On the Saturday Saturday July 20, 2024 edition of The Richard Crouse Show, we meet English-Canadian alternative comedian James Mullinger. Though primarily a stand-up comic, Mullinger has held a number of roles in other media including a presenter of Blimey! An Englishman in Atlantic Canada, co-writer and co-producer of The Comedian’s Guide to Survival. In 2022, he published his memoir, Brit Happens: Or Living the Canadian Dream, with Goose Lane Editions. In 2016, Mullinger broke Jerry Seinfeld’s record ticket sales at Harbour Station and outsold performances including Guns N’ Roses, Iron Maiden, and Snoop Dogg.
We’ll also get to know Gareth Reynolds. He’s a stand-up comedian, a podcaster with three very popular shows, The Dollop, which is a weekly comedy/ history podcast, with co-host Dave Anthony and The Past Times, a totally different weekly comedy/history podcast, with co-host Dave Anthony and We’re Here to Help, a bi-weekly advice podcast, with co-host Jake Johnson. He’s written for shows like Arrested Development and he joins me today.
We’ll also spend some time with 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 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.
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!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
SYNOPSIS: In “Twisters,” a stand-alone sequel to the 1996 disaster film “Twister,” Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kate Cooper, a meteorologist and weather whisperer who retired to the comfort of an office job following a tragic encounter with a tornado in her home state of Oklahoma. Drawn back into the world of storm chasing by the opportunity to test a groundbreaking new tornado tracking system, she returns to the field. “The worse the weather,” says her mother (Maura Tierney), “the happier the girl.” As central Oklahoma is beset by the worst tornado season in years, Kate finds herself torn between an old colleague (Anthony Ramos), a famous social media storm chaser (Glen Powell) and a shady developer (David Born).
CAST: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, and Sasha Lane. Directed by Lee Isaac Chung.
REVIEW: The new movie falls somewhere between remake and sequel of the 1996 film, but those expecting a flying cow may be disappointed. The signature image from the original is nowhere to be found, but fans of airborne objects will still find much to enjoy. “Sometimes the old ways are the best ways,” says Tyler (Powell).
Director Lee Isaac Chung captures the adrenaline of storm chasing in frenetic scenes that place the characters in the middle of violent, swirling wind maelstroms. The intensity of those scenes, however, is matched only by the passionate tornado talk. Kate and Tyler enjoy a good weather-related chin wag (although there is no mention of climate change here), but the meteorologicalese tends to slow down the film’s forward momentum.
In other words, when the titular tornados are in motion, the movie is exciting. When they’re being talked about, less so.
The people doing most of the talking, Powell, Edgar-Jones and Ramos, aren’t just props with wind-blown hair. Each are given an obstacle to overcome, whether it is the weight of first impressions, the impact of trauma or the guilt that comes with selling out one’s principles. The character arcs, like Powell’s shift from reckless cowboy to cowboy scientist, a charismatic turn that gives the tornados a run for the movie’s best special effect, gives “Twisters” the opportunity for meaningful exchanges between the characters.
It’s also the rare action/disaster flick, that values brains over brawn in almost every sticky situation the characters find themselves in.
For all the character work, “Twisters” misses an opportunity with the expected, and more than hinted at, romance between Kate and Tyler. As it is their attraction that has all the heat of an Oklahoma winter’s night.
“Twisters” may not have the consistent, blustery excitement of the original, but it does deliver satisfying wet ‘n wild summer blockbuster action.
SYNOPSIS: “Young Woman and the Sea,” a new period sports drama starring Daisy Ridley and now streaming on Disney+, is the true story of the “Queen of the Waves,” American swimming champion Gertrude Ederle. Her story of triumph includes winning a gold medal at the 1924 Olympic Games, and later, becoming the first woman to swim the twenty-one miles across the English Channel.
CAST: Daisy Ridley, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Stephen Graham, Kim Bodnia, Christopher Eccleston, Glenn Fleshler. Directed by Joachim Rønning.
REVIEW: A classic underdog sports movie, “Young Woman and the Sea” is a handsomely mounted and passionately performed biopic. Old fashioned in the best of ways, it leans into its inspiring, against all odds story with crowd-pleasing vigor.
Told in chronological order, there aren’t many surprises in the retelling of Ederle’s story, but the portrayal of resilience and perseverance in the face of the era’s sexism, and the physical demands of the sport, make for good family viewing.
Physically and emotionally, Ridley convinces as Ederle. Her ocean swimming scenes, shot in amid fierce currents and chilly temperatures in the English Channel and the Black Sea, translates the swimmer’s struggle, and the drama of the event, to the screen in a way that shooting against a green screen in a pool simply could not. Her blue lips, the treacherous black water, and whatever lies bneath, become characters in her struggle as the viewer is immersed in the journey.
