Episode Five of the “Pop Life Podcast” sees “Black Panther” star Danai Gurira and “Workin’ Moms” creator and star Catherine Reitman stop by the Pop Life Bar to discuss diversity in art.
Check out the Richard Crouse Show on NewsTalk 1010 for July 28, 2018! This week Richard welcomes “the most interesting man in the world,” actor and Astral Tequila spokesperson Jonathan Goldsmith! How interesting is he? He talks about taking Judy Garland on a date and getting shot by John Wayne! Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Here’s some info on The Richard Crouse Show!: Each week on The Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favorite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Click HERE to catch up on shows you might have missed! Read Richard NewsTalk 1010 reviews HERE!
The show airs:
NewsTalk 1010 – airs in Toronto Saturday at 9 to 10 pm.
For Niagara, Newstalk 610 Radio – airs Saturdays at 6 to 7 pm
For Montreal, CJAD 800 – Saturdays at 6 to 7 pm
For Vancouver – CFAX 1070 – Saturdays 6 to 7 pm.
For London — Newstalk 1290 CJBK, Saturdays 10 to 11 pm
A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at the Tom Cruise action flick “Mission Impossible – Fallout,” the surreal and surprising “Blindspot” and the political drama “Shock and Awe.”
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the weekend’s big releases, the Tom Cruise smash-’em-up “Mission Impossible – Fallout,” the surreal and surprising “Blindspot” and the political drama “Shock and Awe.”
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk about the epic action of “Mission Impossible – Fallout,” the epic emotions of “Blindspotting” and the not-so-epic “Shock and Awe.”
Writing a review for “Mission Impossible – Fallout” gave my thesaurus a workout. The film, the sixth instalment in the Tom Cruise franchise, is jammed to the gills with next-level stunts that require an expanded vocabulary to describe. Words like ‘extreme’ or ‘exciting’ or even ‘epic’ (and those are only the ‘e’ words) don’t come close to describing the behemothic action sequences contained within.
Cruise returns as the seemingly invincible action man and IMF (Impossible Mission Force) agent Ethan Hunt. Hunt and his crew, tech wiz Benji (Simon Pegg) and agent Luther (Ving Rhames), are charged with finding and capturing anarchist Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), a baddie who was the leader of the Syndicate during the last film, “Rogue Nation.” “Whatever you heard about Lane,” explains Hunt, “if it makes your skin crawl it’s probably true.” Lane is working with the mysterious and murderous John Lark, a man with some extreme ideas about squashing the world order.
As Lark and Lane collect the necessary plutonium to fulfil their plan the CIA begins to have doubts about Hunt’s loyalty. Add to that the return of former MI6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), and some newbies, CIA assassin August Walker (Henry Cavill) and black market arms dealer and lady of mystery White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) and you have lots of characters to fill the space between the stunts. Complicating matters is the fallout from some of Hunt’s previous, well-intentioned missions.
There are a lot of very good-looking people in “Mission Impossible – Fallout.” Handsome fellas and femme fatale‘s, they are all woven into a stylish story of international intrigue and plutonium. Like the others “MI” movies it’s packed with exotic locations—only James Bond has more air travel points than Ethan Hunt—doublespeak and double crosses but the narrative doesn’t matter that much, it’s all in service of the Bunyanesque action.
Choreographed to an inch of Hunts life—Cruise really puts himself out there for this one—the realism of the stunts gives the movie a sense of danger and the Green Screen Department the day off. Monumental, vertigo inducing single sequences take place on land, wheels, water and air. Only the screeching of tires score one eye-peeling chase scene between a motorcycle and a car. Visually it is so visceral director Christopher McQuarrie wisely avoided cluttering the scene with frenetic music. It doesn’t need it.
Of course those looking for a finely crafted John le Carré style story of espionage in “Mission Impossible – Fallout” will be bitterly disappointed. While it does contain huggerymuggery it frequently falls just this side of making sense. That’s not to say it isn’t entertaining. Even when Hunt isn’t in action the movie is in perpetual motion, but Frederick Forsyth this ain’t. Instead it is an elephantine (although no actual elephants appear) action epic that breaks the blockbuster norm of cutting away to an action sequence every ten minutes or so. It’s made up of three Brobdingnagian set pieces stitched together by words that mostly make sense.
“Blindspotting,” the debut film from director Carlos Lopez Estrada, filters an essay on privilege, gentrification and violence through the lens of one relationship. Colin (Daveed Diggs) and Miles (Rafael Casal) have been friends since childhood but still have much to learn from one another.
Set in Oakland, California the bulk of the action takes place over the course of Colin’s last three days of probation on an assault and battery charge. Living in a halfway house, Colin works as a mover, with best friend Miles, for his ex-girlfriend Val (Janina Gavankar) and has a strict curfew of 11 pm. He’s trying desperately to stay out of trouble but Miles, a loudmouth who carries a gun, is a loose cannon, always on the edge of blowing up the situation. When Colin witnesses a cop shoot an unarmed African-American man in the back he’s plagued by nightmares and an increasing sense of trauma and dread. A situation at a party that escalates out of control forces Colin to assess his place in the world, or at least, his place in a rapidly gentrifying Oakland.
“Blindspotting” is a happily undisciplined a movie. Raw and brimming with ideas, it’s an exciting look at contemporary life that kicks preconceive notions of storytelling to the curb. Co-writers and co-stars Diggs and Casal weave a story that bristles with provactive ideas. Funny one moment, tragic the next, it confronts the viewers ideas not only on the narrative form of the storytelling but the stereotypes so often used to portray people of colour in movies.
Director Estrada builds tension all the way through leading up to a surreal showdown that brings the story into sharp focus.
Despite many stylish flourishes “Blindspotting” feels authentic. Perhaps it’s because of the warm camaraderie between Diggs and Casal or perhaps it’s because of the sense of nuance given to large scale issues of race, loyalty and class.