Oakville Ontario News, Articles and Reviews

Some movies get a bad rap merely by being misclassified. The Internship is billed as a raucous comedy, and the previous films of its stars Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson probably reinforce that expectation. On that score, it’s already received some negative press and poor showing at the box office. But it’s really more of a feel-good story with some laughs thrown in, and on that score it’s a perfectly enjoyable little movie.

Billy (Vaughn) and Nick (Wilson) are old-school wristwatch salesmen who are fantastic with people, but know nothing about technology – to them, a Blackberry is still just a fruit. When their boss shuts down the company because "no one uses watches anymore," things don’t look good – with their lack of skills, new employment will be hard to come by.

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In a not-uncommon display of studio one-upmanship, two movies about high-profile stage magicians have premiered this Spring. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone was a flawed comedy. Now You See Me is a detective thriller, and by far a better movie, though it’s best you don’t try looking too far up its sleeve.

Four magicians, working their unique acts on the streets and in clubs, are mysteriously summoned to a meeting by an unknown benefactor. They are showman J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), mentalist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), acrobatic escape artist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), and sleight-of-hander Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and each of them instantly recognizes the strange eye symbol on the back of a Tarot card they’ve found. Gathering at a dingy apartment complex, some interesting surprises are revealed to them.

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Comedy is hard. You can never tell what’s going to make people laugh, and even when they do, you can never be entirely sure if they’re laughing at the things you think they’re laughing at. I think this is the lesson the cast and crew of the Hangover trilogy will take away from it. While The Hangover Part III tries once again to recapture the original’s lightning in a bottle, once again it comes up short.

Loony man-child Alan’s (Zach Galifianakis) latest stunt – involving the ill-advised purchase and highway transport of a giraffe – literally drives his father to an early grave. The funeral reunites the "Wolf Pack", and at an intervention to try and get Alan back on his medication, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Doug (Justin Bartha) agree to drive Alan to a rehab centre in Arizona.

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Here comes J.J. Abrams again. The man seems to be everywhere these days, with his fingerprints on any number of high-profile TV series and films. And after great success in 2009 with his reimagining of Star Trek, expectations have been high for the sequel. He definitely delivers with Star Trek Into Darkness, though there are a few caveats for die-hard Trekkies.

The new film finds Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the rest of their crew in full command of the Starship Enterprise, though they’re still relatively untested. Kirk is more than competent as a leader, but he’s still a little too impulsive, which leads to trouble when a mission on a primitive planet goes wrong. Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood) is forced to demote him to First Officer, and it seems he and Spock will be separated before they get the chance to become true close friends.

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With some exceptions, most good parties require planning. The host knows how he wants things to go, and selects the elements to create that experience. The very best parties have a uniqueness that’s a reflection of the skill of the host’s planning. And with director Baz Luhrmann as our host, The Great Gatsby is an excellent party indeed.

Adapted rather faithfully from the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, we view the story through the eyes of Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), World War I veteran, bonds trader and aspiring writer. Luhrmann’s framing concept here is that the depressed and hospitalized Carraway, years after these events, is encouraged by his doctor to write down what happened during the fateful summer he lived on Long Island, in a small cottage next door to the enigmatic Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio).

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