The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: Season 4
(Amy Sherman-Palladino)
Sherman-Palladino’s beloved series about housewife-turned-stand-up Miriam “Midge” Maisel’s colourful ups and downs in the late 50s and early 60s is beginning to wear thin, especially if you’ve watched the superior series Hacks, also about female comics. Season four begins right after the third ended, with Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) and her manager Susie (Alex Borstein) dealing with the aftermath of her innuendo-filled confessional set at the Apollo, which got her fired from touring with closeted musician Shy Baldwin (LeRoy McClain). Now the two have major money issues, and Midge is at a career crossroads, wanting to develop a more authentic act.
The series has always coasted on period fashions and acting, and the first two episodes shown to critics are filled with gorgeous costumes and delightful performances. Along with the leads, scene-stealers like Bailey De Young (as Midge’s BFF Midge) and Stephanie Hsu (as Mei, Midge’s ex’s new girlfriend) are back. Domenick Lombardozzi, Chris Eigeman and Gideon Glick pop up as potentially interesting new characters on the sidelines, but so far they haven’t been given much to do. The comedy this season seems especially forced, however. Even experienced clowns like Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkel (as Midge’s parents) and Kevin Pollak and Caroline Aaron (as her former in-laws) can’t pull off a groan-worthy comic set piece set on a Coney Island Ferris wheel. And an extended visual gag involving taxi drivers dropping off Midge’s suitcases falls flat. That said, the second episode ends in a setting that could be promising for the season’s evolution – and for Midge’s act. This season desperately needs something. First two episodes now streaming on Prime Video Canada, with two episodes dropping each week until March 18. NN (Glenn Sumi)
Aliné
(Valérie Lemercier)
Lemercier’s affectionate biopic about a Quebec-born pop superstar named Aline Dieu is officially being called “a fiction freely inspired by the life of Céline Dion.” It’s too bad it’s not a little freer. Anyone who knows anything about the singer will recognize the story’s beats, from her modest upbringing as the youngest of 14 children to her meeting with a manager (Sylvain Marcel) who would, years later, become her husband, and her rapid rise to global superstardom. Lemercier’s decision to play Aline even as a young child gives the film a campy vibe, and it lessens the ick factor when Aline and her manager first kiss. Singing to Victoria Sio’s renditions of Dion’s song book, Lemercier effortlessly channels the singer’s physicality and captures her down home spirit. But the two-hour film suffers from poor pacing and a lack of momentum. There’s a scene late in the film where a disillusioned Aline stumbles out of an apartment and walks the streets of Las Vegas, where she encounters, among other things, an Aline impersonator. It’s beautifully shot, richly suggestive and says a lot about the price of fame. It hints at what this film might have been. 128 min. Subtitled. Screening Saturday (February 18) and Sunday (February 19) at the Fox Theatre. NNN (GS)
Severance
(Dan Erickson)
If you’ve been looking for a bleak workplace comedy that’s also a creepy, paranoid thriller with just a little streak of body horror, then you should definitely check out this ingenious puzzle box of a show from writer/creator Erickson and executive producer Ben Stiller, who directed most of the episodes. Adam Scott and Britt Lower star as employees of a corporation that’s devised a procedure to separate their work and personal lives, meaning the “innie” has no memories of their “outie” life and vice versa. It’s an intriguing take on work-life balance, and one that doesn’t shy away from the cruelty inherent in the concept: if one’s work self knows literally nothing else and has no choice in the matter, isn’t that a life sentence at best, and torture at worst? And when no one on the outside can ever know what happens at the office, how does that affect corporate culture?