As Ederle, Ridley is a mix-and-match of determination, kindness and tenderness. It’s a bit hagiographic, but suits the movie’s old school tone.
Dusted lightly with schmaltz, “Young Woman and the Sea” is predictable, but its sheer pluckiness and eagerness to uplift earns it a recommendation.
SYNOPSIS: Set on the western U.S. frontier in the 1860s, this story of star-crossed lovers sees the fiercely independent French-Canadian florist Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps) begins a relationship with Danish immigrant and ex-soldier Holger Olsen (Viggo Mortensen). When their lives are up-ended by the Civil War, Vivienne must fend for herself in a rough-n-tumble Nevada town run by the corrupt Mayor Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston) and his ruthless business partner Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt).
CAST: Viggo Mortensen, Vicky Krieps, Solly McLeod, Garret Dillahunt, Colin Morgan, Ray McKinnon, Luke Reilly, Atlas Green, Danny Huston. Written, directed, and produced by Viggo Mortensen.
REVIEW: “The Dead Don’t Hurt” is an old-fashioned Western with a modern twist. Told on a broken timeline, this story of frontier life looks very much like a classic horse opera, but places its focus on the immigrant experience and Vivienne’s rebellious streak, rather than on the cliches of the genre. There are shootouts, a saloon that could have been left over from the set of “Bonanza” and a “pig sticker” plays a climatic role, but Mortensen’s second feature as director has a different perspective on a traditional genre.
Mortensen is in fine form, but yields the bulk of camera time to Krieps’s luminescent performance. With Vivienne she up-ends the typical portrayal of women in Westerns. She shares a loving, playful relationship with Olsen, but her independent streak is the what drives the movie. The romance is at the heart of the film, but it is the unconventional portrayal of a woman in the wild west that makes the movie unique.
As a director Mortensen creates vivid, compelling moments that would not be out of place in a more tradition Western, but there are enough flourishes—medieval knight fantasy sequences, for example—and a somewhat ungainly time shifting structure of storytelling, that set the film apart from the John Ford standard.
“The Dead Don’t Hurt” is a reinvention, a reimagination, that is both nostalgic and innovative.
SYNOPSIS: Set in France during the Napoleonic Wars, “Widow Clicquot,” now playing in theatres, stars Haley Bennett, as Madame Clicquot, a fiercely independent vintner who spurned convention by continuing to run the fledgling wine business she and her husband nurtured before his death. Steering the company, which still bears her name, through hard times, personally and professionally, she defies critics and revolutionizes the champagne industry. “When they struggle to survive, they become more reliant on their own strength,” says the Widow Clicquot of her grapevines. “They become more of what they were meant to be.”
CAST: Haley Bennett, Tom Sturridge, Sam Riley, Anson Boom, Leo Suter, Ben Miles, Natasha O’Keeffe. Directed by Thomas Napper, from a screenplay by Erin Dignam and Christopher Monger based on the book “The Widow Clicquot” by Tilar J. Mazzeo.
REVIEW: Like the vines she so lovingly cares for, Madame Clicquot’s struggles—against weather, the patriarchy and restrictive Napoleonic trade embargoes—make her stronger. It’s a bit of an overworked metaphor, but screenwriters Dignam and Monger make it work in context to this very specific story.
At the heart of it all is Bennett, who not only highlights Clicquot’s determination and talent, but also the passion it took to stay firm, in the face of adversity, to become a successful female entrepreneur in a male dominated industry. What could have been a one-note performance, all determination, or all grief, is instead, a powerhouse mix of emotion. Passion, for her late husband, their dream and their grapes, drives her, but Bennett plays all the notes on the scale. Her Clicquot contains multitudes, beginning with heartbreak that bubbles up to become triumph by the time the end credits roll.
Handsomely photographed, with fine period details, excepting the English accents favored by the actors playing French roles, “Widow Clicquot” spends a bit too much time on the ins-and-outs of wine making, but, at an economical ninety minutes, it’s a toast-worthy testament to the Grand Dame and her indomitable spirit.
On the Saturday July 13, 2024 edition of the Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet New York Times bestselling author of The Authenticity Project, Clare Pooley. After working in advertising for twenty years it dawned on her that her daily ‘wine o’clock’ habit was out of control. She wrote the popular “Mummy was a Secret Drinker” blog and a memoir, “The Sober Diaries,” published in 2017 to critical acclaim. Her latest book is “How to Age Disgracefully,” the story of a senior citizen with a shady past who bands together with her friends to save their beloved community center from closure by any means necessary.
