Steve Stebbing

New Releases:

The Last Voyage Of The Demeter – Based on a single chapter, the Captain’s Log, from Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel Dracula, the story is set aboard the Russian schooner Demeter, which was chartered to carry private cargo – twenty-four unmarked wooden crates – from Carpathia to London. The film will detail the strange events that befell the doomed crew as they attempt to survive the ocean voyage, stalked each night by a terrifying presence on board the ship. When it finally arrived near Whitby Harbour, it was derelict. There was no trace of the crew.

Expectations: We get our second Dracula film of 2023 this week, although this one is very different from the modern comedy horror of Renfield from a couple of months ago. With the stylistic eye of Troll Hunter writer and director André Øvredal, we might have a solid low-key chiller on our hands, featuring cinematography from Clint Eastwood’s usual guy, Tom Stern, and a score from the great Bear McCreary. Øvredal described this movie as basically Alien on a ship in 1897, so based on that description alone, I’m in it for some fun.

Heart Of Stone -An intelligence operative for a shadowy global peacekeeping agency races to stop a hacker from stealing its most valuable and dangerous weapon.

Expectations: Gal Gadot steps back into the very familiar shoes of an action hero for her second Netflix feature after she teamed with Ryan Reynolds and The Rock for Red Notice. The film comes from director Tom Harper, known for the pretty solid air balloon true story on Prime Video, The Aeronauts, but, most notably, the music-driven indie drama Wild Rose which features a phenomenal Jessie Buckley Performance so I have good thoughts invested in this action thriller. With a string of okay-to-solid genre films recently, The Mother and Extraction 2, it might be a safe bet to say that this might be a worthy watch on your weekend.

The Pod Generation – Set in the very near future world where AI is all the rage and technology has trumped nature in nearly every aspect of life, The Pod Generation follows Rachel (Emilia Clarke) and Alvy (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a New York couple who are ready to start a family. As a rising tech company executive, Rachel lands a coveted spot at the Womb Center, which offers couples the opportunity to share pregnancy on a more equal footing by way of mobile, artificial wombs, or pods. Alvy, a botanist and devoted purist about the natural environment, has doubts, but his love for Rachel prompts him to take a leap of faith. And so, begins the wild ride on their tech-paved path to parenthood.

Expectations: Although a science fiction-based futuristic story, the ideas presented in this film are not that far off from how this is trending with technology so the far-fetched nature sometimes exhibited in the genre is not present here. I’m a fan of Clarke’s work on Game Of Thrones but I can’t say she’s done anything amazing afterward Chiwetel’s a massive draw for me, as the guy brings it to every role. The biggest excitement for me about this film is it is from the mind of writer and director Sophie Barthes, whose film Cold Souls is one of the most meta films I have ever seen and might be the most underrated movie of 2009. With her weird idiosyncrasies, this might be another underrated masterpiece that audiences might sleep on.

Aporia – Since losing her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi) in a drunk-driving incident, Sophie (Judy Greer) has struggled to manage crippling grief, a full-time job, and the demands of parenting her devastated teenage daughter (Faithe Herman). When her husband’s best friend Jabir (Payman Maadi), a former physicist, reveals that he has been building a time-bending machine that could restore her former life, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice–and unforeseeable consequences.

Review: At the top of this well-constructed, thoughtful and unpredictable drama with seasonings of sci-fi, I was cheering inside for another chance to see Judy Greer dig into that character actor bucket of hers. Paired with a soulful performance from the always-great Edi Gathegi, this movie does slow burn right and leaves you with a resonant story about hope and grief. A really unexpected hit with me and I hope it lands with a bigger audience.

Passages – Set in Paris, this seductive drama tells the story of Tomas (Franz Rogowski) and Martin (Ben Whishaw), a gay couple whose marriage is thrown into crisis when Tomas begins a passionate affair with Agathe (Adele Exarchopoulos), a younger woman he meets after completing his latest film.

