This week on the Richard Crouse Show we get to know Jamie Chai Yun Liew. She is a lawyer and law professor specializing in immigration, refugee, and citizenship law and the creator of the podcast Migration Conversations. She brings that experience to her critically acclaimed debut novel “Dandelion,” the story of an Asian woman who traces her mother’s past journey in order to learn who she really is and where she belongs.
Then, we meet Mayim Bialik. She has played neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler on the incredibly popular “Big Bang Theory,” written books, earned a Phd in in neuroscience from UCLA and currently stars in the new sitcom Call Me Kat and hosts the primetime version of Jeopardy. Today she joins me to talk about her directorial debut “As They Made Us,” a family drama starring Candice Bergen and Dustin Hoffman.
We wrap up with NoViolet Bulawayo, whose new novel “Glory,” is set in the fictionalized country of Jidada. It is a brash and boisterous take on NoViolet’s home country of Zimbabwe and its political life.
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.
Listen to the show live here:
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There is perfect casting and then there is Nicolas Cage, playing a heightened version of himself in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” a meta new action comedy now playing in theatres.
Off screen Cage is a larger-than-life character, an Oscar winner known for his penchant for purchasing dinosaur skulls, tax troubles and wildly uneven cinematic output. He brings the weight of that public persona to this movie, making myth out of his own legend of self-indulgence.
Cage plays Cage as a faded Hollywood prince. Once a box office draw, he’s down on his luck, going broke and in need of a big money gig. He has become the White Claw of serious actors. He’s good, but no one with taste is taking him seriously.
Producers, scared off by his wild-at-heart reputation, give him the Hollywood kiss off. We love you, but are going in a different direction.
Depressed, he decides to leave Hollywood. “I’m done,” he says. “I’m quitting acting. Tell the trades it was a tremendous honour to be part of storytelling and myth-making.”
Before he leaves the life, he gets an offer he can’t refuse. Olive magnate Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal) will pay Cage a million dollars to attend his birthday bash in Mallorca. The actor reluctantly agrees, and soon finds himself drinking and cliff-diving at Javi’s beautiful estate.
Javi is a huge fan, with a collection of cage collectibles. “Is this supposed to be me?” cage asks, gesturing at a statue of himself. “It’s grotesque. I’ll give you twenty thousand for it.”
Turns out the starstruck Javi isn’t what he appears. “Do you know who you’re spending time with?” CIA agent Vivian (Tiffany Haddish) asks Cage. “He’s one of the most ruthless men on the face of the earth.” They think Javi kidnapped the daughter of the president of Catalonia to influence an upcoming election.
Vivian and Agent Martin (Ike Barinholtz) recruit Cage to work undercover on Javi’s estate to get to the bottom of the case. “That little girl doesn’t have anyone,” says Vivian, “and if you leave, I don’t know what will happen to her.”
It’s a chance to do some good, but for Cage, it is also the role of a lifetime.
“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is an entertaining, oddball movie. Essentially a one joke premise—i.e.: Cage as Cage—it plays with the tropes of many of Cage’s films, but doesn’t play as strictly homage or satire. It’s something else. What, exactly, I’m not quite sure.
It’s almost as if this is Nic Cage’s screw you to the folks who deride him for being a working actor who pumps out two or three movies a year. “I’ve always seen this as a job, as work,” he says, as though he feels bogged down by the weight of the critical appraisal of his artistic choices.
But this isn’t a movie about score settling. It’s a silly action comedy, unabashedly interested in entertaining the audience. It occasionally errs, mistaking familiar references from Cage’s filmography for jokes. It’s that “meme-ification”—the pinpointing of Cage call-backs—of the film’s humour that prevents it from becoming a knee slapper all the way through. There are laugh out loud moments, but there are more moments that feel more Instagram ready than cinematic.
Still, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is a good time, worth the price of admission to see young Cage advising older Cage and commit the most surreal example of actorly self-love ever seen on film.
