On this edition of the Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet Thomas Hayden Church. He became a star as Mechanic Lowell Mather on the sitcom “Wings,” was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in “Sideways” and has had supporting roles in films such as Tombstone, George of the Jungle, The Specials, and Demon Knight. Today, we talk about his new movie, Acidman. In the film, he plays Lloyd, a reclusive man who lives in in the middle of nowhere, and spends his time searching for UFOs. He is estranged from his daughter Maggie and has been given the nickname “Acidman” by the locals. One day his daughter arrives to pass along some important news and they attempt to make contact, with UFOs and each other.
We’ll also meet actor Melanie Scrofano. You know her from everything from the Crave comedy series Letterkenny and the comedy-drama series Being Erica, to the CTV fantasy-drama series The Listener and the Syfy modern Western drama Wynonna Earp. Today we talk about her latest movie, “The End of Sex.”
Later in the show we’ll meet author Justin Cronin. In 2010, novel “The Passage” became a phenomenon. The unforgettable tale that critics and readers compared to the novels of Cormac McCarthy, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, and Margaret Atwood became a runaway bestseller and loved by readers around the globe. His latest book, “The Ferryman” is a riveting standalone novel about a group of survivors on a hidden island utopia—where the truth isn’t what it seems. No less an expert than Stephen King said, ““The Ferryman is next to impossible to put down once you’ve read the first few pages. Exciting, mysterious, and totally satisfying, this is a book to get lost in…”
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 Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
Listen to the show live here:
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To some people he is an “as seen on TV” pitchman who spent much of the last thirty years shilling for the Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine. To others he is an indestructible two-time world heavyweight champion and an Olympic gold medalist. To still others, he is Reverend Foreman, a man of faith who preached on street corners before becoming the minister of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in Houston.
He’s George Foreman, the subject of “Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World,” a new biopic now playing in theatres.
When we first meet Foreman (Khris Davis) he is a young boxer from an impoverished background with a mighty punch and anger issues. “George should change his name from Foreman to Poor-man,” taunt the kids at his school.
Scarred by a troubled past, and narrowly avoiding being arrested, he leaves Houston to find “his unrealized potential” with the Job Corps, a government run vocational training center.
It’s here, under the tutelage of trainer Doc Broadus (Forest Whitaker), that he learns to channel his anger into a winning streak in the squared circle. “Listen to me George,” says Broadus, “you got a punch like I’ve never seen. But in every battle, the greatest foe we will combat, is in here,” he continues, pointing at the fighter’s forehead.
After the 1968 Summer Olympics, where he won a gold medal in the boxing/heavyweight division, he followed a string of knockouts to the big time, a 1972 match against the undefeated and undisputed World Heavyweight Champion Joe Frazier. He walked into the ring a 3:1 underdog, and left it with a champion belt.
Two years later he lost the belt to Muhammad Ali (Sullivan Jones) at the historic “Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire. With no title, he spent the balance of the 1970s chasing a rematch and another chance at the belt before a near death experience set him on a spiritual path that saw him spend ten years as a minister. “It’s like He reached inside me and took all my anger,” he says. “I can’t even make a fist anymore.”
When his church and community center fall into financial trouble, he laces up the gloves again. “There’s only two thongs I know how to do,” he says, “box and preach. And preachin’ won’t pay the bills.”
Sports commentators call him an old man in a young man’s game, but he is a minister on a mission, and unbelievably, becomes, at age 45, the oldest World Heavyweight Boxing Champion ever.
“Big George Foreman” is a by-the-book biopic, by the way of the good book. It’s a standard, faith-based cradle to grill biography that hits the highs and some of the lows—like hiding under an open sewer pipe to avoid police—in service of its messaging.
“Raging Bull” this ain’t.
Davis captures the glower, born out of internalized anger, that characterized Foreman’s early career, and the lighter attitude that came to the fore in his later life. He makes Foreman a compelling, charismatic character, despite a script that plays it safe and without a hint of grit.
“Big George Foreman” shaves down all the rough edges of the boxer’s story, replacing them with uplift and life lessons. It never feels entirely authentic, but its messages of the importance of faith are heard loud and clear.
For several generations of young people “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” Judy Blume’s iconic coming-of-age novel, has been required reading. First released in 1970, when it wasn’t being banned by reactionaries upset by its frank talk about menstruation and religion, it was heralded as a realistic and relatable story of adolescent anxieties.
A new movie of the same name, now playing in theatres, hopes to uphold the book’s wholesome tone, while preserving the plain-spoken nature of “the poet laureate of puberty,” Blume’s prose.
The story begins when New York City preteen Margaret Simon’s (Abby Ryder Fortson) parents,
Barbara and Benny (Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie), announce they are leaving the city. Benny has been given a promotion, and being in New Jersey makes more sense.