Review: Ira Sachs, one of my cinema MVPs, makes his return with a film that features one of the most gorgeous leading trios in a film this year. Whishaw has been a favourite of mine since 2004, with both Enduring Love and Layer Cake, Adele absolutely entranced me in Blue Is The Warmest Color and Franz has been a festival favourite since I started attending them, starting with the one-shot feature Victoria. This will be a slow-burn film among cinephiles everywhere but I highly recommend this well-told and beautifully shot film as it is one of the best in a year filled with incredible movies. I hope it doesn’t get lost in the crush of them.

Blu-Ray:

BlackBerry – A company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveal the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway.

Review: A friend of mine called this film The Wolf Of Wall Street of Canadian Cinema and I love that term. Writer and director Matt Johnson was the perfect person to tell this story, also taking on the role of Research In Motion co-founder Doug, and the grainy look of the film and the fly-on-the-wall feel of it is directly attributed to him Glenn Howerton’s Jim Ballsilie is the big star of the film but Jay Baruchel’s understated then ferocious performance as founder Mike Lazaridis is so compelling to watch—definitely one of my favourite films of the year and a champion for Canadian movies.

The Wrath Of Becky – Three years after escaping a violent attack on her family by four Neo-Nazis, Becky and her beloved dog Diego live with a kind elderly woman named Elena Connor to rebuild her life. But when a fascist organization known as the “Noble Men” break into their home, attack both Becky and Elena and kidnap Diego, it’s up to Becky to fight back by returning to her old ways to protect herself and her loved ones, rescue Diego, and uncover the Noble Men’s mastermind plans before it’s too late.

Review: Look, when you cast Kevin James in his first villain role as a neo nazi escaped convict, you have my attention but when you have a young girl dispatch him and his crew in gory fashion, well, you’ve got my fandom. Easy to say, I was psyched for this follow-up and I was satisfied with what I got, an older Becky pushed to the edge by a new group of assholes. Lulu Wilson kicks every ass around her in this hero whose glee for killing may thrust her into the anti-hero category. Even still, I could be totally swayed into watching a third film, hell, make a Becky cinematic universe at this point, I’m game.

The Angry Black Girl And Her Monster – Having developed a preposterous theory in her mind, precocious Vicaria, a teenager obsessed with the unknown after her brother’s brutal murder, dreams of solving the impossible problem of the ultimate disease: death. And having a penchant for science, the driven schoolgirl gets to work. After all, trying to find a cure for the plague is worth a shot. As a result, strange, logic-defying experiments occur in the brilliant young scientist’s secret lab. Has Vicaria made a pivotal breakthrough in death treatment? If the irreversible process is only an illusion, who can stop the angry black girl and her monster?

Review: A gripping horror story set against the backdrop of a violent and brutal neighbourhood, this film pulses with an energy that gets under your skin and has some jarring and unforgettable scenes of tragedy. Lead actress Laya DeLeon Hayes, also the main voice of Disney Junior’s animated hit Doc McStuffins, delivers a hell of a performance that runs that gamut of all dark emotion leading to an ending that sticks to your brainpan and demands unpacking. This may be one of the best lowkey horror films of the year in my opinion.

Night Of The Assassin – Joseon, the last and longest dynasty in Korea, spanned over 500 years and contained some of the greatest unrivalled assassins. One such assassin discovers he has a heart condition and must put his violent career aside while he searches for a cure. With a bounty on his head and an area gang barging into his village hide-out, he must again take up his sword and fight to survive.

Review: This film, at least in North America, is so hard to research before watching as the real title just lists as The Assassin and no search for Night Of The Assassin yields any results so I almost felt like Well Go USA had discovered some anomaly. Well, if they did, I wish they would have unearthed something better as this film seemed to disappoint on every level, a rare South Korean miss. The film feels goofy and slapstick ridden with a lame script, and a consistent struggle to find tone and hair and makeup that looked jarringly bad. Usually, I’m excited to check these movies out, especially the dynasty epics but this one tipped its hat pretty early.

