I guest hosted NewsTalk 1010’s “The Rush” on Friday March 22, 2024.
HOUR ONE: It’s time for STARCH MADNESS!
HOUR TWO: What movie should never be remade?
HOUR THREE: What did Richard Crouse learn from William Shatner?
HOUR FOUR: Is the 4 day workweek coming to Canada?
I guest hosted NewsTalk 1010’s “The Rush” with Teddy Wilson on Wednesday March 20, 2024.
HOUR ONE: Is public shaming okay when someone steals from you?
HOUR THREE: Have you turned down a promotion?
After a quick detour to Summerville, Oklahoma, the fifth movie in the Ghostbusters Universe sees the Spengler family back where the story began. “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” now playing in theatres, grafts a proton blast of nostalgia to a new supernatural story of tiny Stay Puft Marshmallow Men, Spenglers and an iconic New York City firehouse.
In 2021’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” OG (Original Ghostbuster) Egon Spengler’s daughter Callie (Carrie Coon), her two teenage kids, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), move to Egon’s abandoned Oklahoma farmhouse. When apocalyptic entity Gozer the Gozerian enters the scene, the family, along with mentor Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd) and some familiar faces—Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson)—team to keep the world safe.
The new film sees Callie, the kids and Grooberson, now Callie’s boyfriend, bustin’ ghosts in New York City. Using Egon’s tools, they zoom through the streets in the classic Ectomobile, and operate out of the firehouse made famous in the first film. Zeddemore now owns the building, which has become dangerously overstuffed with trapped ghosts.
On top of that, when the fast-talking Nadeem (Kumail Nanjiani) sells Stantz an ancient orb, it releases Garraka, an ice demon with the power to harness an army of escaped ghosts and trigger a new Ice Age. “The Death Chill,” says Stanz. “Your veins turn onto rivers of ice. Your bones crack. And the last thing you see is your own tear ducts freezing up.”
To stop this “unimaginable evil” the Ghostbusters, old and new, must once again band together.
Another face from the past also resurfaces. Forty years after their first run in, former EPA inspector Walter Peck (William Atherton), is now NYC’s mayor, and still holds a grudge. “The Ghostbusters are finished,” he says.
“Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” is busting at the seams, and not just with ghosts. A jumble of old and new characters, mythology and fan service, it’s overstuffed and yet feels lacking.
Aside from Mckenna, Aykroyd and Emily Alyn Lind as Melody, a lonely ghost who befriends Phoebe, none of the other characters make much of an impression, other than looking cool while posing with proton packs. It’s fun to see Hudson in an expanded role, but Murray doesn’t really appear, it’s more like he arrives, leaving a trail of Venkmanesque one-liners in his wake.
Rudd, Potts and most of the new proton pack slingers, however, all take a backseat to the busy story.
Fans will get a kick out of Slimer’s return, a haunted pizza is funny and the new Ice Demon, for the brief time they occupy the screen, is a creepy and cool addition to the Ghostbusters menagerie of meanies, but the script, penned by director Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman, doesn’t deliver the laughs. There are amusing moments, but the broadly comedic tone established by the classic “Ghostbusters” movies has been replaced by an earnest, nostalgic flavor.
“Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” isn’t exactly a bust, but there isn’t as much life left in the franchise as die-hard fans may have hoped.
Done correctly, religious horror, no matter the denomination, can provide the most potent form of terror. Rooted in our prima fears, of good versus evil, of the afterlife and the absence of faith, it preys upon our most basic beliefs to scare the hell out of us.
Unfortunately, although set in a convent, “Immaculate,” a new film starring Sydney Sweeney, and now playing in theaters, is more b-movie exploitation than religious horror.
The film sets the stage with a creepy prologue of a young woman’s desperate attempt to escape from a nunnery, only to be held back and meet a terrible fate. Turns out, the convent is like the Hotel California, “You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!”
The horrific opening fades into the story of the Michigan born-and-raised Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney). As a child, she survived a near death experience that imbuing her with faith that pointed her toward a life of service in the name of God. “God saved me for a reason,” she says. “But I’m still searching for what that reason is.”
