On the September 16, 2023 edition of the Richard Crouse show we’ll meet Jon Heder, Jon Gries and Efren Ramirez, the stars of “Napoleon Dynamite,” the movie Jim Carrey said “changed comedy movies.” The story of a listless and alienated teenager who decides to help his new friend Pedro win the class presidency in their small western high school, while dealing with his bizarre family life back home, is one of the most quoted movies of all time, and now you can revisit the fun when the stars bring “Napoleon Dynamite” to Toronto for a special screening and Q&A at the Elgin Theatre as part of Just For Laughs Toronto on September 27.
Then, we’ll get to know comedian Ronny Chieng. You know him as a senior correspondent on The Daily Show, the star of Ronny Chieng Takes Chinatown, one of the stars of “Crazy Rich Asians” and the recent blockbuster “M3GAN,” and as one of the most I demand comedians out there. Today we’ll talk about why he waited until he was in university to give stand-up comedy a try and why he says, “I’m still trying to figure out if I am funny,” despite selling out theatres across the world, including two shows at the Meridian Hall in Toronto on September 23 and 24th as part of Just For Laughs Toronto.
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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On the Saturday September 9, 2023 episode of the Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet award-winning country artist Jason McCoy. He has racked up multiple CCMA and CMA awards along with a Gold album and CMA Global Artist Award (Nashville CMA). As the creator and front man of the best-selling band in Canadian Country Music history, The Road Hammers, Jason embarked on a journey through the Country Rock genre and guided the band to unprecedented success throughout Canada and the United States. Along the way, the band earned a Canadian Platinum-certified album, secured three CCMA Band of the Year awards, and a JUNO award. Jason McCoy joins me today to talk about being inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall Of Fame and much more.
Then, we’ll meet Claudia Dey. She is a best-selling author, playwright, actor and the co-designer of women’s clothing brand Horses Atelier. Her books have been listed as one of the Most Anticipated Books by Entertainment Weekly, The Millions, Publishers Weekly (starred review) and BuzzFeed. Her latest book is “Daughter,” a searing and hypnotic tour de force about a woman, long caught in her charismatic father’s web, who strives to make a life—and art—of her own.
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!
Was thoroughly charmed by “Flora and Son” (coming soon to Apple TV+) and its Dubliner director John Carney. We talked about the healing power of music and his star Eve Hewson. Full interview coning soon!
After a short break caused by COVID, Kenneth Branagh’s handsome Agatha Christie adaptations, “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Death on the Nile” and now “A Haunting in Venice,” have become an annual tradition. Like fruit cake at Christmas, or those Halloween Molasses Kisses that stick to everything they come in contact with, the movies are a sweet treat, but are quickly forgotten.
Branagh returns as both director and elaborately mustachioed detective Hercule Poirot. When we first see the world’s best, and most famous sleuth, he is in self-exile in Venice, living alone with only his bodyguard (Riccardo Scamarcio) for company and as protection from the crime groupies that pester him when he leaves the house.
He is burned out, tired of staring into the abyss of the worst of human behavior. Instead, he passes his time ensconced on his rooftop patio, enjoying the sun and the best pastries Venice has to offer.
His idyll is interrupted when an old friend, possibly his only friend, Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) drops by. She is the author of a string of detective novels based on Poirot’s exploits, and has a case she thinks will lure him out of retirement.
She convinces him to attend a Halloween night seance at the allegedly haunted palazzo of Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly), a mother grieving the tragic death of her daughter Alicia. The detective, a man of science, is skeptical, but agrees to attend, if only to expose the proceedings as fakery.
When people start dying, Poirot’s instincts kick in as he sorts through the red herrings, ghostly happenings and the backgrounds of each guest, including the pious housekeeper Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin), the shell-shocked Dr. Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan) and his precocious son Leopold (Jude Hill) and psychic medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), to get to the bottom of the case. “There have been two impossible murders,” he says, “as if the living have been killed by the dead. No one shall leave this place until I know who did it.”
“A Haunting in Venice” is the most gothic of Branagh’s Christie adaptations. Tilted camera angles and extreme close-ups lend a claustrophobic, and welcome weird vibe to the murder mystery. Add to that some jump scares and hallucinogenic imagery, and you get the jitteriest of Branagh’s Christie films. The rest of it, from the stunt casting to the big reveal at the end, feel more familiar, like ghostly spectres left over from the other films.
Branagh directs and performs with vigor, but the mechanics of the investigation sap much of the film’s energy and tension. Despite good performances— Cottin and Yeoh are standouts—the talky nature of Poirot’s interrogations, even when broken up by slick editing and inventive photography, slow the movie’s pace to a crawl.