“We may be bad,” says Wolf, in “The Bad Guys,” a new DreamWorks animated heist flick now playing in theatres, “but we are so good at it.”
Wolf, voiced by Sam Rockwell, leads a criminal organization of anthropomorphic animals, safecracker Snake (Marc Maron), master of disguise Shark (Craig Robinson), an apex predator of a thousand faces, Piranha (Anthony Ramos), a loose cannon with a short fuse and eight-legged tech wizard Tarantula (Awkwafina), who use their frightening reputations to strike fear into the hearts of their victims.
“Do I wish people didn’t see us as monsters?” asks Wolf. “Sure I do, but these are the cards we were dealt so we might as well play them.”
The gang is riding after a particularly daring bank robbery, but the wind is taken out of their sails when Governor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz) shames them during a press conference, calling them second rate hacks, driven by anger, not intelligence. “They have all the classic signs of a crew in decline,” she says.
Her televised insults push the Bad Guys to plan the ultimate heist, the theft of The Golden Dolfin, a priceless award given to philanthropists and do-gooders. This year it will be awarded to Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade), a hamster with a heart of gold.
When their heist goes sideways, the Professor Marmalade, from the goodness of his heart, makes a deal with the Bad Guys and the Governor. He will teach the reprobates to use the skills they developed being bad, to be good.
“Being good,” he says, “just feels so good and when you are good, you are loved.”
Question is, can these bad guys be rehabilitated, or is it time to take the “walking garbage” to the trash and lock them up forever?
Based on the New York Times best-selling graphic novel series by Australian author Aaron Blabey, “The Bad Guys” is kind of like “Ocean’s 11,” but for kids. The emotional undercurrents that Pixar weaves into their movies are missing, replaced with a snappy, stylish story that is more swagger than substance. The movie’s singular message—don’t judge a book by its cover—is a good one for kids, but it is hammered home with the subtly of a Don Rickles one liner. It’s a movie about not accepting stereotypes, that is ripe with stereotypes.
The animation is stylish, but not as sophisticated as we’ve come to expect from big screen offerings like this. Wolf’s fur is rudimentarily rendered and the overall look doesn’t have the zip of Pixar or other computer-generated films.
Having said all that, “The Bad Guys” succeeds through sheer strength of the characters and the humor in Etan Cohen and Hilary Winston’s witty script. There are silly characters kids will get a kick out of, like the flatulent piranha, coupled with jokes parents will appreciate.
Despite its shortcomings, in the end, “The Bad Guys” does good for the audience.
Robert Eggers is an idiosyncratic filmmaker whose previous films, “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse,” have more in common with silent era movies and formal stage presentation than they do with the blockbusters that rule today’s box office. His latest, the violent Viking drama “The Northman,” now playing in theatres, has all the hallmarks of Eggers’ work, but despite the inclusion of old Norse language, mysticism and its occasionally psychedelic tone, it may be his most accessible movie yet.
When we first meet Amleth, the Viking warrior prince, played as a teen by Oscar Novak, as a muscle-bound adult by Alexander Skarsgård, it is the year AD895 somewhere in the North Atlantic. He is a child about to enter the line of succession to one day take over from his father, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke).
An unspeakable act of betrayal interrupts Aurvandill’s plans for the future, forcing Amleth to flee the only home he has ever known, leaving behind his mother Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman).
Years pass. Adult Amleth is now a fierce warrior with revenge on his mind. When the would-be prince and his band of berserkers ravage a village, the locals who survived the carnage are sold off as slaves. When Amleth learns the purchaser is the man who betrayed his father, he disguises himself as one of the prisoners with a plan to get close to the man who destroyed his life and family, and earn back his honor. “I will haunt this farm like a corpse returned from the grave,” he declares.