“It’s just on the other side of the river,“ he says, but even though It’s just the other side of the Hudson, but it might as well be the other side of the Earth to Margaret. She’s afraid she’ll never see friends again and doesn’t want to start at a new school. Grandmother Sylvia (Kathy Bates) doesn’t make things better when she moans, “I’m never going to see you again!“
Alone in her room, Margaret prays, “I’ve heard a lot of great things about you,” she says. “I don’t want to move. I’ve never lived anywhere but the city. If you can’t stop the move, please don’t let New Jersey be too miserable.“
As it turns out, the family’s new, leafy suburb isn’t that bad. There isn’t a pizzeria for miles around, but the neighbors are friendly, including the extroverted mean-girl-in-training Nancy Wheeler (Elle Graham), who pops by on moving day. “I live in the bigger house down the street,” she announces, before inviting Margaret to join her secret club.
Inside this new, small circle of friends, Margaret begins to figure out her place in the world. It’s a time of adjustments, of firsts—first bra, first crush, first kiss, first period, first betrayal—and of a spiritual quest. As the daughter of a Jewish father and Christian mother, who elected not to make her choose a religion until she got older, Margaret forms her own special relationship with God.
“It’s finally time to figure out who I am to be,” she says.
All the highlights from the book “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” including the famous “We must, we must, we must increase our bust” mantra and her famous prayers are present. Director Kelly Fremon Craig, who also wrote the screenplay, maintains the lack of pretence and sense of authenticity that set Blume’s book apart from the pack in this gentle realization of Margaret’s story.
The film perfectly captures Margaret’s tentative steps into adolescence and the life-changing power that comes along with each of her discoveries. It’s a trip into self-acceptance at a very complicated time in her life as she grapples with relationships—with her anti-religion parents, her new friends and Moose, the cute boy from down the street—and situations she struggles to understand. Like the book, which runs an economical 149 pages, the movie is a small story that tackles big issues.
Fortson delivers a natural performance, tinged with curiosity and innocence, that authentically delivers the good-natured humour and deeply felt emotions that color Margaret’s journey.
Set in the 1970s, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” captures the nostalgia of the era, complete with McAdam’s feathered Farrah Fawcett hair, unironic TV dinners, fluorescent folding lawn chairs and shag carpets, but they all serve the movie’s themes, which are timeless.
“The End of Sex,” now playing in theatres, stars Emily Hampshire and Jonas Chernick as a couple looking to spice up their stale sex life while the kids are off at sleepaway camp.
Emma (Hampshire) and Josh (Chernick) shared their first kiss as teens, and have been partners in life ever since. Two daughters later, they’re in a rut, but it’s a happy enough rut. They’re still in love, creating a happy, loving life for themselves and the kids. But one thing is missing. Their sex life.
“Our sex has become mechanical,” says Emma.
“So,” says Josh, “let’s surprise each other.”
With the kids away for the first time ever, they have the house to themselves. Without the prying eyes of the little ones watching their every move, they have a chance to reevaluate their “mutual apathy and shared disinterest in sex.”
As the pressure to have a “normal” sex life mounts—there’s a ménage à trois tinged with obsession, extasy popping and an embarrassing visit to a sex club—their sexual odyssey doesn’t quite go as they hoped.
Despite the provocative title, “The End of Sex” isn’t really about sex. Ultimately, it’s about trust and togetherness. And an awkward threesome. An exploration of long-term marriages, it places its characters in mild relationship jeopardy as a way to dig into what it really means to spend one’s life with another person.
We see examples of that long-term commitment in the shorthand between Emma and Josh. It’s in the easy way they communicate (most of the time) and the understanding of things that are left unsaid between them. We see the hurt that comes from complacency—”The past few days I’ve been thinking a lot about sex,” says Emma. “You’ve been thinking about sex with people who aren’t me,” replies Josh.—and the often ridiculous lengths couples will go through to spice things up.
It’s all a bit predictable and a bit heightened, but is buoyed by funny cameos from Melanie Scrofano, as the Emma’s obsessed friend, and Colin Mochrie in an unlikely situation.
As a date night movie “The End of Sex” offers up an earnest portrait of the intimacy and connection necessary for a couple to weather the storms of an on-going relationship. It’s no “A Married Couple”—Alan King’s legendary 1969 documentary about a marriage in uproar—but it does deliver some insights into what makes relationships tick.
I hosted a live Q&A with director Ari Aster in front of a sold-out crowd at the Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto on Wednesday night. For a taste, check out my radio show on the iHeartRadio Network Saturday night at 8 pm t0 9 pm for a recorded interview with the director.