Worse, the cross examinations don’t reveal much in the way of usable clues for the audience. One of the treats of a murder mystery as a viewer is the opportunity to follow along, to arrive at a conclusion based on the information provided. “A Haunting in Venice” cobbles together a series of clues, obvious only to Poirot and screenwriter Michael Green. It feels like a cheat when the great detective reveals an arcane fact not even hinted at in the narrative.
“A Haunting in Venice” is a beautiful looking film, with exquisite, gothic production design and some fun performances, but as a thriller, it feels as lifeless as one of the movie’s murder victims.
Based on Chile’s former authoritarian leader Augusto Pinochet, “El Conde,” now streaming on Netflix, is a satire that reimagines the president and dictator (and other politicians) as a soulless vampire. Metaphorically, the idea of politicians as bloodsucking leeches is not new, but this movie isn’t allegorical. It’s an ambitious vampire movie first and an alternate history political satire second.
Jaime Vadell plays the Count, a 250-year-old vampire, living in a self-imposed exile in a crumbling mansion/bunker in remote Chile, with his wife, Lucia (Gloria Münchmeyer), and loyal and an attentive butler (Alfredo Castro). Since getting his first taste of blood licking Marie Antoinette’s plasma off the blade of a guillotine during the French Revolution, he’s been a power-hungry tyrant, most recently taking control of Chile until his “death” in 1990.
Hidden from view for decades, surviving on human heart smoothies he whips up in a blender, he is now in the throes of an existential crisis, troubled by what he perceives as the injustices of his legacy and the ennui of eternal life. “Some people live longer than they should,” he says.
Dispirited, he’s given up drinking blood, and is wasting away, but just as his immortality appears to be finding an end point, some unwelcome visitors—his five inheritance hungry children and a young nun (Paula Luchsinger) with exorcism on her mind—give the undead monster a reason to live.
Shooting in luscious, gothic black and white, Chilean director Pablo Larraín and cinematographer Ed Lachman recall F. W. Murnau and the Expressionist films of the 1920s and 30s. But just as the movie subverts what a political satire can be, the look of the movie also throws expectations off-kilter. The stately black and white suggests classic horror but the film’s grimly funny and witty script is closer on the laugh-a-minute meter to “Young Frankenstein” than “Dracula.” It’s not exactly a giggle fest, it is, after all, about the existence and persistence of evil, but it does trade in dark comedy in a way that Tod Browning never could have imagined.
The vampire allegory—that Pinochet is a parasite who sucked the life blood of his people—isn’t the most subtle, but it does have bite, sinking its teeth into the legacy of a monster.
Although “El Conde” veers off track near the mid-section, the sheer audacity of the idea and a third act reveal gets it back on track. It’s the most original vampire film to come along in years and one of the best sociopolitical satires this side of Armando Iannucci.
Nicolas Cage caps off a busy 2023 with “The Retirement Plan,” an unusual family dramedy that marks his fifth foray into theatres since New Year’s.
He plays Matt, a retired older guy, content with the life of a beach bum after a life of “government work.” He was, he says, an arbitrator, someone who settled disputes and “gets the job done.” He was also a crappy father to Ashley (Ashley Greene), the daughter he left behind when he abandoned her and her sick mother years ago. “If she wants to visualize me as dead, she has every right,” he says.
When Ashley and husband Jimmy (Jordan Johnson-Hinds) steal a hard drive from ruthless crime boss Donnie (Jackie Earle Haley) and his Shakespeare-loving henchman Bobo (Ron Perlman), the baddies will do almost anything to get it back, including taking her young daughter Sarah (Thalia Campbell).
Caught up in a web of trouble, Sarah reaches put to dear old dad, unaware of his violent past. As he assesses the situation, his instincts kick in as he levels the playing field.
“Here’s the thing boss,” says Bobo to Donnie, “the old guy keeps killing everybody. Everybody!”
“The Retirement Plan” owes a debt to Guy Ritchie. It doesn’t have the snap, crackle and pop of Ritchie’s early films, like “Snatch” or “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” but stylistically its mix of violence and comedy plays like Ritchie Lite.
Cage hands in a charming, off-the-wall take on Matt, possibly the goofiest and most casual assassin we’ve seen on screen since “The Hitman’s Bodyguard.” He’s deadly, an unapologetic oddball, and more than just a bit silly, but it is Cage’s performance that breathes life into the desiccated one-last-job/bad father-with-a-violent-past genres. He’s letting his freak flag fly, having fun, and it shows.
“The Retirement Plan” isn’t a great movie, even by the standards of Cage’s choppy resume, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and neither should you.
Watch Andria Case’s CTV News at 6 report on the Hazelton Hotel’s unveiling of the state-of-the-art screening room as the Norman Jewison Cinema in celebration of the iconic Canadian filmmaker.