On the journey he meets Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy), a sorceress who becomes his ally and love interest. “You are still a beast cloaked on man flesh,” she tells him. His strength, she tells him, will break their bodies. Her cunning will break their minds.
Amleth’s journey is also a spiritual one, driven by mysticism and the words of a whispering seeress played by Björk. ““Remember for whom you shed your last teardrop,” she says, sending him off on his mission. Eggers seamlessly blends the supernatural and the nature until the lines blur into one trippy whole.
“The Northman” is based on the Scandinavian legend that influenced William Shakespeare‘s beloved “Hamlet.” It’s a familiar story of payback, violent, visceral and vengeance-filled, but Eggers’ singular vision, and fondness for pathetic fallacy, ancient symbolism and psychedelia, make it a singular experience.
And don’t forget the violence. So much violence.
Amleth chews one man’s neck, killing him in a memorably bloodthirsty fashion, and that is before the revenge story comes into play. Eggers amps up the brutality, shooting long scenes in unbroken wide shots that provide full few of the action. This ain’t Michael Bay’s frantic cut and paste. It’s full coverage, carefully orchestrated violence that drives home the brutality of the battles. It’s ferocious, audacious—check out the showdown at the Gates of Hel—if occasionally unpleasant, stuff.
It’s not all fun and bloody games, however. The storytelling gets bogged down from time to time and Amleth’s frequent vocalizing of his mission mandate—avenge his father, kill his uncle and rescue his mother—gets old after a while.
Having said that, “The Northman” more than delivers on the director’s pure, primal cinematic vision. To Valhǫll!
A new documentary, “The Automat,” directed by Lisa Hurwitz and now playing in theatres, is a evocative look back when you could get a square meal for a round quarter.
For more than fifty years Horn & Hardart automats fed more Americans than any other restaurant chain. For the price of a nickel you could get a cup of strong coffee, poured from a spout shaped like a dolphin. The rest of the menu was housed behind small doors with windows that displayed the wares, like baked beans, chicken pot pies, creamed spinach or Secretary of State Colin Powell’s favorite, the macaroni and cheese. Pop a coin in the slot, open the door and lunch or dinner is served.
“The Automat” uses talking heads, like Mel Brooks, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elliott Gould, and archival footage to create a nostalgic look at a by-gone institution but to also contextualize the contributions the quirky restaurants made to American society.
A precursor to fast food chains like Burger King or Arby’s, both of whom would later fall under the Horn & Hardart umbrella, the automats were a sensation. The first Horn & Hardart automat opened in 1902 in Philadelphia with a strict adherence to quality and egalitarianism. For the next 89 years—the last New York Horn & Hardart Automat closed in April 1991—everyone was welcome with no racial barrier, tables were shared by strangers and, at their heyday in the 1940s and 50s, they served upwards of 350,000 customers a day in New York alone.
Everyone interviewed raves about the food and the restaurants. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz talks about how a visit to Horn & Hardart sparked his love of the hospitality business, and how it influences him today. Powell remembers family outings and the delicious pies that were a once-a-week treat.
As glowing as the interviews are, there is often a sense of nostalgic melancholy about the demise the automat—a victim of changing times—as an example of how the good ol’ days, represented by the elegant and welcoming restaurants, are truly behind us.
“It had some style and it was different,” says self-serve automat superfan Mel Brooks. “The marble, the brass, the polished floors, the chatter, the coffee. That was the Automat. It can’t work again because the logistics and economics of today won’t allow anything that simple, naive, elegant and beautiful to flourish again.”
“The Automat” is a quickly paced, interesting and affectionate populist documentary that brings to life how, for a time, happiness could be bought for the price of a cheap cup o’ joe.
Richard writes about four mascot cars that conjure up good feelings and brand awareness.
“From the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile to the No Frills Hauler Cart, corporate mascot cars have earned miles of smiles over the decades — and turned heads. “They can be a very powerful visual tool,” said Toronto-based sports and marketing consultant Tim McLaughlin. “They’re like rolling billboards…” Read the whole thing HERE!