As an adult novitiate nun, her American parish is shuttered for poor attendance and she is relocated to a convent tucked away in the Italian countryside. “I will carry myself with grace,” she says, “because I want nothing more than to be here.” Built in 1632 as a transition home for elder sisters on the fast track to heaven, it is a maze of dimly lit corridors, creaky floors and gothic architecture.
“Suffering is love,” she is told by way of welcome from the Mother Superior (Dora Romano).
After a rocky start, it’s revealed that she is pregnant, despite being a virgin. “How long until they start calling you Mary?” asks the edgy Sister Isabel (Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi). Convinced she is carrying the second coming of Christ, the nuns who once treated her with disdain, now regard her as a miracle.
For Cecilia, however, the situation is anything but miraculous. “Out of all the women in the world,” she asks, “why did He choose me?”
“Immaculate” has the look of a religious horror film, from the convent to the iconography and the stern-faced nuns but underneath its sacred façade is a button-pushing exploitation movie dressed up in a nun’s habit.
Director Michael Mohan starts things off slowly, hanging the horror on jump scares and odd imagery. Mysterious red-faced nuns appear, sowing some sacrilegious shocks, and loud sounds startle from time to time, but despite some icky fingernail trauma and branding, it isn’t until the third act that all hell breaks loose.
Sweet Sister Cecilia, pregnant and finally aware that she is in danger, finally flips the switch from meek and mild to extreme and wild. Her attempts to survive shed all pretences of piety to fully submerge the movie in a blood-soaked climax that is as disturbing as it is memorable. The extreme nature of the final moments showcases Sweeney’s ability to hold the screen, but make absolutely no sense in terms of the character. As an answer to reclaiming her bodily autonomy her behaviour makes some sort of horror movie logic, but her sudden personality shift is so jarring, it’s as if her evil twin suddenly enters the picture and takes over.
At a fast-paced 90 minutes of nunsploitation, “Immaculate” rips along, but only really delivers what fans want in its final, barmy moments.
“Road House,” the 2024 Prime Video riff on the much-loved 1989 cult classic of the same name, isn’t so much a remake of the Patrick Swayze flick, but a modern tribute to the cartoon violence of 1980s movies.
Jake Gyllenhaal is Elwood Dalton, a disgraced UFC fighter with a troubled past and an even more troubling left hook. A one-man army, he is a soft-spoken bruiser who usually gives his victims the chance to turn tail and run before he pummels the hell out of them. “Before we start,” he asks, “do you have insurance? Is your coverage good? Like, you have dental?”
After a self-inflicted near-death experience, he finds himself working as a bouncer at the Road House in the picturesque Glass Key, Florida. Brought in by second generation owner Frankie (Jessica Williams), it’s his job to bring order back to the place, even if that means busting a few heads.
As the fists fly, Dalton finds himself caught up in a turf war between Frankie and a rich, mobbed up local family who want to turn the Road House into a resort. When the family brings in a walking, talking wrecking crew (Conor McGregor) to seal the deal, Dalton becomes afraid… “Afraid of what happens when someone pushes me too far.”
Other than bars, bouncers and brawls, “Road House” doesn’t have much in common with the original. The previous film wasn’t exactly nuanced, but at least they took the time to give the bar, the Double Deuce, a name. Here it’s just called Road House. It’s a small detail, and they joke about it in a self-aware way in the film, but it signals a simplicity that permeates the entire, bloody affair.
Not that we can reasonably expect much depth in a movie about a bare-knuckle brawler. What you can expect is the dichotomy of Dalton as aa violent man who hates violence. Gyllenhaal plays him as an affable guy who’ll break your arm, but take the time to drive you to the hospital after the fight is done. The Tai Chi, philosophy and Ph.D. that defined Swayze’s take on the character are gone, replaced by Gyllenhaal’s wide smile and fists of fury.
His Dalton is interesting when the fists are flying—director Doug Liman has a way with staging big, fun fight scenes that mix MMA with slapstick and Russian car rash videos—but less so when he’s not in action. That is emphasized with the introduction of McGregor. With a maniacal grin, a skip to his step and an unstoppable Terminator approach to fisticuffs, his ridiculous performance is the blast of energy the movie needs after a saggy middle section.
“Road House” may disregard the original movie, but it doesn’t disregard its audience. The fight scenes, and let’s face it, that’s why we’re here, are high-octane, old-school battles that punch above their weight.
