Tom Cruise's ‘Days of Thunder,' ‘Young Frankenstein' and other revival screenings and film festivals
400 Roncesvalles Ave.
'The Elephant Man' (Sat., 3:15 p.m.; Sun., 3:30 p.m.; Weds., 9:30 p.m.)
David Lynch's mesmerizing 1980 drama about disfigured Englishman John Merrick (produced by Mel Brooks!) gets the 4K restoration treatment. Filmed in stunning black and white, it was nominated for eight Academy Awards.
Carlton Cinema
20 Carlton St.
'Days of Thunder' (Mon., 12:55 p.m., 3:55 p.m., 6:55 p.m., 9:45 p.m.)
After seeing the new 'Mission: Impossible,' check out Tom Cruise's 1990 racing spectacular, which will look positively primitive in comparison. The movie is part of Carlton Cinema's bargain $5 series, which also includes 'E.T.,' 'Get Shorty' and 'The Way of the Dragon.'
Paradise Theatre
1006 Bloor St. W.
'Young Frankenstein' (Mon., 6 p.m.)
Mel Brooks' 1974 classic, starring Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle, also shot in crisp black and white, screens as part of the Paradise's 'Expect the Worst' tribute to the comedy auteur.
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Fox Theatre
2236 Queen St. E.
Toronto Horror Film Festival (Thurs., time TBA)
This year's highlights include the shorts 'The Sorrow,' 'Scam,' 'The Itch,' 'Cadabra' and the evocatively titled 'Social Media Slaughterhouse.'
OCAD University
100 McCaul St., Room 190
Ikigai Youth Film & Art Festival (Fri., 5:30 p.m.)
Young Canadian artists explore the Japanese concept of Ikigai — the wisdom behind living a meaningful and fulfilling life — through photography, painting, drawing and short films. Free to attend.
TIFF Lightbox
350 King St. W.
Inside Out Toronto 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival (Starts Fri.)
Now in its 35th year, Inside Out brings together screenings, events and workshops celebrating queer culture. Elena Oxman's drama 'Outerlands' opens the festival on Friday. The closing night gala on May 31 features Allan Deberton's Brazilian musical 'The Best Friend.'
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Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Movie Review: In ‘The Old Guard 2,' Charlize Theron and Uma Thurman get half a movie
About 80 minutes into 'The Old Guard 2,' I found myself wondering how the filmmakers were going to wrap things up. There were a lot of threads dangling with Charlize Theron'sgang of immortal warriors, split up and facing extinction, and she still had yet to face off with the new villain, Discord (apparently the first immortal), played by Uma Thurman. The promise of a showdown between The Bride and Furiosa may not justify the existence of this sequel, now streaming on Netflix, but it was something to look forward to nonetheless. And while they do fight, for a little, something even crazier happens not too long after: The movie ends or, rather, stops mid-climax. An ending was never part of the plan. This might be an attempt at a cheeky nod to the life of an immortal — what is an ending after all, I guess? But unlike the first film, which merely left the door open for the possibility of a sequel, 'The Old Guard 2' cuts off mid-movie. Not only is there no option to 'continue watching,' there's no promise we'll even get an 'Old Guard 3.' Moviegoers endure a lot of partial stories in these days of franchise filmmaking, ever desperate for a built-in audience. With some, you know a resolution is coming at a later date, as with 'Mission: Impossible' or 'Wicked.' With others, like 'Dune,' a part two or three might have been a question mark, but the intention was unambiguously there. There's nothing fun or enjoyable about being surprised that you've been watching a 'part one' the whole time, especially on a service that has helped train us to click next episode. Perhaps that also has to do with the quality of 'The Old Guard 2,' which feels like a step down from the first movie, which provided much-needed escapism in the summer of 2020 as we met Theron's Andromache the Scythian (Andy, for short) and welcomed KiKi Layne's new immortal Nile. It ended with Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts) being exiled for a betrayal and the tease that Andy's old companion Quynh (Vân Veronica Ngô), was still alive. Quynh is, understandably, not thrilled that she was left at the bottom of the ocean for centuries. She wants to punish Andy the most — the movie heavily implies that they were more than sisters in arms, but never quite goes so far as to confirm that their love was romantic, which is especially strange given that it doesn't shy away from letting Nicky (Luca Marinelli) and Joe (Marwan Kenzari) be an out gay couple. One of the most significant behind-the-scenes changes is that Gina Prince-Bythewood ( 'The Woman