On this week’s Richard Crouse Show we meet Katherine Ryan. She is a Canadian who moved to England in 2007 and now Brits know and love her from the many panel shows she’s appeared on, her wildly popular no-filter podcast Telling Everybody Everything or her Netflix comedy-drama “The Duchess.”
She also has a new series, Backstage with Katherine Ryan, which will showcase live stand-up sets from beloved and emerging comedians.
She’s known for being hilariously herself in a non-apologetic way, so it doesn’t comes as a surprise that her latest project, a memoir that details her rise to U.K. fame and her Canadian life before that as a Hooters waiter and Ryerson student, and before that her life in Sarnia, is called “The Audacity.”
We’ll also get to know actor Tim Roth. The English actor is perhaps best known for his collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, movies like “Reservoir Dogs,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Four Rooms” and “The Hateful Eight.” He is a Golden Globe and Oscar nominated actor who returns to theatres in Sundown, an intriguing film about a man who radically changes his life. We’ll talk all about that movie, his memorable turn in Pulp Fiction and his upcoming role in “She-Hulk,” opposite Tatiana Maslany later in the show.
The we meet comedian Charlie Demers. CBC radio called him “one of the smartest comics out there.” He is an acclaimed Vancouver playwright, author, radio personality, voice actor and comedian and also has a new comedy album called “I Hope I Don’t Remember This My Whole Life” available now wherever you legally buy and download albums.
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.
Listen to the show live here:
C-FAX 1070 in Victoria
SAT 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM
SUN 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
CJAD in Montreal
SAT 8 PM to 9:00 PM
CFRA in Ottawa
SAT 8 PM to 9:00 PM
NEWSTALK 610 CKTB in St. Catharines
Sat 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM
NEWSTALK 1010 in Toronto
SAT 8 PM to 9:00 PM
NEWSTALK 1290 CJBK
SAT 8 PM to 9:00 PM
AM 1150 in Kelowna
SAT 11 PM to Midnight
BNN BLOOMBERG RADIO 1410
SAT 8 PM to 9:00 PM
Click HERE to catch up on shows you might have missed!
Four years after the last entry in the Wizarding World franchise, the Great Cheekbone Swap unfolds in theatres this weekend as the zygomatically blessed Mads Mikkelsen takes over for former malar bone favorite Johnny Depp in “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.”
Set in the 1930s the real, or Muggle, world is preparing for World War II. In the Wizarding World a battle of a different sort is brewing. Gellert Grindelwald (Mikkelsen), dark wizard and former love interest of Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), has returned after creating worldwide chaos with a renewed belief in wizarding superiority and a plan to create a new Wizarding World Order.
Cleared of his crimes by the International Confederation of Wizards (ICW), Grindelwald’s first step toward world domination comes with a plan to steal the (ICW) election and take control. He wants to burn down the Muggle world. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me,” he tells his former lover Dumbledore.
As Grindelwald’s storm brews, Dumbledore recruits British Ministry of Magic employee Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and company—including returning characters like older brother
Theseus Scamander (Callum Turner), brave baker Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) and assistant Bunty Broadacre (Victoria Yeates)—to pick up their wands and do battle. The stakes are high. Dumbledore thinks it is the biggest threat to both the Wizarding and Muggle worlds in a century. “Things that seem unimaginable today,” he says, “will seem inevitable tomorrow.”
Politics in the Wizarding World, it seems, are just as fraught as they are in ours.
If you go see “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” for a Harry Potter-esque magic fix, you’re in luck. The movie has spectacular visuals that bring the wizarding to life, some mystical creatures, like cute dragons who can identify the pure at heart, killer books and a suitcase that sprouts legs and walks.
It’s filled with CGI wonder, but so heavily laden with effects that the characters play second fiddle to the bits and bytes. It’s top of the line work but after a while it becomes smothering. You crave something organic, but this is the Wizarding World and it’s all an illusion.
