I write about feel good movies to watch when you’re feeling down for CTVNews.ca.
“When you’re feeling down, a trip to the movies can take you on an emotional journey. They don’t just entertain us; they can be therapeutic, too….” read the whole thing HERE!
On the Saturday July 27, 2024 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we meet Natalie Shaw who stars as Cady Heron in the touring, musical production of the show that touches down in Toronto at The Royal Alexandra Theatre from July 30 – August 25, 2024.
You remember the story… Cady Heron may have grown up on an African savanna, but nothing prepared her for the vicious ways of her strange new home: suburban Illinois. Soon, this naïve newbie falls prey to a trio of lionized frenemies led by the charming but ruthless Regina George. But when Cady devises a plan to end Regina’s reign, she learns the hard way that you can’t cross a Queen Bee without getting stung.
Then, we’ll meet three-time Academy Award nominee for Best Actor Viggo Mortensen. From his film debut in 1985’s “Witness” to the “Lord of the Rings” movies that made him a superstar to his more recent work, like the Oscar winning “Green Book,” he has been a constant, welcome presence on screens for 40 years. Joins me today as the writer, director, star, and composer of “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” a great new Western now available on all major platforms for Digital Purchase and Digital Rental.
Then, we’ll meet Willie Poll. She is the director of education for the Moose Hide Campaign, an organization focused on ending violence against women and children. But today we’re here to talk about her new book for children, “My Little Ogichidaa: An Indigenous Lullaby.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Here’s some info on The Richard Crouse Show!
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!
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I go to the vault to unearth a vintage interview I did with Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman. We don’t talk superheroes, instead, the actor gets personal, talking about the projects that worked, the ones that didn’t and what drives him. “When I started acting I was the dunce of the class,” he says.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I join Shane Hewitt on “The Night Shift” to talk about helping to unveil a stamp commemorating the late, great Norman Jewison at the Canadian Film Center.
Listen to the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 30:36)
Listen to Shane and Richard talk about “Deadpool & Wolverine” HERE! (Starts at 30:49)
I join NewsTalk 1010’s “Moore in the Morning” host John Moore to talk about speaking at an event celebrating the unveiling of a commemorative stamp for Norman Jewison, the “Deadpool & Wolverine” publicity onslaught, why “VEEP’s” ratings have sky-rocketed 350% since Joe Biden announced Kamela Harris as his pick for president and why “Lord of the Rings” star Elijah Wood never finished reading the J.R.R. Tolkien books the films were based on.
Listen to the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 9:25)
On Wednesday July 24, 2024 I was honoured to speak alongside host Rock Mercer, David Cronenberg, MP Charles Sousa and Canada Post CEO Doug Ettinger at the unveiling of a stamp commemorating the late, great Norman Jewison at the Canadian Film Center. I spoke about how Jewison’s film “Jesus Christ Superstar” lit my imagination on fire, how Norman was always supportive of my work and his legacy. It was a great event, and likely the last time I will sing in public.
SYNOPSIS: Six years after the events of “Deadpool 2” comes “Deadpool & Wolverine,” a new superhero movie starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, and now playing in theatres.
Now working as a used car salesman, Wade Wilson (Reynolds) has retired his wisecracking mercenary Deadpool persona. His life is up-ended when the Time Variance Authority (TVA) enlists him to undertake a new mission with another reluctant superhero Wolverine (Jackman).
“Wade, you are special,” says TVA agent Mr. Paradox (Macfadyen). “This is your chance to be a hero among heroes.”
CAST: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Rhett Reese, Emma Corrin, Matthew Macfadyen, Paul Wernick, Zeb Wells. Directed by Shawn Levy.
REVIEW: If the word bombastic took steroids it might come close to describing the R-rated “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Vulgar, gory with a “whiff of necrophilia” and irreverence to burn, it’s a showcase for the bromance stylings of its stars, who pull out all the stops to lovingly put a cap on Fox’s Marvel movies. “Disney bought Fox,” Deadpool explains, “[so there’s] that whole boring rights issue.”
At the film’s start, it takes some doing to explain Wolverine/Logan’s return from the dead—“Nothing will bring you back to life faster than a big bag of Marvel cash,” Deadpool says to Wolverine’s remains.—but once that convoluted (but action-packed) set-up is out of the way, the film barrels through plot with both fists flailing.
Before, during and after the big, bloody action sequences the movie cheekily blurs the line between on-screen and off-screen life. Deadpool obnoxiously calls Logan “Hugh,” and even takes a jab at jackman’s recent divorce. Later he leeringly mentions “Gossip Girl,” the show that made Reynolds’s wife, Blake Lively, famous.
That fourth-wall-breaking riffing suits Reynolds’s trademark delivery, and sets the self-aware “Deadpool” movies apart from other superhero films. ““Fox killed him,” Deadpool says of Wolverine. “Disney brought him back. They’re gonna make him do this till he’s 90!”
