DEVELOPING Person on fire outside Trump's hush money trial rushed away on a stretcher
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
This image released by Focus Features shows Oscar Isaac in a scene from "The Card Counter." (Focus Features via AP)
“The Card Counter,” the new film from “Taxi Driver” screenwriter Paul Schrader, now playing in theatres, is less concerned with cheating at cards than it is with the heavy conscience of the main character.
William Tell (Oscar Isaac) is a man with a past. Ex-military, he’s haunted by his time as an enhanced interrogator at Abu Ghraib. These days he’s constantly on the move, trying to outrun his past, travelling from town to town working as a professional gambler and card counter, a skill he picked up during a stint at Leavenworth.
His past catches up with him, however, when Cirk (Tye Sheridan) makes the connection between his late father, who was driven to violence and suicide by memories of his time as a torturer, William and their commanding officer Major John Gordo (Willem Dafoe). Cirk has a vendetta. He blames Gordo for his father‘s death, and plans revenge.
William sees the messy situation as a chance for redemption. With the help of financial backer LaLinda (Tiffany Haddish), William attempts to right the wrongs of his past, clear his conscience and send Cirk off on a better path.
“The Card Counter” is an austere, intense movie.
Schrader’s trademark anguish permeates every frame. Isaac plays William as a man who has numbed himself to the horrors of his past by adopting a controlled, methodical way of life. It’s his way of reducing memories of “the noise, the smell, the violence” at bay, but he is tormented, and Isaac’s careful performance reveals a man aware that his guilt could overflow at any time. It would’ve been easy to play him as comatose, shut down to real life after the pain he willfully inflicted on others, but Isaac gives him life.
His only way out of the psychic hell his memories put him through on a nightly basis is through helping Cirk to ease the young man’s pain. There are echoes of “Taxi Driver” throughout. Like Travis Bickle, William uses violence to “rescue” an innocent, but unlike Mr. You Talkin’ To Me, William also has a sweet side. His relationship with LaLinda is warm and Haddish’s performance helps show us William’s human side.
Schrader fills “The Card Counter” with not-so-subtle social commentary. One of William’s rivals on the gambling circuit is Mr. U.S.A. (Alexander Babara), a loud and proud player dressed in red, white and blue. He’s an empty shell, a braying show-off whose presence is all sound and fury, signifying nothing. He’s the polar opposite of the self-contained William, a man who has seen the horrors his country endorsed and knows of the personal cost involved. The allegory isn’t delicate, but it does feel timely and ripped from the headlines.
“The Card Counter” is another of Schrader’s looks into the soul of, as he called Travis Bickle, “God’s lonely man.” He tempers the darkness with wry humour and even a touch of romance, but make no mistake, trauma lies at the heart of the storytelling, resulting in a tautly told morality play that encompasses the war on terror and the personal cost of military action.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead is seen in the film "Kate." (87North)
In “Kate,” a new action thriller now streaming on Netflix, Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the titular character, a ruthless killer with just twenty-four hours to get to the bottom of a murder—her own.
When we first meet Kate she’s in Japan. Her handler and mentor, played by Woody Harrelson, has arranged a hit of a high-level yakuza. She takes the shot, hits her target, leaving his young daughter Ani (Miku Patricia Martineau) in tears over his body.
Later, on another gig, just as she’s about to take a shot her eyes blur. Unable to aim, she misses, takes another shot and misses again. After a wild chase she lands in the hospital where she is told she’s been poisoned and has just twenty-four hours to live.
Her quest for vengeance leads her to an unlikely ally, Ani, the daughter of one of her victims.
“Kate” is a fast-paced riff on “D.O.A.,” the seventy-year-old Edmond O'Brien movie about a victim who tries to figure out who poisoned him and why. French director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan amps up the action, staging everything from wild car chases through the streets of Tokyo to up-close-and-personal fight scenes, all focused on Kate’s ability to jump, punch, shoot and generally lay waste to all comers. Winstead, who proved her action bona fides as Huntress in “Birds of Prey,” brings the kick assery in fight scenes that are fleet-footed and plentiful.
Set against the background of the ticking clock, “Kate” delivers some high-velocity action, even if the premise isn’t exactly new.
Jedidiah Goodacre and Rose Reid are seen in the film "Finding You." (Nook Lane Entertainment)
Like an Irish twist of “Notting Hill,” the new rom com “Finding You,” now on VOD, sees a regular Josephine with dreams of being a star, fall for a movie star who wants nothing more than to be a regular guy.
After a failed audition for a tony New York City Conservatory, Finley Sinclair (Rose Reid) decides to decamp to Ireland to live, work and study Irish music at her relative’s B&B. Because this is a rom com, on the plane she sits next to movie star Beckett Rush (Jedidiah Goodacre). He’s on the way to shoot the latest installment of his “Game of Thrones” style fantasy franchise. Thinking they’ll never see one another again, they harmlessly flirt. She falls asleep on his shoulder and he charms her as he gently wakes her up.
Let me remind you, this is a rom com, so when they land on the ground in the tiny Irish town of Carlingford, it turns out they’re staying at the same hotel! Who would have imagined?
Sparks fly, but there are complications. (Again, this is a rom com.) There’s a fake Hollywood romance with starlet Taylor Risdale (Katherine McNamara), a meddling manager and Beckett’s eager fans.
But love changes everything, and soon Beckett and Finley come together in a journey of self-discovery that will change both their lives.
“Finding You,” based on the 2011 young adult novel "There You'll Find Me" by Jenny B. Jones, has all the elements of the dreaded inspirational rom com. There’s beautiful scenery that’s almost as good looking as the actors. There are also romantic complications, flirtatious behaviour, boozy regulars at the pub, a dead relative or two and enough Irish clichés to make a leprechaun blush.
Everybody knows rom coms aren’t about the destination—we all know who will settle down with who by the time the end credits roll—they are about the journey.
“Finding You” is all journey, like driving down a road you’ve gone down dozens of times before, but they’ve put up a new billboard or two. You’ve seen it all before, but the scenery is nice.
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