The story has an old-fashioned action adventure feel, but like the CGI, it feels overdone. The big moments are huge, accompanied by a swelling orchestral score. But even the small moments are big. A simple story of world domination is padding and cajoled into a sprawling two hour and twenty-minute running time, populated by many, many characters, most of whom don’t have much to do.
Under the watchful eye and sweeping cameras of “Harry Potter” veteran director David Yates, “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” is a big, handsome movie all about magic but, unfortunately, doesn’t feel all that magical.
“Father Stu,” a new, inspirational Mark Wahlberg movie, now playing in theatres, is the unlikely, but true, story of a potty-mouthed, rough ‘n tumble boxer whose road to redemption begins with a detour into the Catholic Church.
When we first meet Stuart Long (Wahlberg), he’s an amateur boxer with visions of the big time. He’s good, but not good enough to go pro, as his mother (Jacki Weaver) likes to point out. “Don’t be careless with your life,” she says. “You’re the age when most people pack it in.”
He’s an angry guy. Angry at his deadbeat father (Mel Gibson). Angry at his little brother who died young. Angry at himself and the world.
He’s a nasty drunk with a hair trigger temper, but when a medical condition forces him to retire from the ring, he sets his eyes on Hollywood. “I’ll cash in on my face,” he says. “Not my fists.”
A smooth talker, he manages to get a job at a grocery store where he hopes to meet actors and directors who will give him a gig. Instead, he meets Carmen (Teresa Ruiz) a devote Catholic who reluctantly begins dating the unpolished Stu, but only if he gets baptized. She is, as a friend says, “as Catholic as the cross itself.”
His road to redemption begins as he helps Carmen teach Sunday School. His plain-spoken way is a hit with the kids, Carmen and even her strict father but it takes a drunken motorcycle accident for Stu to literally see the light and devote himself to the church. “God saved me to show there is a reason why I’m here,” he says as he tells Carmen of his intention to become a priest.
In a life filled with dramatic turns, there is one more in store for Stu. One that may prevent him from realizing his dream of becoming a priest. “God is all about fighting the odds,” he says, “of having the strength to endure a difficult life.”
“Father Stu” has inspiration to spare. It is a movie about religion’s power to heal and motivate, which will have many saying “Amen,” but the story’s execution resembles a movie of the week, with predictable plot points and an accelerated timeline that packs too much into too little time.
Even at two hours, the pacing is jagged as director and writer Rosalind Ross attempts to cover as many facets of Stu’s personality as possible. She takes the adage “everything happens for a reason” to an extreme and, as such, the movie feels rushed on some scenes, too leisurely in others, but rarely gives us the deep insight that would make Stu’s motivations resonate.
Wahlberg, who also produced the film after hearing Stu’s story during dinner with a group of priests, undergoes an extreme transformation to play the character—and I don’t mean his ridiculous moustache. His charisma shines through the weight and make-up and it is in these scenes that he elevates Stu from the cartoonish bad boy of the movie’s first half, into a compelling character. It’s too bad, that Ross attempts to tie up some of the loose story threads just as the personal story really finds its humanity.
“Father Stu” is being released around Easter, so given its subject matter and messages, it would appear to be a movie for the whole family, but be warned, Stu’s language is authentic, i.e. pretty raunchy throughout the film’s running time.
“Father Stu” is a movie about change, about overcoming obstacles and living with purpose. Good messages all, it’s just too bad they are tied up in a clumsy movie.
This week on the Richard Crouse Show we get to know Jamie Chai Yun Liew. She is a lawyer and law professor specializing in immigration, refugee, and citizenship law and the creator of the podcast Migration Conversations. She brings that experience to her critically acclaimed debut novel “Dandelion,” the story of an Asian woman who traces her mother’s past journey in order to learn who she really is and where she belongs.