Humor has a place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), in Tony Stark’s one-liners, in Taika Waititi era “Thor” movies and “Guardians of the Galaxy” to name a handful of examples, but none of those subversively poke fun at superhero movies and themselves in the way “Deadpool & Wolverine” does. What other MCU movie would self-deprecatingly admit that the characters are entering the multiverse “at a bit of a low point”?
Jackman mostly plays it straight, acting as a soundboard for “the Merc with the Mouth’s” one liners. Filled with regret over past events, the self-loathing Wolverine is a hard drinking mutant, in full comic book costume, who reluctantly embraces heroism.
Wolverine provides the story’s heart as a counterpoint to Deadpool’s constant quipping.
Both characters may be physically indestructible, but their psyches aren’t. Both are tortured, and when the movie isn’t gushing blood or cracking wise, it’s about lost souls and their search for redemption. That story chord is a grace note that often gets lost amid the film’s cacophonic action, but is a welcome relief from the constant clatter.
A love letter to the now by-gone Fox era of superhero films, “Deadpool & Wolverine” ushers in a new epoch overstuffed with overkill, cameos, Easter eggs, juvenile humour and a villain who reads minds by thrusting their fingers into their victim’s heads. It’s fun fan service, and a good time at the movies, even if the experience of watching it sometimes feels like being on the inside of a blender set to puree.
SYNOPSIS: “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,” a comedic Guy Ritchie World War II movie starring Henry Cavill and Alan Ritchson, and now streaming on Amazon Prime, is the mostly true story of an outlaw band of violent rogues and outlaws put together by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to neutralize Hitler’s fleet of German U-boats during World War II. “We both know that I’m not very popular with the administration,” says Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill). “The reason they find you unattractive,” says Brigadier Gubbins (Cary Elwes), “is the very reason I find you attractive.”
CAST: Henry Cavill, Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding and Alex Pettyfer. Directed, co-written and co-produced by Guy Ritchie.
REVIEW: This story of charismatic rule breakers doesn’t break any new ground for director Ritchie, but it does deliver the kind of slick spectacle you expect from one of his films; the violence is exaggerated, with the kind of body count usually reserved for John Wick movies, the dialogue is cheeky and there’s pyrotechnics to spare. It’s a World War II movie via breezy comic book storytelling, so don’t expect a history lesson, expect the kind of charismatic antiheroes Ritchie has made a career of documenting, with a nod to “Inglorious Basterds.”
The ugly work of killing Nazis is performed by an undeniably handsome, square-jawed cast. Now on the other side of the DC Universe, Cavill lets loose, launching the same kind of charm offensive he first displayed in Ritchie’s “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” reboot. His take on March-Phillips is all roguish, devil-may-care charm and deadpan delivery. His star power is equaled by Ritchson, who, as Anders Lassenn, a.k.a. “The Danish Hammer,” cements his bonafides as an action star who can also deliver a funny line. In the midst of the film’s deadly mission these two, in tandem with Eiza González as Marjorie Stewart, the film’s femme fatale and sharpshooter, bring some personality to the bombastic action.
“The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” is kind of predictable. It’s a simple story of good vs. evil with a twist, the good guys are, to put it mildly, ungentlemanly.
But, Ritchie understand that people love a heroic rascal, and the more ungentlemanly March-Phillips and Co. behave, the more enjoyable the movie becomes. Their antics, accompanied by composer Christopher Benstead’s peppy Morriconesque score, have the bluster that made Ritchie’s early films like “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch” so much fun.
SYNOPSIS: Until a guy got in the way, college friends Lou (Susan Sarandon), Marilyn (Bette Midler), Alice (Megan Mullally) and Kitty (Sheryl Lee Ralph) were inseparable, but when Marilyn scooped up one of Lou’s crushes, they stopped talking. Fifty years later, as Marilyn prepares to remarry in Key West, Alice and Kitty trick Lou into coming to the wedding. “We need to get the gang back together before we’re 500,” says Alice. But can the joys of sisterhood and a new marriage smooth over the hurt of a betrayal that dates back decades?
CAST: Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Megan Mullally, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Bruce Greenwood, Timothy V. Murphy, Michael Bolton. Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse.
REVIEW: The stars of “The Fabulous Four” have earned a great deal of audience goodwill over the years. Between them, they have Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and who knows what else. But “The Fabulous Four” is the kind of excruciating experience that burns that goodwill into ashes.
Hackneyed and beyond predictable, “The Fabulous Four” aims to be a feel-good movie about friendship and the everlasting power of sisterhood but, is instead, a charmless exercise in cliché.
The Fab Four above-the-title-stars do what they can with the material, but no amount of goodwill or years of experience can breathe life into mom jokes like, “We’re the bridesmaids…” “You mean old maids,” the lame physical humor or the strangely lifeless Michael Bolton performance.
“The Fabulous Four” means well but is a less than fabulous film that doesn’t deliver the goods.