Then, we’ll meet Larry Gaudet, an award-winning novelist and writer of imaginative non-fiction. His corporate work over 25+ years spans branding, disinformation analysis, venture financing, IPOs, speechwriting, investor relations, and marketing strategy. The sum total of his experience is captured in his latest book, a novel called Eris, in which an anarchist online group sets out to assassinate the corporate elites they believe have turned culture into a digital nightmare.
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!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
SYNOPSIS: During the 1960s Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, a relationship develops between the NASA lunch director and a New York advertising executive brought in to make sure every American knew what NASA was all about. “When I’m done,” says advertising exec Kelly Jones of the Apollo 11 astronauts, “these men are going to be bigger than the Beatles.”
CAST: Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Jim Rash, Anna Garcia, Donald Elise Watkins, Noah Robbins, Colin Woodell, Christian Zuber, Nick Dillenburg, Ray Romano, Woody Harrelson. Directed by Greg Berlanti.
REVIEW: Space Age rom com “Fly Me to the Moon” reaches for the stars, but never quite gets there. Charming a-listers Johansson and Tatum play fictional characters, a fast talking advertising executive—“The Killer From Manhattan,” they call her—and a tightly wound NASA launch director. As per the rom com formula, they meet cute, have an immediate attraction, and then spend much of the remainder of the movie’s over-long 2-hour and 12-minute runtime falling in and out of lust.
As if that wasn’t enough, their flirtation takes place against a backdrop of one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs—and one of the biggest conspiracy theories—of the Twentieth Century.
It’s an odd mix, and one that only works sporadically. When director Greg Berlanti allows Johansson and Tatum to parry, the movie works.
Johansson’s Kelly is a compulsive liar, someone who doesn’t mind bending the rules to get what she wants—for instance, she hires actors to do news interviews for press shy NASA engineers—and when she is in full flight, the character is wicked and fun. “We’re not lying to customers,” she says slyly, “we’re changing the way they think.”
Tatum has less to do, but is a solid leading man who can play it straight or bring a laugh when necessary. It’s not rocket science, but he pulls it off.
It’s when the movie shifts toward the moon launch story that it begins to fizzle like a wet firecracker. The move away from romance toward the supposedly tense July 16, 1969 Apollo 11 lift-off adds little to the movie except an extra half-hour.
Despite fun 1960s period piece details and charming leads, “Fly Me to the Moon” gets lost on lift-off.
SYNOPSIS: In “Longlegs,” a new psychological horror film starring Maika Munroe and Nicolas Cage, and now playing in theatres, FBI Agent Lee Harker is assigned to a decades-old case of a serial killer who targets entire families. The case turns personal as she uncovers evidence of the occult.
CAST: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Alicia Witt, Blair Underwood, Kiernan Shipka. Directed by Osgood Perkins (son of “Psycho” star Anthony Perkins and photographer and actress Berry Berenson).
REVIEW More unsettling than scary, “Longlegs” is both thematically and visually dark. There’s not a lot of cracks to let the light in. As the mystery at the heart of this occult thriller unfolds, the action happens mostly at night or in darkened rooms, lending a heavy air of foreboding to every frame of this strange film.
Adding to the film’s otherworldly vibe is Maika Monroe as Lee Harker, the FBI agent assigned to Longlegs’ case. She is Clarice Starling with a carefully defined introspective side; a sixth sense that helps to unravel her cases. “It’s like something tapping me on the shoulder,” he says, “telling me where to look.” Analytical in the extreme, Munroe, in a quiet performance, allows us to see the gears turning in her head as the clues begin to add up. Her process gives Harker a brooding demeanor that perfectly matches the film’s tense, subdued tone.
On the other end of the scale is Cage as the titular serial killer. His unhinged, chaotic work makes his other gonzo performances in movies like “The Wicker Man,” “Face/Off” and “Vampire Kiss” seem positively understated by comparison. Jame Gumb has nothing on this guy. It’s an over-the-top display and individual mileage may vary, but his Tiny Tim inflection, creepy rendition of “Happy Birthday” and repulsive leer will not soon be forgotten.
Despite Cage’s larger-than-life-and-death performance, “Longlegs” values restraint. Other than a quick flash of decomposing bodies, a gallon or two of blood and a handful of jump scares, Perkins is more interested in burrowing into your subconscious with a nightmarish story that unfolds in the dark corners of Harker’s mind. The story’s psychological underpinnings are where the true horror lies. where the discomfort comes from.
By the time the end credits roll, you’ll leave the theatre unnerved, even after they turn on the lights.