King,' 'Love & Basketball') ceded directing duties to Victoria Mahoney, who has directed episodes of 'Queen Sugar' and 'You' and served as second unit director on 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.' Working off Greg Rucka and Sarah L. Walker's screenplay, the movies opens with a lively action sequence in which the immortals attempt to nab an arms dealer. Nicky and Joe are the distractors, getting their own James Bond-esque car chase, while Nile, Andy and Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) get more hand-to-hand combat on the property. It sets a fun tone and allows for some (mostly) welcome exposition — 'remember, you're not immortal anymore' — for those who might not have the best memory of something they watched at the height of the pandemic. But the film never recaptures that energy again and devolves into an increasingly tedious meditation on time, death and the science of why Andy lost her immortality power (which is approaching 'Face/Off' levels of insanity). Thurman has a mighty good scowl as the 'bad immortal' who long ago decided she didn't have any desire to help the humans who persecuted her kind, but the movie seems to be saving her big moment for later. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. Overall 'The Old Guard 2' is fine, a bit of a background movie that's probably easy enough to tune in and out of (though Schoenaerts, a standout, gives it some real pathos). Its greatest sin is the non-ending, which might have moviegoers engaging in their own rants about wasted time. Cliffhangers are a gamble — when the movie is satisfying on its own, it can leave them wanting more. In this case, it might just leave them angry. Audiences in 2025 deserve better. 'The Old Guard 2,' a Netflix release now streaming, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for 'sequences of graphic violence and some language.' Running time: 105 minutes. Two stars out of four.
Winnipeg Free Press
26-06-2025
- Winnipeg Free Press
Lalo Schifrin, composer of the ‘Mission: Impossible' theme, dies at 93
Lalo Schifrin, the composer who wrote the endlessly catchy theme for 'Mission: Impossible' and more than 100 other arrangements for film and television, died Thursday. He was 93. Schifrin's sons William and Ryan confirmed his death to trade outlets. The Associated Press' messages to Schifrin's publicist and representatives for either brother were not immediately returned. The Argentine won four Grammys and was nominated for six Oscars, including five for original score for 'Cool Hand Luke,' 'The Fox,' 'Voyage of the Damned,' 'The Amityville Horror' and 'The Sting II.' 'Every movie has its own personality. There are no rules to write music for movies,' Schifrin told The Associated Press in 2018. 'The movie dictates what the music will be.' He also wrote the grand finale musical performance for the World Cup championship in Italy in 1990, in which the Three Tenors — Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras — sang together for the first time. The work became one of the biggest sellers in the history of classical music. 'The most contagious tune ever heard' Schifrin, also a jazz pianist and classical conductor, had a remarkable career in music that included working with Dizzy Gillespie and recording with Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan. But perhaps his biggest contribution was the instantly recognizable score to television's 'Mission: Impossible,' which fueled the just-wrapped, decades-spanning feature film franchise led by Tom Cruise. Written in the unusual 5/4 time signature, the theme — Dum-dum DUM DUM dum-dum DUM DUM — was married to an on-screen self-destruct clock that kicked off the TV show, which ran from 1966 to 1973. It was described as 'only the most contagious tune ever heard by mortal ears' by New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane and even hit No. 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968. Schifrin originally wrote a different piece of music for the theme song but series creator Bruce Geller liked another arrangement Schifrin had composed for an action sequence. 'The producer called me and told me, 'You're going to have to write something exciting, almost like a logo, something that will be a signature, and it's going to start with a fuse,'' Schifrin told the AP in 2006. 'So I did it and there was nothing on the screen. And maybe the fact that I was so free and I had no images to catch, maybe that's why this thing has become so successful — because I wrote something that came from inside me.' When director Brian De Palma was asked to take the series to the silver screen, he wanted to bring the theme along with him, leading to a creative conflict with composer John Williams, who wanted to work with a new theme of his own. Out went Williams and in came Danny Elfman, who agreed to retain Schifrin's music. Hans Zimmer took over scoring for the second film, and Michael Giacchino scored the next two. Giacchino told NPR he was a hesitant to take it on, because Schifrin's music was one of his favorite themes of all time. 