Archive for March, 2021

THE TORONTO STAR: Restoring a DeLorean requires automotive archeology

Find out what DeLorean modification restoration king Justin Sookraj said was “so nasty I can hardly talk about it,” in Richard new article for the Toronto Star called, “Restoring a DeLorean requires automotive archeology and a lot of love.”

Read the whole thing HERE!

 

NEWSTALK 1010: RICHARD JOINS THE RUSH TO TALK BLOODY MARYS AND ‘ZARDOZ’!

Richard joins Ryan Doyle and Jay Michaels of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show to talk about the origin of the Bloody Mary and the cult classic movie “Zardoz,” a movie Richard says he “feels a little better recommending now that weed is legal.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

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RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY MARCH 19, 2021.

Richard joins CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including the Oscar nominated “The Father” (in theatres), the kid friendly “Yes Day” (Netflix), the true life crime drama “Above Suspicion” (EST, VOD, DVD, Blu-ray) and the Danish feel-good flick “Food Club” (VOD/Digital).

Watch the whole thing HERE!

THE SHOWGRAM WITH JIM RICHARDS: Does Richard Crouse like these movies?

Richard joins NewsTalk 1010’s Jim Richards coast-to-coast-to-coast late night “Showgram” to play the game “Did Richard Crouse like these movies?” This week we talk about the Anthomny Hopkins tour-de-force “The Father” (in theatres), the kid friendly “Yes Day” (Netflix), the true life crime drama “Above Suspicion” (EST, VOD, DVD, Blu-ray).

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

CP24: WHAT MOVIES AND TV SHOWS TO WATCH TO THIS WEEKEND!

Richard and “CP24 Breakfast” host Pooja Handa have a look at some special streaming opportunities and television shows to watch over the weekend including the HBO drama “Beartown,” the Disney+ superhero series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” the epic HBO four-hour “Zach Snyder’s Justice League” and Amazon Prime Video’s “The Stand.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

CFRA IN OTTAWA: THE BILL CARROLL MORNING SHOW MOVIE REVIEWS!

Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with guest host Matt Harris to talk the new movies coming to theatres, VOD and streaming services including the Oscar nominated “The Father” (in theatres), the kid friendly “Yes Day” (Netflix), the true life crime drama “Above Suspicion” (EST, VOD, DVD, Blu-ray) and the Danish feel-good flick “Food Club” (VOD/Digital).

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

ABOVE SUSPICION: 2 STARS. “as generic as the common name would imply.”

Based on a true story, “Above Suspicion,” starring “Game of Thrones’” Emilia Clarke, now on VOD, is set in small Kentucky where there are only two ways to make money since the mine closed, “one is the drug business and the other is the funeral business.”

Clarke is Susan Smith, living hand-to-mouth in her Kentucky home town. She wants a better life but drug addiction and her abusive ex-husband’s (Johnny Knoxville) welfare scam has her tied down.

When the married, ambitious FBI agent Mark Putnam (Jack Huston) comes to town there appears to be opportunity for both. He sees her as a conduit of information, a snitch, she thinks he might be her way out. When their work relationship turns romantic, the dynamic changes but when he realizes the error of his ways, Susan becomes obsessed and vengeful.

There’s more but I won’t spoil it for you. The movie kind of does though in its opening minutes. (MILD SPOILER COURTESY OF THE MOVIE) “You know what’s the worst part about being dead?” Susan asks in the opening narration. “You get too much time to think.” It’s a film noir device that works well in “Sunset Boulevard,” but in this case sucks some of the life, literally, out of the storytelling.

A mish mash of drug busts, drawls, deception and clearly telegraphed Southern Gothic plot points, “Above Suspicion” settles on a true crime format instead of digging a little deeper to expose the often-troubled relationship between impoverished people and the folks who are meant to protect them. Instead, it feels like a greatest hits collection of opioid movie tropes tied together with outsized Kentucky accents.

Clarke and Knoxville dirty up real nice but the film’s investment in hard knock poverty porn over substance plays more like an episode of “Dateline” than a cinematic experience.

A quick title IMDB search reveals the name “Above Suspicion” has been used at least twelve times, dating back to 1943. This most recent addition to the ever-growing list of “Above Suspicion” titled movies is about as generic as the common name would imply.

THE FATHER: 4 ½ STARS. “a sensitively made portrait of a failing mind.”

“The Father” is a family drama about taking care of a loved one with dementia that manipulates reality to tell the story from two very different points of view, the caretakers and the patient.

Anthony (Sir Anthony Hopkins) is an eighty-year-old former engineer with a luxurious London apartment filled with art and music. What’s missing is a carer, someone to make sure he eats, takes his pills and is comfortable as dementia makes his behavior increasingly unpredictable. By times charming, other times angry, confused and controlling and always convinced someone has stolen his prized wristwatch, he’s scared away a series of caretakers. “I don’t need anyone,” he bellows in denial. His daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) moved in to run the house, but she’s relocating to Paris and needs to find someone to look after her father.

That is the set-up. From here director Florian Zeller, who co-wrote the script with Christopher Hampton, artfully toggles between realities, Anne’s story and the way Anthony sees what’s happening in his beloved apartment. It is a disorienting technique that switches perspectives without warning, creating a knotty drama where nothing is as it seems in a carefully crafted depiction of dementia.

“The Father” is a sensitively made portrait of a failing mind anchored by a towering, emotional performance from Hopkins. The Oscar winner has made a career playing characters etched in ice; cool and collected. Here we see the vulnerable side, the lion in winter slowly losing himself to the vagaries of disease. It’s a tour de force of a performance that is often a difficult watch but his control of the character, particularly in the film’s final heartbreaking moments, as Anthony’s real and illusory lives intersect, is astonishing.

Coleman brings subtlety and warmth to the long-suffering Anne, but it’s Imogene Poots who makes the most of her small but wonderfully written scene. In the course of just a few minutes she falls prey to Anthony’s charm only to feel the bite of his poison tongue, navigating a range of emotions and reactions like a character on the run from an Edward Albee play.

The success of “The Father” isn’t the structurally complex storytelling but the performances that traverse the trickery of the telling to find the humanity of the situation.