On the Saturday January 25, 2025 we’ll meet Tyrone Savage one of the stars of “Fifteen Dogs,” a play about 15 dogs who are given human intelligence and language by the gods Hermes and Apollo. The play explores the human condition, our relationship with animals, and the complexities of thought and emotion, and you can check it out at the CAA Theatre in Toronto from January 28 – February 16, 2025. Find out more info at mirvish.com.
Then, we get to know writer, producer and director Bruce David Klein. His new film, “Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story,” about stage and screen legend Liza Minnelli premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival to rave reviews. The Hollywood Reporter called it a “gorgeous portrait”, Deadline called it a “must-see”, and The Wrap said it is “delightful.”
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: A thriller set 3000 feet above the earth’s surface, “Flight Risk” sees a U.S. Marshal, a government witness and a hitman at odds on a small plane flying from Anchorage, Alaska to Seattle, Washington.
CAST: Mark Wahlberg, Topher Grace. Michelle Dockery. Directed by Mel Gibson.
REVIEW: “Flight Risk” is the kind of movie Hollywood used to make all the time. Start with a simple premise—US Marshall Madelyn Harris (Michelle Dockery) transporting an important government witness (Topher Grace) from the wilds of Alaska to Seattle—add in an unusual location—a rickety cargo plane—some human drama—Harris has a traumatic past—and a wildcard—the pilot (Mark Wahlberg) isn’t who he seems—and you have a simple, throwback thriller in the vein of “Phone Booth” or “Shut In.”
Essentially a chamber piece in the sky, 99% of the film happens on board the plane chartered to move Winston, an accountant with verbal diarrhea. “This isn’t a private plane,” he says of the rough cargo transport. “This is kite with seatbelts.”
It’s a tight space for the tightly constructed thriller and while it doesn’t exactly offer up much new in the way of plot developments, it makes the most of what its working with.
Basically a three-hander, “Flight Risk” gives “Downton Abbey’s” Lady Mary a chance to kick some as and Grace gets to crack wise. Only Wahlberg, with a Larry the Cable Guy accent, is underused. He isn’t given all that much to do except be bald and bad, both of which he pulls off.
They are all stock characters; there’s the uptight cop haunted by her past, the obnoxious, scared witness and a psychopath who loves his work a little too much. “I do this for free,” he says. “I do it for the fun.” They all behave pretty much the way you expect them to, so there’s not much in the way of surprises from the lead trio.
The movie’s biggest surprise is that it’s directed by Mel Gibson. His name is conspicuously absent from the trailer, although it is trumpeted in the closing credits. Gibson keeps things taut, following Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s rule, “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise, don’t put it there.” You see the flare gun, so you know later the flare gun will be used. In a stripped-down movie like this, the details matter, and Gibson ensures that nothing is extraneous.
“Flight Risk” is a straightforward, old-fashioned thriller with a little bit of human drama, a conspiracy theory or two, some good versus evil and a whole lotta tension. It doesn’t reinvent the form but is reliable in its ability to move you to the edge of your seat.
SYNOPSIS: In “Nightbitch,” a new darkly funny horror film now playing in theatres, Amy Adams plays an artist-turned-stay-at-home-mom who struggles with domesticity. Her life takes a surreal turn when her maternal instincts manifest in canine form, including an affinity for howling and hunting small animals. “I am a woman,” she says. “I am an animal. I am Nightbitch.”
CAST: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Snowden, Emmett Snowden, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Ella Thomas, Archana Rajan, and Jessica Harper. Written and directed by Marielle Heller, based on the 2021 novel by Rachel Yoder.
REVIEW: “Motherhood, changes you,” says librarian Norma (Jessica Harper). “It connects you with some primal urges.”
“Nightbitch” may struggle to balance mythology, metaphor and the messiness of parenting, but Amy Adams’s fearless and ferocious performance ties it all together. “I was once a girl,” she says. “Then a woman. A bride. A mother and now I will be this.”
A blend of rebellion, confusion, horror and razor-sharp comic timing, it is an oddball examination of motherhood and the changes, physical and mental, that come along with it. “No one talks about the cellular change that happens when you become a mother,” she says.
“Nightbitch” is a combination of many elements, relies too heavily on voice over, and could have used a little harder shove toward the outer edges of good taste, but writer/director Marielle Heller finds compassion amid the chaos.
It’s a strange, sometime gross ride, driven by female rage and loneliness, but within its metaphorical approach are empowering, empathetic messages about the real-life job of parenting.
