SYNOPSIS: “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” a new anime action-adventure film now playing on theatres is the story of Helm Hammerhand, a legendary king of Rohan, and his warrior daughter Hera as they defend their kingdom against an army of by Wulf, the clever and merciless Dunlending lord.
CAST: Brian Cox, Gaia Wise, Luke Pasqualino, Miranda Otto, Lorraine Ashbourne, Yazdan Qafouri, Benjamin Wainwright, Laurence Ubong Williams, Shaun Dooley, Michael Wildman, Jude Akuwudike, Bilal Hasna, Janine Duvitski and Christopher Lee (posthumously). Based on characters created by J. R. R. Tolkien and directed by Kenji Kamiyama.
REVIEW: “This is a story we don’t see in the old songs.”
An anime prequel to “Lord of the Rings” films, “LOTR: The War of the Rohirrim” takes place 183 years before the events of “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” and provides an entertaining backgrounder on the history of the kingdom of Rohan and Middle Earth, told through the point of view of Hera (voice of Gaia Wise).
A sweeping epic, it’s not simply an animated version of the world Jackson created for his films. Legendary director Kenji Kamiyama puts his own visual stamp on the movie—but longtime fans will want to be on alert for easter eggs and callbacks to the “LOTR” books and movies, including a posthumous appearance by Christopher Lee as Saruman—while stealthily operating within the familiar territory fashioned by Tolkien and Jackson. The style works well within the framework of “Lord of the Rings,” bringing Helm’s Deep to vivid life and visualizing impressive images of armies preparing to do battle.
The fluid, eye-popping animation, utilises a variety of tools—CGI, old school 2D animation and motion capture—and is enhanced by voice work from a strong cast.
Brian Cox is a standout, bringing a commanding presence to Helm Hammerhand, the ninth King of Rohan. Imagine a Middle Earth Logan Roy and you’ll get the picture.
As Hera, the daughter of Helm who helps defend their people, Gaia Wise captures the rebelliousness and the vulnerabilities of the young character who isn’t quite as sophisticated as other “Lord of the Rings” heroes like Éowyn and Arwen.
Miranda Otto, who played Éowyn in the second and third installments of “The Lord of the Rings,” returns to this film as the narrator.
Based on just three paragraphs in Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings, which contains historical background of the events in Middle-earth prior to the War of the Ring, “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” is a war film, but one concerned with more than just the action.
Family ties, loyalty and the responsibility of power all play into the texture of the story, deepening the portrayal of the conflict.
Ditto the portrayal of the villain Wulf, voiced by Luke Pasqualino. He’s not a supernatural being, a wizard or dark lord, which is usually the case in the “LOTR” world. Instead, he’s very much human, which producer Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote Jackson’s film trilogy, says makes him relevant to “a lot of the crises that we’re facing today.” His thirst for vengeance and power is very human indeed.
You don’t have to be a “Lord of the Rings” fan to enjoy “The War of the Rohirrim,” but if you are, this should serve as a welcome stop gap until “The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum” hits theatres in 2026.
I try make win $5 on comedian Nug Nahrgang’s podcast “One Dollar Words.”
Here’s some info:
Welcome to 1 Dollar Words, a podcast from The Sonar Network.
Today’s guest – fim critic Richard Crouse
Podcast interviews are way more exciting with some money where those mouths are. Host Nug Nahrgang and his guest are each given secret lists of 5 random words. During the interview, for each secret word the guest gets Nug to say, they win $1. But Nug gets $1 back for each word on his list he gets the guest to say! Will the guest win $5? Will they owe Nug $5? What the hell will this interview sound like?! Listen along as we play – 1 DOLLAR WORDS!
On the Saturday December 7, 2024 edition of the Richard Crouse Show we meet musician, broadcaster, photographer, empresario, and author Bill King who joins me today to talk about his newest book “Rollin’ Through the ‘70s. Weed, Woman and Song.” Born in Indiana, his recording career began in 1965 with a cover of jazz great Bobby Timmon’s song “Moanin’” by his band The Chateaus. Since then, he was mentored by jazz legend Oscar Peterson, and worked with everyone from Janis Joplin and The Pointer Sisters to Linda Ronstadt and Howdy Doody.