On this week’s edition of the Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet Martha Hall Kelly, the New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls, Lost Roses, and Sunflower Sisters. With more than two million copies of her books sold and her books translated in fifty countries, Martha joins me today to talk about her new book “The Golden Doves.”
It is a gripping historical novel, inspired by true events, about two former female spies, bound together by their past, who risk everything to hunt down an infamous Nazi doctor in the aftermath of World War II.
We’ll also meet Ari Aster, the writer and director of challenging hit films like”Hereditary” and “Midsommar.” Today we’ll talk about his latest movie, “Beau Is Afraid,” a three hour film starring Joaquin Phoenix as a mild-mannered but paranoia-ridden man who embarks on a surreal odyssey to get home to see his mother. I’ve seen a lot of movies, and I’ve never seen anything quite like this one. Find out what it means when I call it a “three hour panic attack.”
And we’ll get to know we’ll meet British comedian, actress and television presenter Lorna Watson as we talk about how a one off character she did on a show called “Father Brown” a decade ago is back with season two of a show built around that very same character on the “Sister Boniface Mysteries,” which is is now available to stream on BritBox.
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 Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
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!
The action in “Ghosted,” a new espionage comedy now streaming on Apple TV+, begins with a meet cute between Cole and Sadie, played by Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, and a question, Is it romantic or weirdly obsessive to follow someone you’ve only met once halfway around the world to ask for a second date?
Cole and Sadie meet at a country market where he’s working a flower stall. It isn’t exactly love at first sight. They get off to a bad start when he refuses to sell her a plant that needs lots of TLC, even though she is often out of town for work, frequently for months at a time. “Who can be so indifferent to a living thing?” he asks.
Feeling guilty and rude, he catches up with her as she drives away and, then and there, they agree to go on a date. What begins as an afternoon coffee hook-up quickly turns into all night affair, leaving Cole convinced he has met his soulmate. He even took a selfie of her in bed, while she was asleep, so he could cherish the moment later.
When she doesn’t return his texts, he decides to track her through the microchip on his inhaler, which he conveniently left in her purse the night before. Turns out, she’s in London.
“She didn’t ghost me,” he says optimistically, “she just doesn’t have an international calling plan.”
Despite never having been out of the country—not true says his dad. “He was conceived in Ontario.”—he jumps on a plane to rekindle the fire that sparked the night before.
But instead of being met with a shower of hugs and kisses, he is caught in a hail of bullets, when it turns out Sadie is CIA operative on a dangerous mission. “I cannot believe you got me kidnapped and tortured after one date,” he says.
She points out that he flew across the ocean to find her after only knowing her for a few hours. “That is not passive behavior,” she says.
With Cole misidentified as a spy, cue the international intrigue, heavy artillery and some light romantic complications.
“Ghosted,” which pairs Evans and de Armas after “Knives Out” and “The Gray Man,” is an action-comedy-romance in the style of “Romancing the Stone.” A mismatched pair must rely on one another to survive, all the while falling in and out of love.
The movie works best when it doesn’t take itself too seriously. By the time we get to the “protecting the people you love is never a mistake” sentiments, much of the fun of watching Captain America play against type—Cole’s own sister calls him “smothering, needy, pathetic and delusional—and de Armas in full-on action mode has wilted. Up until then, however, screenwriters Rhett Rheese and Paul Wernick—best known for writing the “Deadpool” and “Zombieland” movies—keep “Ghosted” fairly nimble on its feet, blending the action, adventure and romance into an appealing frothy confection.
During its two-hour running time “Ghosted” goes a little OTT with multiple MCU cameos, sets itself up for a sequel and slides by on the charm of its leads.
“Chevalier,” a new biopic of composer and violin virtuoso Joseph Bolonge Chevalier de Saint-Georges (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), now playing in theatres, begins with the 18th century version of a dance-off. The title character, the son of a wealthy, white Slave owner and a Senegalese slave, bounds onstage, yelling, “Play violin concerto #5!” challenging Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Joseph Prowen) to a violin duel.
The two go at it, the devil came down to Georgia style, until it becomes clear that Bologne is the superior talent, setting up the movie’s main premise, that he is the most talented musician of the Classical period you’ve never heard of.
Brought from the French colony of Guadeloupe by his father, the young musical prodigy is placed at a boarding school, where he excels at the violin and fencing. His competitive side sees him move through French society, despite the limitations placed on him by a racist society who appreciate his talent but, because of his skin colour, will never fully embrace him socially.
A performance for King Louis and Marie Antionette (Lucy Boynton) earns him some royal respect and the title Chevalier, the French equivalent of an English knight. The Queen also challenges him and another composer to write an opera. Whoever does the best job will have the honor of, not only, performing their work at the Paris Opera, but will also be named director of the company.