SYNOPSIS: “Presence,” a new ghost movie directed by Steven Soderbergh and now playing in theatres, sees a dysfunctional family, Rebekah (Lucy Liu) and Chris (Chris Sullivan) and their teenagers, Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Calliana Liana), move into a newly renovated hundred-year-old house. As the hard driving Rebekah dives head long into work, Chris flounders, Tyler reveals a mean streak, and Chloe mourns the loss of her best friend. When things mysteriously move on their own, and shelves crash in Chloe’s bedroom, a question arises, Are the odd events manifestations of Chloe’s grief or is there a strange presence in the house? “There is mystery in this world,” says Chris.
CAST: Lucy Liu, Julia Fox, Callina Liang, Eddy Maday, West Mulholland, Chris Sullivan. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp.
REVIEW: Told from the point of view of the ghost, the scares in “Presence” are muted and not particularly supernatural. The horror here is the carefully observed, callous behavior between several of the characters.
Using a flamboyantly handheld camera, Soderbergh personifies the ghostly presence through camera movement. We see what the ghost sees, and that otherworldly surveillance reveals a family at odds with one another. Rebekah favors her athletic son and thinks that Chloe is being self-indulgent. “She cannot take us down with her,” she says. Chris grapples with family issues, fearing for the health of his marriage while Chloe acts out, drinking and hanging out with her brother’s strange friend from school (West Mulholland).
The result is a quietly unnerving movie—an emotional roller ghoster?—that values tension over outright frights.
It’s a stylish, visually interesting twist on a ghost story, so it’s a shame the characters aren’t well developed enough to engage the audience on anything other than a superficial level. As Chloe, Liang does much of the heavy lifting, but she’s surrounded by underwritten characters.
Add to that a third act twist that is much more conventional than you’d hope for a movie with this pedigree, and you’re left with a ghost story that entertains the eye but won’t move the spirit.
SYNOPSIS: Set in London, the character study “Hard Truths,” now playing in theatres, follows a depressed middle-aged woman as she blazes a path through life.
CAST: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, David Webber, Tuwaine Barrett, Ani Nelson, Sophia Brown. Directed by Mike Leigh.
REVIEW: It’s hard to imagine a character less likable than Pansy, as played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste in “Hard Truths.” She’s crabby, caustic and never leaves a sharp comment unsaid. Whether you are family, the local dentist, a store clerk or a complete stranger at the neighborhood grocery, no one is spared her wrath.
You wouldn’t want to spend a second with her in real life but shot through the empathetic lens of Mike Leigh’s camera and performed with depth by Jean-Baptiste, she becomes, if not sympathetic, at least understandable.
What could have been a portrait of an unpleasant person becomes something fathomable as we learn of Pansy’s past. A deep seeded grief informs her every move. Leigh’s script doesn’t dig deep, but it doesn’t have to, he has Jean-Baptiste to portray the hurt that drives Pansy to extremes. It is a ferocious performance, one that reverberates with pain.
You may not want to spend a lot of time with her, but Jean-Baptiste guarantees you’ll be fascinated by her.
“Hard Truths” does get repetitive in places, but as a showcase for Jean-Baptiste it is an unforgettable portrait of a destructive woman unable, or unwilling, to love herself.
Anyone who has ever overindulged, has suffered the effects of the Brown Bottle Flu. The Crappe Diem. The Sunday Morning Coming Down… the hangover.
The dry mouth, the headache that feels like someone has torn the back of your head off with a shovel, the buckets of sweat. The irritability and nausea are symptoms of, as someone wiser than me once said, “your body telling you that you’re an idiot.”
On this episode we talk hangovers and wonder aloud if there is a cure, and if not, why not?
On the Saturday January 18, 2025 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we get to know filmmaker, writer, visual artist and community organizer Rebeccah Love. Rebeccah is an advocate for people with mental and physical disabilities as she personally experiences both. Rebeccah has a history of psychosis and experienced institutional violence as a psychiatric patient. She also has a physical disability that affects her mobility and how she walks.
Her new film is “Fortescue.” It touches on questions relating to the underlying tensions in female friendships, the male gaze and violence against the mentally ill. Rebeccah will take her film on a national tour this year, starting in February where the film will be screened in Vancouver, Victoria, Halifax, P.E.I and Toronto (more dates TBA).
Then, I’ll take you to a little piece of France located 90-minute ferry from Fortune, Newfoundland. It’s Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, the location of a new CBC television show starring Allan Hawco, you know him and love him from “The Republic of Doyle,” among many other things, and “Death in Paradise” star Josephine Jobert. Called “Saint-Pierre,” the show is a police procedural set on the island involving Donny “Fitz” Fitzpatrick a police officer sent there to work after one of his investigations got uncomfortably close to the corruption of a powerful local politician on the mainland. Exiled to the French territory of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, he partners with local police officer Geneviève “Arch” Archambault to solve local crimes.
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.
