Archive for March, 2020

ISOLATION PODCAST: WHAT TO WATCH WHEN YOU’VE ALREADY WATCHED EVERYTHING PART 2!

What to watch when you’ve already watched everything Part Two! Binge worthy, not cringe worthy recommendations from Isolation Studios in the eerily quiet downtown Toronto. Three movie choices to stream, rent or buy that will help fill the minutes until we can comfortably cough in public once again. And no, “Electric Boogaloo” is not one of the selections.

Listen to the podcast HERE!

ISOLATION PODCAST: What to watch when you’ve already watched everything!

What to watch when you’ve already watched everything. Binge worthy, not cringe worthy recommendations. It’s a long title, I know but in self isolation I have more time on my hands than usual. Here are three movies you may not have seen that are available to rent or buy on VOD and streaming services that can help pass the minutes, hours, weeks… whatever, until we are allowed to touch our faces again.

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

POP LIFE ENCORE: THE FULL EPISODE WITH SHANIA TWAIN ON STAGE FRIGHT!

On an encore presentation of “Pop Life” Shania Twain, “Queen of Country Pop,” opens up about going back to Las Vegas and her crippling battle with stage fright. Then the “Pop Life” panel “Hideaway” hitmaker Kiesza, entertainer, voice and performance coach Carolyn Thompson and opera singer Ambur Braid, talk about how to overcome stage fright in everyday life.

“While all of this, what people call trailblazing and icon building and all that, was was happening I definitely had no idea. I was not focused, or aware of any of that element of what Shania meant to other people, what the music meant to other people. I was just doing it. I think when you’re really busy doing it you’re not thinking about how important you are or, or anything like that. It wasn’t really until I came back that I realized how important I am,” Shania says with a laugh.

Watch the whole thing HERE!

Watch this epipsode or any show you might have missed HERE!

Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.

Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock legends Sting and Meat Loaf, musicians Josh Groban and Sarah Brightman, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, superstar jazz musician Diana Krall, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actors Danny DeVito and Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Nigella Lawson, and many more.

NEWSTALK 1010: POP LIFE INTERVIEWS WITH BOB GELDOF & CHRISTINA CHANG!

On the March 29, 2020 edition of the Richard Crouse Show: Two of Richard’s favourite interviews from the most recent season of “Pop Life.” Singer-songwriter, author, political activist and occasional actor Bob Geldof stops by the Pop Life bar. He became famous as the lead singer of the Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and became a legend when he and Midge Ure founded the charity supergroup Band Aid to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia and went on to organise the charity super-concert Live Aid… He is an accomplished solo artist whose charitable work continues to this day. They were supposed to talk about the Boomtown Rats, “Citizens of Boomtown,” their first album in 36 years and a lead single, “Trash Glam Baby,” but, as you’re about to find out, that was just a starting point for a much wider conversation.

Then Richard welcomes an actor who plays a doctor on one of the most popular shows on television. You’ve seen Christina Chang in films like 28 Days and Random Hearts, and on television on 24, CSI: Miami, Boston Legal, Suits, and Desperate Housewives but she is best known as Dr. Audrey Lim on The Good Doctor. We talk about a little bit of everything, including what it was like to move to the United States from Taiwan when she was a teenager and the kind of research she does about medical procedures to convincingly play a doctor on TV.

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

Here’s some info on The Richard Crouse Show!:

Each week on the nationally syndicated 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 hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Ethan Hawke, director Brad Bird, comedian Gilbert Gottfried, Eric Roberts, Brian Henson, Jonathan Goldsmith a.k.a. “The most interesting man in the world,” and best selling author Linwood Barclay.

Click HERE to catch up on shows you might have missed!

ISOLATION PODCAST: “WIZARD OF OZ” INTERVIEWS WITH LORNA LUFT & MEMBERS OF THE CAST!

Like everybody else I’m self-isolating in this very odd time. With no movies to review and my television show “Pop Life” on hiatus I’m finding things to keep myself busy. Today I spent a chunk of my day going through closets, finding discs of unlabelled photographs and other bits and pieces that have piled up in the nooks and crannies of my house. I came across a set of interviews I did at a rather loud party at the Tavern on the Green in New York City in 2009 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the release of The Wizard of Oz.

That day I mixed and mingled with some of the original Munchkins like Karl Slover, who was just two feet tall when he played the first trumpeter, Villager Munchkin Ruth Duccini, member of the Lollipop Guild Jerry Maren and Judy Garland’s daughter Lorna Luft, while enjoying Wizard of Oz themed drinks like the Gin Tornado. But mostly I soaked up the stories from some of the folks who were there when Judy Garland was swept away to a technicolour OZ.

Today I banged the interviews together in a podcast, the first project from the newly dubbed Isolation Studios. I enjoyed doing it and somehow the movie makes perfect sense for right now. “Someplace where there isn’t any trouble? Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It’s not a place you can get to by a boat or train. It’s far, far away… behind the moon… beyond the rain.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

POP LIFE ENCORE: ROBBIE ROBERTSON ON THE EARLY DAYS WITH THE BAND AND MORE!

This week on an encore episode of “Pop Life” legendary musician Robbie Robertson talks about his earliest musical inspirations, how he was booed by Bob Dylan’s audience and how he once almost turned to a life of crime when he couldn’t get gigs.

“It was a revelation to me,” Robertson says of visiting his relatives on the Six Nations Reserve, “because I grew up between Toronto and Six Nations, and when we would go to Six Nations it seemed to me as a young kid that everybody played an instrument or sang or danced. I thought, ‘I just have to join this club.’”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.

Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock legends Bob Geldof, Sting, Meat Loaf and Robbie Robertson, musicians Harry Connick Jr., Josh Groban, Shania Twain and superstar jazz pianist Diana Krall, You Tube superstar Gigi Gorgeous, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actors Danny DeVito and Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Lidia Bastianich, Bobby Flay, Gail Simmons and Nigella Lawson, and many more.

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Twitter: #StayHomeCanada #ItsTheBeautyWayToGo #CooRooCooCooCooCoo

Thanks to Stewart Reynolds, a.k.a. @Brittlestar, for including me along with Emm Gryner, Heather Bambrick, Ed the Sock, Adam Growe, Craig Lauzon, Gurdeep Pandher, Rob Preuss and others in his “Stay Home in the Great White North” mash-up. Watch it HERE eh! It’s a beauty way to go!