In order to win the competition and the esteem of the French elite, Bologne becomes involved with singer Marquise Marie-Josephine (Samara Weaving), despite the warnings of her violent aristocratic husband Marquis de Montalembert’s (Marton Csokas) to keep her off the stage.
As the French Revolution looms, Bologne’s ego and desires threaten his future.
“Chevalier” is melodramatic—imagine a soap opera about an opera—and takes considerable liberties with Bologne’s life story, but the character is so compelling, the movie overcomes its shortcomings.
Harrison, last seen playing B.B. King in “Elvis,” brings heaps of charisma and some very credible violin miming to the role. It’s a performance that buoys the underwritten script, and helps the audience understand why Bologne cut such a path through French society. His bravado would ultimately be his downfall, but Harrison’s beautiful rendered portrait creates empathy for a man who was afforded little in his real life.
Top-notch production design and more corsets than you can shake a violin bow at, decorate the screen, bringing the time period to vivid life.
“Chevalier” is a period piece, but the story’s exploration of the effects of racism feels very current.
Magnificent and confounding in equal measure, “Beau is Afraid,” a new, three-hour epic from “Midsommar” director Ari Aster and now playing in theatres, is a nightmarish trek through a mishmash of mommy issues, anxiety and tragedy. Imagine a paranoid “Lord of the Rings” style quest reimagined by Luis Buñuel with a darkly comedic “After Hours” vibe and a hint of Thomas “You Can’t Go Home Again” Wolfe and you’ll be on the road to understanding Beau’s surreal journey.
Joaquin Phoenix plays the title character, a neurotic, over-medicated man whose father died at the moment of his son’s conception. The loss forever colored his life, leaving him lost in a sea of paranoia and uncertainty. “I am so sorry for what your daddy passed down to you,” says his overbearing mother Mona (Patti LaPone).
Beau’s already chaotic life is forever changed by a missed plane, a new prescription and a home invasion. Set off on an odyssey to return home for his mother’s funeral, circumstance continually keep him off track. First, he finds himself the reluctant patient of affable suburban caregivers Roger and Grace (Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan), their troubled daughter (Kylie Rogers) and a war vet with PTSD.
Then, a narrow escape finds him in the embrace of a travelling experimental theater troupe whose storytelling transports him into an animated folk tale of searching, struggle and solace.
Finally, bloodied and bruised, he arrives home to confront his past, face his fears and come to grips with the trauma that hangs over his life like a shroud.
“Beau is Afraid” is a complicated movie, laden with allegory and symbolism, that confronts the aftereffects of loss and grief. It’s familiar terrain for Aster, whose previous films, “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” were also studies in intergenerational trauma.
But the new movie is anything but familiar.
It is a psychological dramedy that dives deep into how Beau’s trauma has molded every aspect of his life and lead to a breakdown, one we witness from his point-of-view, in real time. It’s a harrowing trip as Beau slowly loses his grip on reality, and his paranoia shapes the movie’s narrative.
Aster is uncompromising in his portrayal of Beau’s state of mind. His previous movies were more visually shocking, featuring images more aligned to traditional horror. “Beau is Afraid” has less overt horror. It’s more concerned with the psychological, the confusion, fear and anxiety that drives Beau. To convey this, Phoenix, in an internal performance, plays the character as a shell. The movie revolves around him and his state of mind, but he is a reactive character, one who responds to, rather than instigates, the action. It’s interesting, deeply felt work but the closed down, Chauncey Gardiner nature of the character makes him difficult to embrace.
Given the unsettled nature of the real world, audiences may understand, relate or sympathize with Beau’s all-encompassing fear, but the absurdism woven into Phoenix’s childlike performance, particularly in the film’s second half, wears thin.
“Beau is Afraid” is the weirdest film on Aster’s already proudly weird IMDB page. It may be the definition of a film that is not for everyone, but it cannot be faulted for its uncompromising vision. As a search for meaning in life, for closure from trauma, for freedom from fear, from relief from distended testicles (Yup! You read that right), it was never going to be a feel-good flick. So, instead, it swings for the fences, burrowing in on its grandiose emotional ideas even if it often feels like a three-hour panic attack.
Unpredictable, unexpected and ultimately, unexplainable, it’s challenging cinema that connects on a subconscious level.
On this edition of the Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet Thomas Hayden Church. He became a star as Mechanic Lowell Mather on the sitcom “Wings,” was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in “Sideways” and has had supporting roles in films such as Tombstone, George of the Jungle, The Specials, and Demon Knight. Today, we talk about his new movie, Acidman. In the film, he plays Lloyd, a reclusive man who lives in in the middle of nowhere, and spends his time searching for UFOs. He is estranged from his daughter Maggie and has been given the nickname “Acidman” by the locals. One day his daughter arrives to pass along some important news and they attempt to make contact, with UFOs and each other.