1923 – The next installment of the Yellowstone origin story introduces a new generation of the Dutton family and explores the early twentieth century when pandemics, historic drought, the end of Prohibition, and the Great Depression all plague the Mountain West and the Duttons who call it home.

Review: This prequel spin-off of the popular Kevin Costner series definitely has more legs than its predecessor, 1883, as, spoilers here, but pretty much everyone dies by the end of that one-season series. This show has the added power of Academy Award winner Helen Mirren in a prominent lead role and, a personal icon of mine, Harrison Ford in his first television series. The show does get caught up a bit in sweeping romance when it comes to the one son, Spencer, living abroad in Africa and his new bride there, but when it gets down to the gritty action, Taylor Sheridan always comes through. I’m really looking forward to what’s next after the cliffhanger at the end of this season.

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geekouts:

Golden Gate – New FBI recruit Kevin Walker (Matt Dillon) is tasked with finding communists within San Francisco’s Chinatown. When Kevin comes up empty-handed, he is forced to produce results, leading to his indictment of Chen Jung Song (Tzi Ma), an innocent Chinese worker. This results in tragedy, and the guilt-ridden Kevin feels compelled to look out for Song’s beautiful daughter, Marilyn (Joan Chen). Though Kevin and Marilyn fall for each other, his past deception still hangs over his head.

Review: It’s two weeks in a row of Matt Dillon films in the Geekouts, thanks to the people at Moviezyng.com but this one is about a decade earlier and it doesn’t have him behind the camera as well. This time it’s future Academy Award nominee John Madden, five years before he would be the talk of the movie world with Shakespeare In Love. The film was written by David Henry Hwang, who made his made his mark in the industry the same year with the romantic drama M. Butterfly, directed by the legendary David Cronenberg, which kind of left this film as a forgotten little drama. I think this film is fascinating to watch now, blending this tale of human connection across cultures with the era-specific battles against communism and racism.

Stormy Monday – Brendan (Sean Bean) begins to work at a jazz joint in a seedy part of Newcastle, England, and soon develops a friendship with the establishment’s seemingly ethical owner, Finney (Sting). Cosmo (Tommy Lee Jones), a crooked American businessman, arrives and attempts to force Finney into a shady deal involving the nightclub, but Brendan tries to keep his boss out of the suspicious agreement. Things are intensified when all three men compete for the affection of call girl Kate (Melanie Griffith).

Review: This film is definitely a buried gem but it comes from a time when Melanie Griffith was a queen of the era and dominated the genre market of crime dramas. The movie also has a killer cast of character players including an underappreciated at the time Tommy Lee Jones, rock star Sting and a young upstart British star in Sean Bean. Written and directed by one of the best and most underrated filmmakers, Mike Figgis, in his debut feature film, the story is a new sort of noir that carves its own path and lets the characters breathe along the way. As a guy who only discovered the film in 2023, I loved every moment of this one and hope this new Blu-ray will give it a bit of a resurgence.

Television:

Ladies First: A Story Of Women In Hip Hop (Netflix) – Recreates the role that the unstoppable women of hip-hop have played across the 50 years of this groundbreaking genre, putting them where they belong: at the heart of the present day.

Review: Netflix is getting me in that sweet spot this week as it’s hitting me not only with a new docuseries but it’s a music-centric one as well and I just adore those. This one is really cool as well as it follows the journey of women in hip hop from the ground floor with the originators in the late seventies, Salt n Pepa in the 80s through to the nineties with Queen Latifah, Foxy Brown and so on through to the influence women still exhibit in the genre today. I’m an easy sucker for all of this but any documentary fan can latch onto this one, maybe dispel some myths and learn more about these players in the music industry and not just what they did for music but the gender war as well.

