it just wouldn’t make for very good drama, now would it?

To further throw off Mick’s balance, he learns that a man he once defended (Michael Pena) was wrongly convicted. He can’t prove it though without breaking the rules he is bound to as a lawyer and this conflict makes his circus act much trickier to uphold. “I was intrigued by this box he is in,” the box being metaphoric, of course. McConaughey continues, “What happens if you found out today that you put, not allowed, but put an innocent man in jail? I can’t imagine a worse nightmare.”

At 41, McConaughey’s real life is anything but a nightmare. He has starred in nearly 40 films and they have grossed over $1.2 billion in North America alone. The man who was once arrested for disturbing the peace, playing bongos in the nude in his home, is now a family man.He has two children with Camila Alves, a Brazilian model, a baby girl who just turned one and a son who will turn three this summer, and they live a happy little life in Malibu, California.According to McConaughey, he enjoys the change of pace a great deal.

“I’ve got enough going on that I don’t need any other ‘new stimulus’,” he says cheekily, complete with air quotes. “When I’m on a film and I’m working, it’s work. I go home after and I have a structured lifestyle. Even if that's the watching the game on television.” His family even travels with him on junkets now.

So what is next now that McConaughey has returned to acting? Well, he continues to go full circle with his career as he is set to star in another Linklater film due out this year, called BERNIE. The best part about this new role? He will once again be playing a lawyer.

CONAN O'BRIEN CAN'T STOP

Directed by Rodman Flender

Starring Conan O'Brien

Conan O'Brien: I don't know what it would be like to stop. What does that even mean?

I am usually in bed before any of the late night talk shows come on but you don’t have to watch late night television to be aware of the melodrama that ensued during NBC’s Conan O’Brien / Jay Leno debacle from last year. After walking away from “The Tonight Show” after just a few months, O’Brien took to the road with the “Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour”, a trek that forms the backdrop for the new documentary, CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP. They aren’t kidding around with that title either. This often hilarious behind-the-scenes look at the madness of O’Brien’s life and mind shows us a humbled man grappling with rejection, appreciative of his admirers at first, but seemingly irritated by the attention he himself demands as the tour nears its close. This portrait is nothing if not honest, but simply left me feeling just as annoyed as O’Brien eventually comes across.

Not watching late night television also didn’t prohibit anyone from taking sides in the debate, myself included. My not being a Leno fan, it was easy to throw my support behind O’Brien. I’ve never admired O’Brien with any consistency by I do find him funny and I did feel that he got the shaft when NBC decided to move the Leno show into “The Tonight Show” time slot. CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP essentially picks up with O’Brien shortly after he is let out of his contract. One of the stipulations for letting him break that contract was that he was not allowed to make any television appearances for a certain number of months following. His not being able to “stop” though would make this forced hiatus to be rather difficult and so he decided to put the tour together. You can feel O’Brien’s nerves on the screen. He has never toured before and is genuinely struggling with no longer having a televised platform to make people laugh in the way that he’s always known. Is it a need to entertain though that he must feed or is it really more of a need for attention?

As the tour takes shape and the dates start passing, O’Brien’s drive is noticeably falling off and it isn’t long before he begins to do nothing but complain about the demands that are being made on him due to this tour. Now, to be fair, I have never been on a multi-city comedy tour before and therefore do not know how taxing the experience is. In that same vein, I am not a celebrity of any sorts and do not know the hardships that come with that lifestyle. That being said, it is difficult for me to sympathize with O’Brien when he spends the first half of the film telling us how much he needs to entertain to live and then spends the second half complaining about his wish coming true. CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP is still funny but if you listen closely, you will hear the contempt and irritation in O’Brien’s tone. It is masked in humour though and therefore somehow supposedly not as hurtful. O’Brien may not be able to stop but he might consider actually trying. I’m thinking a little rest might make him a little less cranky.

THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

Written and Directed by Denys Arcand

Starring Dominique Michel, Dorothee Berryman, Louise Portal, Pierre Curzi

and Remy Girard

It has been 25 years since Quebecois filmmaker, Denys Arcand, revealed his greatest film, THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE, to the world. The Oscar-nominated triumph has been touched up for its anniversary re-release and it is just plain shocking how sharp and apt the messages still remain to this day, not to mention how fantastic it all looks. Arcand’s three-act exploration of the drastic differences between how men and women view sex, occasionally falls prey to cliché but this just allows for often-truer revelations. Although no one is willing to admit it, there is a war coming between the sexes and it will bring about the downfall of empires by the time it’s done.

The first act finds the men and women who make up this ensemble cast in different quarters. No doubt surely an attempt at inversing assigned gender roles, Arcand has his men in the kitchen making dinner all day while the ladies work out at the gym. The conversations shared between the two groups are the same but the approach towards the topic is drastically different. When Arcand’s men – a married serial cheater, a divorced professor, a naïve teaching assistant and a promiscuous gay man – discuss sex, it is dirty, tasteless and without any compassion or regard for the people they’ve been with. Bragging abounds but it comes across clearly that their experiences are not appreciated in the moment, but are rather just future fodder for conversations like these. The women on the other hand – a cuckolded wife, a divorcee, a single player and a new addition to the group – speak of sex with a sense of understanding as to what the experience actually means. They aren’t attaching meaning where there isn’t any and they certainly aren’t holding back any of the details but their sense of appreciation is so much stronger than that of the men.