“You Can Call Me Bill,” a new first-person documentary about the life, career and philosophy of William Shatner, boldly goes where no film has gone before to present a contemplative look at that man whose life’s work encompasses everything from Kirk and commercial spokesperson, to pop singer and Shakespearean stage actor.
The many ups and downs, ins and outs, of Shatner’s career are on display. Clips from “Star Trek,” both the iconic television show and movies, and his myriad other projects (like “Boston Legal,” “Judgment at Nuremberg,” “The Intruder” and “Incubus”) sit side-by-side archival footage and ephemera from the actor’s scrapbooks, set to a soundtrack of Shatner’s distinctive voice and cadence.
The result is something you don’t often find in celebrity documentaries. “You Can Call Me Bill” may be a tad self-indulgent, but the neither the actor or director Alexandre O. Philippe, can be accused of pulling punches.
It’s stream-of-consciousness, without input from any talking heads, save for the 91-year-old actor. In an in-depth, wide-ranging and often thoughtful interview the story is told in his own words. From the creation of Kirk, to the loneliness that has shaped his life to a sad story about his childhood pet dog, it is a raw portrait, that feels blessedly free of the meddling influence of protective publicists.
Shatner emerges as a thoughtful, yet maximalist guy, brimming with a big, theatrical personality and even bigger ideas. In touch with both his self-deprecating “Free Enterprise” persona, as well as his introspective side. His thoughts on acting and career should give fans the juice they want from a celebrity doc, but it’s the deeper stuff, his talk of death and what comes next that is most effective. Particularly effective, and emotional, is his recounting of his 2021 trip to space on Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin space shuttle. “Our brains aren’t made to encompass the vastness of the things we’re talking about,” he says.
Perhaps the most striking revelation in the thought provoking “You Can Call Me Bill” is the extent to which the actor has adopted the “Star Trek” ethos of boldly going forward. Whether he goes where no man has gone before is up for conjecture, but after watching the doc, it’s clear he has rarely been anything but bold.
I guest hosted NewsTalk 1010’s “The Rush” with Teddy Wilson on Monday March 18, 2024.
HOUR ONE: Dan Riskin discusses the top science stories of the week, plus your travel horror stories.
HOUR TWO: Mark Mendelson talks about how carjackings have doubled in Toronto since last year and about the new police statistics that show anti-Semitism is behind the majority of hate crimes in Toronto.
HOUR THREE: Our smart speakers, John Moore and Reverend Michael Coren, talk about the top stories of the day.
HOUR FOUR: Is there a Toronto accent? Plus – most Torontonians say the city is not a good place to retire in, according to a new poll.
On the Saturday March 16, 2024 edition of the Richard Crouse Show we meet Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, a.k.a. Merry Brandybuck and Pippin Took, from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. They’ve built upon their famous friendship by working together on podcasts (“The Friendship Onion,” “Moriarty: The Devil’s Game”) and TV (Boyd appeared on Monaghan’s travel show “Wild Things,” and the two just announced a new reality series “Billy and Dom Eat the World”). But now they’re making their stage debut together as a different dynamic duo.
The pair will star in a new production of Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” in Mirvish Productions’ Off-Mirvish series at Toronto’s CAA Theatre until April 6, 2024.
Then, best-selling author Dolly Alderton stops by. She’s a regular columnist for the Sunday Times Style Magazine, and the author of the phenomenally successful memoir “Everything I Know About Love,” which she’s just finished making into a hit BBC TV series; and a bestselling novelist thanks to her barnstorming fiction debut “Ghosts.” Her latest best seller, “Good Material,” a story of heartbreak and friendship and how to survive both.
We wrap up with Glass Tiger singer Alan Frew who talks about music, how he keeps his voice in shape and much more.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I guest hosted NewsTalk 1010’s “The Rush” with Teddy Wilson on Friday March 15, 2024.
HOUR ONE: The creator of the karaoke machine dies at 100
HOUR TWO: Do you have a doomsday plan? One guy does!
HOUR THREE: Protester interrupts Broadway show – why was he protesting?
HOUR FOUR: Do we need an ‘alcohol recovery room’ on university campuses?
