Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
I wonder if the number in the titles of the "Fast & Furious" movies is a scale of how implausible the movie will be. Do the producers think, "Well, it's the ninth movie so it has to be nine times wilder than the last one." I mean, why simply have a Pontiac Fiero when you can have a Pontiac Fiero with a rocket engine strapped to the roof?
Trust me, I'm on to something here.
I was not a fan of the first batch of "F&F" films but as they've incrementally amped up the action, shifting into a higher gear each and every time, with no regard for sentient storytelling or the laws of gravity, I've developed a soft spot for Dom and the Gang.
The movies stopped making sense some time ago. How is it, exactly, that a group of gearheads became a highly trained squad of international warriors, equally at home with ignition coils and international intrigue? These movies redefine the word excessive, and yet the franchise's commitment to auto anarchy and Vin Diesel's raspy way with a catchphrase has caught me in its speed trap.
The latest entry, "F9," now playing in theatres and Drive-Ins, is less a movie and more a spectacle. A loud-and-proud exercise in far-fetchery, cliches and twisted metal, it relies on the usual "F&F" staples — family, friends, fast cars and flashbacks — as a backdrop to the over-the-top action to tell a story of international espionage, an evil mastermind named Cipher (Charlize Theron) and the broken relationship between brothers Dom (Diesel) and Jakob (John Cena).
There's more, but fans don't go to these movies for the storytelling. They go because director Justin Lin has eliminated most of the boring bits — i.e. when the characters speak — to distill the movie down to its sweaty essence. When the characters do talk, they don't converse exactly, they exchange clichés, and when they aren't speaking in a low rumble, they yell.
The result is a Kabuki car show, the latest entry in a franchise that knows no speed limit.
In this Feb. 9, 2020 file photo, Wolfgang Puck arrives at the Oscars in Los Angeles. Puck turns 80 on July 8. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Spago chef Wolfgang Puck says he doesn’t like thinking about his past because it takes time away from focusing on the future. It’s a nice sentiment, but it may be why “Wolfgang,” a new documentary about his life, now streaming on Disney+, is short on contemplation.
The light and breezy 78-minute doc begins with the usual kind of praise that gets lobbed at luminaries like Puck. He revolutionized the way Americans eat. He was the first celebrity chef. Etc. Etc. All mostly true, (Jeremiah Tower or Alice Waters may have some thoughts on both these points) but it's all ground covered later on in some depth.
Beyond the platitudes though, is a compelling portrait of a man driven by the trauma of childhood with an abusive stepfather. Born into poverty in Austria, Puck was drawn to the kitchen, and loved spending time with his mother as she prepared modest Sunday dinners.
“As a kid, the kitchen was the only place I felt safe,” he says.
A mashed potato incident at his first hotel kitchen job got him fired, but he showed up the next day anyway, asked for his job back and was on his way to cooking serious food, studying in France and shutting out his family for the next year-and-a-half.
It’s in these details, and not the flashily edited montages of a young Punk on “Good Morning America” or footage of him waving to the famous clientele from the open kitchen of his legendary Hollywood restaurant Spago, that we begin to understand what makes Wolfgang run.
His professional rise through the ranks, from France to Hollywood’s Ma Maison restaurant and beyond, is certainly worth essaying, but it feels like much of the important stuff is swept along in a flurry of friendly talking heads and the glow of rave reviews. Better is the awkward look on Puck’s face as his sister scolds him for not being in touch when their grandmother passed away. Those moments feel authentic, providing some soul in a documentary that more often than not relies on anecdotes about Joan Collins and Puck’s famous smoked salmon and goat cheese pizza (“You don’t want to make Joan Collins mad!”) or well-worn adages.
“Wolfgang” is a slickly made documentary, but plays a like a greatest hits version of Puck’s life. When it peels back the layers of the onion to reveal how the chef’s need for his stepfather’s approval propelled his career, it resonates. When it goes for inspiration over introspection, however, it feels less flavourful.
Liam Neeson is seen in the film "The Ice Road." (Code Entertainment)
In recent years we’ve seen Liam Neeson morph from dramatic actor to action star. He’s battled everything from human traffickers and Mexican cartels to hijackers and murderous drug dealers. His latest, “The Ice Road” sees him up against his most daunting adversary yet—a long stretch of frozen ocean.
Neeson is Mike, a grizzled big rig driver who cares for his Iraq war veteran brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas). Gurty is a master mechanic, but his PTSD has made it difficult for the brothers to stay employment. When a diamond mine in Northern Canada collapses, they accept a job offer from Goldenrod (Laurence Fishburne) to be part of a convoy delivering life-saving equipment to the remote mine location.
The brothers team with Goldenrod and Tantoo (Amber Midthunder), a fearless young woman whose brother is trapped in the mine, to navigate three 65,000-pound vehicles over “ice roads,” frozen lakes, rivers and oceans to deliver life-saving equipment.
There’s more, but I can’t describe the plot’s main thrust without a major spoiler. Suffice to say, there is a villain so dastardly all that’s missing is a giant moustache to twirl.
The drama in “The Ice Road” quickly melts away like ice before a fire, leaving behind a residue of clichés, long, drawn-out action and fight scenes and dialogue borrowed from a hundred other, better action movies.
Director Jonathan Hensleigh, writer of the screenplays for “Jumanji,” “Armageddon” and “Die Hard with a Vengeance,” struggles to bring the popcorn thrills of his best-known work to this movie.
Even the death of one of the major players (NO SPOILERS HERE) is so abrupt and undramatic, it’s as if the actor had a doctor’s appointment and had to leave the set suddenly.
It’s too bad because there’s lots to work with. Start with man-against-nature. Move along to a pantomime villain and throw in some of Neeson’s trademarked grimaces and growls and you could have an enjoyable b-movie, but the hackneyed relationships and threadbare special effects sink the whole thing.
“The Ice Road” is a long (why did this have to be 103 minutes long?) winding road to nowhere; all build up and no pay off.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.