'I remember calling Lalo and asking if we could meet for lunch,' Giacchino told NPR. 'And I was very nervous — I felt like someone asking a father if I could marry their daughter or something. And he said, 'Just have fun with it.' And I did.' 'Mission: Impossible' won Grammys for best instrumental theme and best original score from a motion picture or a TV show. In 2017, the theme was entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame. U2 members Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. covered the theme while making the soundtrack to 1996's first installment; that version peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200 with a Grammy nomination. A 2010 commercial for Lipton tea depicted a young Schifrin composing the theme at his piano while gaining inspiration through sips of the brand's Lipton Yellow Label. Musicians dropped from the sky as he added elements. Early life filled with music Born Boris Claudio Schifrin to a Jewish family in Buenos Aires — where his father was the concertmaster of the philharmonic orchestra — Schifrin was classically trained in music, in addition to studying law. After studying at the Paris Conservatory — where he learned about harmony and composition from the legendary Olivier Messiaen — Schifrin returned to Argentina and formed a concert band. Gillespie heard Schifrin perform and asked him to become his pianist, arranger and composer. In 1958, Schifrin moved to the United States, playing in Gillespie's quintet in 1960-62 and composing the acclaimed 'Gillespiana.' The long list of luminaries he performed and recorded with includes Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, Dee Dee Bridgewater and George Benson. He also worked with such classical stars as Zubin Mehta, Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniel Barenboim and others. Schifrin moved easily between genres, winning a Grammy for 1965's 'Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts' while also earning a nod that same year for the score of TV's 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' In 2018, he was given an honorary Oscar statuette and, in 2017, the Latin Recording Academy bestowed on him one of its special trustee awards. Later film scores included 'Tango,' 'Rush Hour' and its two sequels, 'Bringing Down The House,' 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey,' 'After the Sunset' and the horror film 'Abominable.' Writing the arrangements for 'Dirty Harry,' Schifrin decided that the main character wasn't in fact Clint Eastwood's hero, Harry Callahan, but the villain, Scorpio. 'You would think the composer would pay more attention to the hero. But in this case, no, I did it to Scorpio, the bad guy, the evil guy,' he told the AP. 'I wrote a theme for Scorpio.' It was Eastwood who handed him his honorary Oscar. 'Receiving this honorary Oscar is the culmination of a dream,' Schifrin said at the time. 'It is mission accomplished.' Beyond film and TV Among Schifrin's conducting credits include the London Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the Mexico Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He was appointed music director of Southern California's Glendale Symphony Orchestra and served in that capacity from 1989-1995. Schifrin also wrote and adapted the music for 'Christmas in Vienna' in 1992, a concert featuring Diana Ross, Carreras and Domingo. He also combined tango, folk and classical genres when he recorded 'Letters from Argentina,' nominated for a Latin Grammy for best tango album in 2006. Schifrin was also commissioned to write the overture for the 1987 Pan American Games, and composed and conducted the event's 1995 final performance in Argentina. And for perhaps one of the only operas performed in the ancient Indigenous language of Nahuatl, in 1988 Schifrin wrote and conducted the choral symphony 'Songs of the Aztecs.' The work premiered at Mexico's Teotihuacan pyramids with Domingo as part of a campaign to raise money to restore the site's Aztec temple. 'I found it to be a very sweet, musical language, one in which the sounds of the words dictated interesting melodies,' Schifrin told The Associated Press at the time. 'But the real answer is that there's something magic about it. … There's something magic in the art of music anyway.' In addition to his sons, he's survived by his daughter, Frances, and wife, Donna.