I’ve had a remarkable life, he says, and he joins me today to talk about Vietnam and his arrival in Canada, smoking hash and many other stories from his book “Rollin’ Through the ‘70s. Weed, Woman and Song.”
Then we get to know Christophe Lebold, a professor of literature, performance studies and rock culture from Strasbourg, France, joins me to talk about his book “Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall.” It’s an intriguing, massive, 543-page compendium that takes a deep metaphysical dive into the late Montrealer’s 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 “The End,” a new apocalyptic musical starring Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon, and now playing in theatres, a rich oil executive and family lives, alongside their personal doctor, butler, maid and friend, in an underground bunker far away from the flaming inferno that has erupted on the earth’s surface.
CAST: Tilda Swinton, George MacKay, Moses Ingram, Bronagh Gallagher, Tim McInnerny, Lennie James, and Michael Shannon. Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer.
REVIEW: The all-singing-all-dancing “Wicked” may be the most popular musical on the big screen but it’s not the only one. Recently the Mexican Cartel musical “Emilia Pérez” played in cinemas. This weekend “The End,” a rare entry in the apocalyptic musical genre, brings its tuneful, yet grim world view to your local theatre.
Imagine twenty years in a claustrophobic underground bunker. The world outside is ablaze, and for two decades you’ve been locked in a subterrain suite of rooms with your parents and three of their friends. “Each day feels exactly like the last,” sings Mother (Tilda Swinton).
It would be tedious.
Almost as tedious as sitting through the solemn, overlong “The End.”
In director and co-writer Joshua Oppenheimer’s film Michael Shannon plays Father, a former oil executive who bears some responsibility for the calamity the world finds itself in. As oil well across the world burn out of control—and could continue to flame for hundreds of years, rendering life on the surface impossible—he looks for ways to rationalize his culpability and protect his legacy. “We’ll never know if our industry contributed to rising temperatures,” he says.
When a stranger (Moses Ingram) shows up near their compound, the first newcomer in twenty years, her presence upsets their carefully curated lives. Secrets are revealed and tensions arise, all set to songs written by Oppenheimer and composer Joshua Schmidt.
This is audacious work, with very committed performances from the cast, but this bleak study of guilt becomes overwhelmed by pretension and wears out its welcome well before the end credits roll.
SYNOPSIS: Taking its inspiration from an ancient text, “The Return,” a new historical drama starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche now playing in theatres, is the story of a disgraced king returning from the disastrous Trojan War.
CAST: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Charlie Plummer. Directed by Uberto Pasolini based on Homer’s Odyssey.
REVIEW: A story of loyalty and vengeance, “The Return” is a stripped-down version of the Greek poem “Homer’s Odyssey.” Epic in its themes if not in its execution, the story derives much of its power from the performances of Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche as lovers separated by the ravages of war and time.
Director Uberto Pasolini, who co-wrote the script with John Collee and Edward Bond, skips past the more fanciful parts of Homer’s poem. There’s no cyclops, divine intervention or multi-headed monsters. Instead, it skips to Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes), the legendary Greek king of Ithaca, returning home after twenty years at war. Assumed dead, unrecognizable and mistaken for a beggar, he finds his former kingdom in disarray.
His wife Penelope (Binoche) never remarried, despite the dozens of suitors who vied for her hand. As she is pressured to choose a husband to take the throne, her son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) is threatened with death by ambitious wannabe-kings.
Before he can return home to his wife, son and throne, Odysseus must come to grips with his past as a warrior responsible for his vanquished army. “What will the people say when they see I have returned alone?” he asks. “That I led all their men to their deaths.”
Fiennes embraces this more earthbound adaptation. His Odysseus is a man beaten by war, scarred mentally and physically. “It’s everywhere,” he says of war. “It’s in everything you touch.” Just as the movie is stripped down, so is his performance. Divested of the formality and archaic language that frequently comes along with adaptations of ancient stories, “The Return” allows Fiennes to concentrate on what fundamentally makes the character interesting, his humanity.