In the second act, the two groups converge and sit down to dinner with each other. The majority of them are academics and their conversation reflects this. The topic is still sex, as that seems to be the only preoccupation on these people’s minds, but the pedantic approach to it often reaches far past the carnal act itself. Leering at objects of desire is fused with opinions on race and politics, which only further serves to disassociate these people from the inherent intimacy of sexuality. It is almost as though every intellectual thought leads back to their reproductive organs. And while the daytime conversation was tawdry at best, it was still light. With fatigue setting in and the wine flowing freely though, the tone of the talks becomes more sordid and secrets begin to surface. They begin to see that all of the activities that they have been boasting about throughout the day can actually hurt other people; no matter how much they try to rationalize the act of sex down to something animal and purely physical, it is clear that these supposedly superior individuals are not smart enough to see how impossible it can be to separate sex from emotion.

From the very onset of the film, Arcand poses a theory to the audience. His claim is that a society consumed with personal, individual happiness is a signifier of the decline of that society. When the marital units within a society thrive, it is because they are pursuing common goals, presumably ones that contribute to society as a whole as well. Conversely, when everyone is solely out for themselves, then no collective group of people is making any strides. The characters in THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE mostly speak as if they aren’t even married of committed to any one thing in their lives. They simply want to be happy and remind themselves that they are alive for fleeting moments no matter what the consequence. With all this clamouring and clawing away at the people we are supposed to be closest to in our lives, it is no wonder that we aren’t getting anywhere at all. 25 years later and the decline resonates stronger than ever before.

Review copy provided by eOne. Still images do not reflect pristine quality of the new release.

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON

Written by Ehren Kruger

Directed by Michael Bay

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Frances McDormand, Patrick Dempsey and Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley

Simmons: Years from now, they’re going to ask, “Where were you when they took over the planet?” We’re going to say, “We just stood by and watched.”

Before today, I would never have equated Michael Bay’s directorial style with the soothing effect of a lullaby but that was before seeing TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON. It’s not that the barrage of intergalactic explosions of metal and mayhem that make up the majority of the third entry in the franchise would necessarily put you to sleep; it’s just that after sitting through Bay’s interpretation of the TRANSFORMERS universe three times now has lulled me into a state of semi-acceptance. I’ve never loved his vision for their world, which was a favorite of mine growing up, but I’ve now recognized that it is what it is and it isn’t about to change either. This shift allowed for me to see the latest installment as also the greatest.

Keep in mind that being called the best TRANSFORMERS movie to date is hardly a compliment given the history. Many of the essentials from the past make their inevitable returns this time out. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is back as friend to the Autobots and general all-around neurotic player with a giant chip in his shoulder. He now feels, like most of his youthful colleagues coming out of college, that he is entitled to great things right now with no dues to pay. Of course, he already has great things like doting parents (Kevin Dunn and Julie White) and an impossibly attractive new girlfriend, Carly (model, Rosie Huntingdon-Whitely, in her first and hopefully last acting role) but if he doesn’t have the fancy car and hot shot job to go with, then he might as well announce to the world that he is in fact not an actual man. Having saved the world twice already only serves to exacerbate his ego driven anxiety. Sam is stunted but that isn’t surprising given who the direction is coming from.

Part of the reason TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON works better is because it is more solidly grounded in reality from the start. Writer, Ehren Kruger (who also co-wrote REVENGE OF THE FALLEN) integrates Cybertronian lore into actual human history, having an Autobot vessel crash on the moon in the early 1960’s. The space race is then rewritten as a means to get to that ship first, which of course the Americans do. He then follows that up with some reasonably compelling betrayals amongst the Transformer ranks that will certainly appeal to longtime fans. Unfortunately, he fills the rest of the space with the usual misogynistic boyhood fantasies that Bay gets off on so bad. What you’re left with is a slightly more elevated and enjoyable experience that stems from a simple numbing of the senses. And when you wake from the dream, you may still long for what it could have been.

Like, since when is Shockwave not a clunker of a boom box?

LARRY CROWNE

Written by Tom Hanks and Nia Vardalos

Directed by Tom Hanks

Starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and George Takei

Dr. Matsutani: They call them smart phones but only dummies use them in my class.

It’s nothing personal against Tom Hanks – I like the guy – but he would not be my first choice to write, direct and star in a feature about the difficulties one faces when one loses a thankless job in the middle of one’s life. Larry Crowne is uneducated, which employer, U-Mart, uses as an excuse to let the long time worker go. Larry decides to go back to college so this never happens again and there he gets a makeover, joins a scooter gang and falls in something that I think is supposed to resemble love with his teacher, Mercedes (Julia Roberts). By keeping the tone light and avoiding what should be the harsh reality of the situation, Hanks, the former everyman, only shows how far removed from the rest of us he now is.

To be fair, even though this is clearly a Hanks passion project, he should not bear the full brunt of the blame for how insipid LARRY CROWNE is. Some of that responsibility falls distinctly on the shoulders of his co-writer, and good friend, Nia Vardalos. You may remember Vardalos as the author and star of the biggest independent film of all time, MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING. She played up stereotypes and clichés as much as possible back then and her lack of connection with what is real has not improved since. To call the “revelations” made in LARRY CROWNE simple would be itself an oversimplification. For instance, did you know that social networking is apparently responsible for ruining the attention spans of young people? Or more importantly, were you aware that student apathy in class has spread and apparently has now affected the teaching community as well? My personal favorite lesson learned in LARRY CROWNE is how the stuff we own eventually owns us. Clearly, I’m a much better person for having seen this.

This is a film about education but yet I learned absolutely nothing. This is a film about starting over and yet nothing about LARRY CROWNE felt remotely new. Perhaps when you’re as famous as Hanks, and backed by the equally famous Roberts no less, nobody dares tell you that what you’re making isn’t working. The tone is not serious, even though at times it certainly should be, but it is never actually funny either. It exists in some sort of film purgatory and forces us to suffer there with it. Maybe Hanks himself should consider going back to school; he clearly could stand to learn a thing or two about making movies and something I like to call real life.