Painkiller (Netflix) – This limited series exposes the roots of the most pressing health epidemic of the 21st century. Powerful narcotic painkillers, or opioids, were once used as drugs of last resort for pain sufferers. Purdue turned OxyContin into a billion-dollar blockbuster by launching an unprecedented marketing campaign claiming that the drug’s long-acting formulation made it safer to use than traditional painkillers for many types of pain. That illusion was quickly shattered as drug abusers learned that crushing an Oxy could release its narcotic payload all at once. Even in its prescribed form, Oxy proved fiercely addictive. As OxyContin’s use and abuse grew, Purdue concealed what it knew from regulators, doctors, and patients.

Review: Following Hulu and Disney+’s limited series Dopesick starring Michael Keaton, Netflix now takes a stab at the OxyContin story with the writers of the Fred Rogers biopic A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood making their debut as the showrunners. The cast is solid with Matthew Broderick playing Richard Sackler, the catalyst for the whole pharma-driven tragedy on the American people, as well as Uzo Aduba, Taylor Kitsch and West Duchovny in main roles and the pilot episode is a well-told dive into a sort of familiar story. It also helps that the veteran direction of Peter Berg for all six episodes drives a story that is fascinating on the surface anyways and just adds a new flavour to what you may have already seen.

Strange Planet (AppleTV+) – A look at a distant planet not unlike Earth, with hilarious yet poignant observations on life, love and friendship, as told in the most peculiar way.

Review: Based on a hilarious webcomic done by Nathan Pyle, this is something I never would think of getting a television series adaptation but here we are and, you know what? It’s pretty fun. Will it translate to a broader audience that has no connection to the origins of it? I think that is your harder sell as the whole idea, especially the way the dialogue flows, is nuanced to what. made the usually one to four-panelled comic work. I enjoy it but I also question the gamble with adapting this for a streaming service.

Only Murders In The Building: Season 3 (Disney+) – Follows three strangers (Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez) who share an obsession with true crime and suddenly find themselves wrapped up in one. When a grisly death occurs inside their exclusive Upper West Side apartment building, the trio suspects murder and employs their precise knowledge of true crime to investigate the truth. As they record a podcast of their own to document the case, the three unravel the complex secrets of the building which stretch back years. Perhaps even more explosive are the lies they tell one another. Soon, the endangered trio comes to realize a killer might be living amongst them as they race to decipher the mounting clues before it’s too late.

Review: One of my current favourite comedy shows is back for a new season and bringing some serious firepower in the guest star department with Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd. The chemistry with Martin, Short and Gomez is brilliant and it really gave me an appreciation for how talented Selena is in the genre as her deadpan deliveries are consistently hilarious. As a lifelong fan of both Steve Martin and Martin Short, I was an easy mark for this show but beyond that, it is one of the best-written shows on television today and always surprises and entertains. Can’t wait to see how this one will all turn out but I won’t go into specifics because of spoilers for new readers.

Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty: Season 2 (Crave) – Beginning with the arrival of Earvin “Magic” Johnson as the #1 overall pick of the 1979 draft, the Lakers played basketball with gusto and pizzazz, unleashing their famed “Showtime” run-and-gun style on a league unprepared for their speed and ferocity and became the most captivating show in sports and, arguably, in all-around American entertainment. The Lakers’ roster overflowed with exciting all-star-calibre players, including center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and they were led by the incomparable Pat Riley, known for his slicked-back hair, Armani suits, and arrogant strut. Hollywood’s biggest celebrities lined the court and gorgeous women flocked to the arena. Best of all, the team was a winner. Between 1980 and 1991, the Lakers played in an unmatched nine NBA championship series, capturing five of them.

Expectations: Adam McKay has got himself yet another hit in the true story realm with this famed sports story of a benchmark in the history of the NBA under the ownership of a guy who had no idea of the mountain he was facing at the time. It’s a good thing this was a hit too because it cost his friendship with Will Ferrell over not being offered the chance to be involved. Beyond that behind-the-scenes drama, this show is really compelling with a great cast but I do wonder what the real people think about their stories being told because some of them definitely do not come off great.