Weary from war, he is defeated, but we still get a sense of the warrior he once was and the guile that helped him survive. It’s a terrific performance that showcases the character’s duality, at once sorrowful and frail and yet, able to muster the power that made him a king.
And, at age 61, Fiennes is ripped, sinewy and shredded, as revealed by his loose-fitting toga and a full-frontal nude scene.
Binoche is regal, displaying the kind of dualism that makes Fiennes’s Odysseus so compelling. She’s mournful at the loss of her husband, the wreck her kingdom has become and the political maneuvering that threatens the life of her son. And yet, she persists, using her wits to control the situation.
“The Return” is not a spectacle by any means. The sets and wardrobe are kept to a minimum, but the simplicity works, bringing focus to a story that could easily have been distracted by flashier design or a load of CGI.
“The Return’s” slow-ish pace and conversations with more pauses than dialogue may take some getting used to, but they are all in service of building tension, which eventually explodes in the film’s fiery climax.
SYNOPSIS: “Y2K,” a new disaster comedy now playing in theatres, imagines what could have happened if predictions of a technological armageddon came true as the world greeted the new millennium on New Year’s Eve 1999. “It’s goodbye human race,” says Laura (Rachel Zegler).
CAST: Jaeden Martell, Julian Dennison, Rachel Zegler, Fred Durst, and Alicia Silverstone. Directed by Kyle Mooney.
REVIEW: Part teen coming-of-age comedy, part apocalyptic disaster flick and part affectionate 1990s time capsule, “Y2K” takes a one joke premise and stretches it as thin as a sheet of foolscap to reflect on our relationship with technology.
In this world, the machines are tired of being conduits for hate and pornography and attempt a coup. “Cell phones. E-mail,” a snarky computer avatar tells computer hacker Laura. “You’re already our slaves.”
Director Kyle Mooney, who also co-wrote the script and co-stars as stoner video store clerk Garrett, hit most of the right notes in creating the world of “Y2K.” As a teen buddy comedy, he gets it right with fun period details and the casting of Jaeden Martell and Julian Dennison as nerdy best friends, the lovelorn Eli and the boisterous Danny. They are classic teen movie outsiders who step up when tested, and when they are on screen together, they’re prove to be a winning combo.
It’s when the digital revolution really gets underway that “Y2K” begins to wobble. The idea of the world’s computers bonding together as towering, killer robots, cobbled together from all manner of electronics, is cool and their first attack (which includes a homicidal Tamagotchi), just minutes into the new year, is chaotic and fun. The practical effects and frantic pacing feel like a throwback to 90s teen films, and for a time, the jokey idea has some spark.
As the teen story of survival continues into the last forty-five minutes, however, the characters aren’t up to the task of keeping us engaged with the material and “Y2K” runs out of juice.
On the Saturday November 30, 2024 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we meet Ronnie Shuker, author, editor, freelance writer, and an editor-at-large for The Hockey News. He has traveled to places such as North Korea, Chernobyl, Transnistria, and the Himalayas, where he took part in the Guinness World Record for the highest altitude hockey game ever played. He stayed closer to home for his new book, “The Country and the Game: 30,000 Miles of Hockey Stories.” In the waning days of the pandemic, sportswriter Ronnie Shuker stuffed his skates, sticks, and backpack into his faithful automobile, Gumpy, named for legendary goaltender Gump Worsley, and set off on a 30,000-mile, coast-to-coast-to-coast investigation of the many ways hockey touches the lives of Canadians.
Then, we’ll meet Vass Bednar is the executive director of McMaster University’s Master of Public Policy in Digital Society program, a contributing columnist to The Globe and Mail, and the host of its podcast Lately. Today we talk about her new book “The Big Fix,” co-authored with Denise Hearn. The book examines how corporate concentration is growing across many industries, leading to higher prices for consumers, lower worker’s wages, more inequality, fewer startups, less innovation, and lower growth and productivity.
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.ca and the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