Winnipeg Free Press
25-06-2025
- Winnipeg Free Press
Movie Review: ‘M3GAN 2.0' goes big, maybe too big, to ‘Mission: Impossible'-level existential crisis
If you want to know how big an upgrade the 'M3GAN' sequel has on the original, look no further than the very first scene. 'M3GAN' was mostly set in a Seattle house, but 'M3GAN 2.0' starts at the Turkish-Iranian border — with a murderous rampage in a secret military installation and the presence of Saudi intelligence, with U.S. Defense Department officials covertly watching. Two hours later, it's not clear if this is really an upgrade. Most of the same team that gave us the refreshing horror-comedy original two years ago have not only gone super-big, but also changed the franchise's genre, turning 'M3GAN 2.0' into an action movie with two AI robots, two villains, FBI units, wingsuits, neural implants, a 'Mission: Impossible'-style vault heist, exosuits, a 250-mph street chase in a supercar, a power grid disaster, a countdown clock, the United Nations and the fate of the planet at stake. If the evil doll M3gan in the first movie was responsible for the deaths of four humans and one dog, this time the screen is littered with the corpses of shootings, decapitations, severed limbs and laser slayings. There are double-crosses, impalings, blood splatter, cattle prods, tactical military soldiers, self-destruct sequences and insane close-combat martial arts. You can be forgiven for expecting a Tom Cruise appearance. What you won't get is much of the vibe of the original, which fused horror, cultural commentary and humor. This time, that's muted in favor of an overly ambitious, horribly convoluted plot that sometimes feels like the moviemakers just threw money at the sequel and tried to ape other franchises by going massive. The first had a bedroom feel; the new one starts, like we said, on an international border. The original's $12 million budget has been tripled. 'M3GAN 2.0' owes a lot to 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day,' in which the robot killer in the first movie becomes the robot hero of the second. M3gan, it will come as no surprise, wasn't killed at the end of the original. She's just been laying low, waiting for her time to seize the day — and dance. Now she is reborn to fight another, better AI robot, played with sinister lethality by Ivanna Sakhno. 'M3GAN' arrived in 2023 just as AI technology like ChatGPT was beginning to go mainstream. Director and screenwriter Gerard Johnstone turns Allison Williams — who plays M3gan's creator, Gemma — into a high-profile author and advocate for government oversight of artificial intelligence as the sequel opens. One of the more intriguing questions the movie explores is if parents are gradually outsourcing their responsibilities to technology. Her niece Cady — the fabulous Violet McGraw — is now a budding computer programmer and rebellious. She has learned aikido and has a strong affinity for Steven Seagal, a running gag. Her protection is still the single focus of M3gan, who has apparently been in cloud networks between movies. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. Facing a global existential threat, Gemma is convinced to build a body for M3gan to go toe-to-toe with the military-grade AI killing machine known as Amelia. 'Everyone deserves a second chance,' Cady tells her aunt. But whose side is M3gan really on? And what does Amelia really want? Some of the movie's best parts are when M3gan and Amelia face off. 'You're not family to them,' the new AI model says to the old. 'You're just the help.' There's some cool robotic dancing — a highlight of the original — and a return of M3gan's camel-colored silk sateen dress that became popular at Halloween. Johnstone has smartly kept the offbeat humor of the original, this time with clever nods to 'Knight Rider' and a surreal use of the Kate Bush song 'This Woman's Work.' Jemaine Clement from 'Flight of the Conchords' has fun as an arrogant tech billionaire, while Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jen Van Epps return as Gemma's tech teammates, this time crawling through ducts or getting choked almost to death. We wouldn't be here if someone had taken the advice of Ronny Chieng's character in the original movie: 'I want you to take this cyborg puppet show and put it in a dark closet where it belongs.' Not after grossing $180 million worldwide. 'M3GAN 2.0' was inevitable, but it didn't have to be so inevitably too much. 'M3GAN 2.0,' a Universal Pictures release in theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 for 'strong violent content, bloody images, some strong language, sexual material and brief drug references.' Running time: 120 minutes. Two stars out of four.