(Originally posted on Friday September 11, 2015)Like millions of people I remember exactly what I was doing the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.
When the first plane hit the World Trade Center I was walking down Bloor Street in Toronto, on my way to the InterContinental hotel to do a day of Toronto International Film Festival coverage.
I didn’t register anything unusual in the air until I got to the hotel. People on the street may have been walking and talking a bit faster, acting a bit more animated than usual, but not so that I noticed.
Entering the hotel was a different story. The halls were eerily silent.
What was usually a cheery beehive of activity with camera crews, stressed publicists and actors roaming around, was now quiet, still.
At 9 a.m. I walked into our makeshift interview suite on the third floor just as the second plane hit. My crew were sitting around the television. Sobs from the rooms next to ours broke the stunned silence.
What the hell was going on?
What was going on was a change in all our lives; a new era where the unthinkable became possible.
It was a confusing day. With no details we, like many others, pressed on with the business at hand.
David Lynch came and went, smoking American Spirits and chatting about his film Mulholland Drive.
A handful of others walked the halls, unsure of what else to do, keeping previously scheduled interview slots.
When I mentioned to New York actress Adrienne Shelly that I couldn’t reach my girlfriend, who was living in Manhattan, she loaned me her cellphone.
“For some reason it seems to get through,” she said.
It did, and after a quick call to make sure she was safe, the full impact of what had just happened sunk in. Sometimes the small stuff, the personal things — like the anxious voice at the other end of the line — help you understand the magnitude of a grim situation.
We cancelled the rest of the day but I stayed put, talking to my hotel neighbours, most of whom were Americans, many from New York.
There were hugs, tears and bafflement in equal measure. TIFF elected to cancel many of the day’s events and tone down the glitz for the rest of the festival.
But the show would go on and in that moment art won over terror.
What we began to hear were stories from New York filmmakers who, with all flights cancelled to and from the city, were loading cans of film into their cars and driving to the festival.
It wasn’t about vanity and it wasn’t about ego.
It was about filmmakers, the storytellers of our times, the people who document our lives, not being silenced.
The rest of the festival was a sombre affair but there was a steeliness uncommon at the usually glitzy event. We gathered, watched films, communicated and healed, sending a message that the uncertainty of the times would not prevent us from expressing ourselves, from sharing stories.
Fourteen years later I think back to those days and realize that terror didn’t win on 9/11.
As long as we don’t allow ourselves to go silent, as long as we breathe life into our stories and experiences on film and elsewhere, we won’t and can’t live in fear.
“The Nun II,” a new horror film starring Taissa Farmiga, and now playing in theatres, is a sequel to a movie that was a prequel to the sequel of 2013’s “The Conjuring.” Confused? Not to worry, despite its convoluted pedigree, all you need to know is that “The Nun II” brings back one of the creepiest characters of recent memory.
The follow-up to 2018’s “The Nun,” the new R rated (for violent content and terror) movie is set in 1956, France. Farmiga returns as the determined and devout demon warrior Sister Irene. When a priest is murdered in spectacular supernatural fashion, Sister Irene investigates, sensing the evil handiwork of her old adversary Valak (Bonnie Aarons). Once an angel, Valak was rejected by God and sent to Hell before resurfacing to spread malevolence while disguised as a nun.
As Irene zeroes in on Valak, her investigation leads to a French boarding school where Maurice (Jonas Bloquet), who saved her life at the end of the last film, but may now have something to do with the spread of Valak’s reign of terror, works as a handyman. Joined by schoolteacher Marcella (Anna Popplewell), her daughter Sophie (Katelyn Rose Downey) and rebellious novice Sister Debra (Storm Reid), Irene battles to prevent Valak from spreading evil to the world. “I know why it’s here,” Irene says, “I saw what it wants.”
“The Nun II” has atmosphere to burn. The boarding school, which appears to be made up of nothing but long hallways, flickering lights and a decrepit old chapel, provides an effective shadowy backdrop for much of the action. The dark, murky cinematography hangs over the proceedings like a shroud, creating a gloomy vibe that adds to the overall feeling of dread.
Trouble is, Sister Irene’s journey to vanquish Valak is low on actual scares. There are a few pretty good jump scares, some eerie imagery, and the demon in full nun regalia is still an unsettling sight, but the movie is just a little too similar to “The Nun”—it’s another story about Irene and an ancient demon destroying relic—to feel anything but familiar.
The final fifteen minutes, a showdown between the divine and the demonic, is visually interesting and ends the movie with a flourish, but even with the flashy finish, it’s hard not to think that, at this point, “The Nun” franchise is becoming a bad habit.