Severance strikes a jittery tone of suppressed panic from the very first scenes, each deadpan interaction hinting at something malevolent underneath. Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, Christopher Walken and Russian Doll’s Yul Vasquez – each one a versatile, mercurial presence – turn up in key roles, while Scott’s everybro vibe and Lower’s rebellious energy spark off each other in interesting ways. Lock yourself in with this one. It’s got something. New episodes available Fridays through April 8 on Apple TV+. NNNN (Norman Wilner)
Uncharted
(Ruben Fleischer)
If you’ve ever wanted to watch Peter Parker star in a Tomb Raider movie, I give you Uncharted: an adaptation of the PlayStation relic-hunting videogame series with Tom Holland (Marvel’s current web-slinger) as the young hero Nathan Drake, running around the world in search of billions in Spanish gold while trying to figure out if he can trust his fellow fortune hunters Victor Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) and Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali) to have his back against the baddies (Antonio Banderas, Tati Gabrielle). Traps are dodged, puzzles are solved and the whole thing climaxes in an impressive IMAX-scale action sequence. But at the same time, Uncharted is just another generic action picture with no ambition beyond launching another franchise. Producer/director Fleischer (Zombieland, Venom) keeps it all moving quickly enough that fans won’t care how thin the story is, or how it asks nothing from its cast – to the point that Holland gives exactly the same chatty-brainy performance he does in the Marvel movies, just in a wet Henley instead of a Spidey suit. Still, the gamers at my preview screening were very happy to see their favourite characters brought to life exactly the way they expected them to look, so maybe that’s all it needs to do. 116 min. Some subtitles. Now playing in theatres. NNN (NW)
Space Force
(Greg Daniels, Norm Hiscock)
After a frankly dreadful first season, Netflix’s workplace sitcom – starring Steve Carell (who created the series with his Office mate Daniels) and John Malkovich as a hard-nosed general and a snobby scientist trying to make sense of Donald Trump’s astro-military initiative – is back with some minor improvements. Veteran sitcom writer/producer Hiscock (Kids In The Hall, Parks And Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) is now running the show with Daniels, which may explain the new attention paid to deserving supporting characters like Tawny Newsome’s astronaut Angela Ali, Jimmy O. Yang’s astrophysicist Chen Kaifang and Diana Silvers’s wayward civilian Erin Naird, but actual laughs are rare; still, if Hiscock is the reason the show walks back that awful growling delivery Carell affected in the first season, his hiring is money well spent. As for storylines, Trump is out of office but the Biden era doesn’t offer much inspiration, with Carell’s Mark Naird now frustrated by the threat of budget cuts rather than having to throw spontaneous parades, and Malkovich’s Dr. Mallory still having almost nothing to do but sigh and look disappointed. I know how he feels. Entire season now available to stream on Netflix Canada. NN (NW)
Available on VOD
A Banquet
Sienna Guillory, Jessica Alexander, Lindsay Duncan; directed by Ruth Paxton
Catch The Fair One
Kali Reis, Daniel Henshall, Kevin Dunn; directed by Josef Wladyka
Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play
Flee
Documentary directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox
Fortress
Bruce Willis, Chad Michael Murray, Jesse Metcalfe; directed by James cullen Bressack
Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play
The King’s Man
Ralph Fiennes, Harris Dickinson, Gemma Arterton; directed by Matthew Vaughn
Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play, Disney+
President
Documentary directed by Joslyn Barnes and Signe Byrge Sorensen
Apple TV, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox, Hot Docs At Home
Ted K
Sharlto Copley, Drew Powell, Wayne Pyle; directed by Tony Stone
Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play
Woodland Grey
Chelsea Goldwater, Katharine King, Tristan D. Lalla; directed by Adam Reider
Streaming guides
Everything on streaming platforms this month:
Film festival
Toronto Black Film Festival
Boasting 200 films from 30 countries – all available to stream individually or with a $99 all-access pass – the 10th edition of the TBFF is packed with shorts, docs and features… among them Krystin Ver Linden’s fresh-from-Sundance Alice, starring Keke Palmer as an enslaved woman on a Georgia plantation who discovers the year is actually 1973, and the world premiere of Lance Murphey’s The Shadow Between Us, a documentary following Cleveland dancer Nehemiah Spencer as he collaborates with a Colorado dance troupe to choreograph a performance in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Those are just two options among many, of course; flick through the categories and you’re bound to find something that grabs you.
Through February 22 at torontoblackfilm.com
