Canada AM: Golden Globe noms announced with Richard and Pete Hammond!
Pete Hammond from Deadline.com and film critic Richard Crouse dish about the surprises and snubs among the Golden Globe nominations.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Best twitter compliment ever! November 21, 2013 Thanks Bettskis!
What’s Your Take on Cronenberg? via Dork Shelf November 5, 2013
From DorkShelf.com:
“In honour of the huge David Cronenberg exhibit and retrospective currently happening at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto (running until January 19th), Dork Shelf talks to a plethora of film writers, personalities, programmers, podcasters, and filmmakers about what their favourite Cronenberg films are.
“You guys like guest stars? You guys like David Cronenberg? Want to know the favourite DC films from Richard Crouse, Jesse Wente, Thom Ernst and dozens more?
Here’s Richard’s personal take on Videodrome: “I had only lived in Toronto for a few years when Videodrome was released in 1983. Compared to my tiny home town the city was a wonderland; wide open and full of possibilities. CITY-TV was the coolest station in the world, with Baby Blue movies on late at night, music videos in prime time and Mark Daly’s booming voice as the glue that held it all together. I wanted to work there, be part of the something new and different. Something that was steering Toronto the Good into uncharted waters. Then I saw David Cronenberg’s film and read about how it was VERY loosely based on CITY-TV head honcho Moses Znaimer. Somehow this bit of information enhanced the movie for me, as though every time I turned on the television I was engaging in an act of rebellion. For sure the Late Great movies were never going to feature a snuff film, and nor did I want them to, but as a pop culture sponge there was something intoxicating to me about the connection between what I was seeing on the big screen and its relationship, no matter how tenuous, to my real life. Videodrome spoke to me in a way that other films that more closely echoed my experience didn’t. Goin’ Down the Road should have appealed to my Maritime roots, but I didn’t come to Toronto looking for lawyerin’ and doctorin’ jobs, I came for adventure and to be adventourous and that was exactly what Videodrome provided for me.”
See more at: https://dorkshelf.com/2013/11/05/whats-your-take-on-cronenberg/#sthash.xJ9ymGt0.dpuf
BEST LINES EVER! “Show me the money. Oh-ho-ho! SHOW! ME! THE! MONEY!” – Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) in Jerry Maguire, 1996 By Richard Crouse
Cameron Crowe, writer and director of Jerry Maguire was surprised when people started quoting the “Show me the money” line from his movie.
“The line I thought might resonate was not ‘Show me the money,’” Crowe told Premier. “It was Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) talking about ‘the Kwan’—his own personal coinage for the combination of love, respect, and money. I like to think that Tidwell had been jealous of Dennis Rodman’s blend of pseudo-French trash-talk ‘inspirato.’ He wanted his own language, too, so ‘the Kwan’ was born. But once we began to show the movie, audiences were pleasant, at best, during Rod’s ‘Kwan’ speeches. It was the phrase that Cuba Gooding Jr., as Tidwell, forces the beaten-down Tom Cruise to scream that whipped them into a frenzy, ‘Show! Me! The! Money!’
“The line showed up in everything from a Bill Clinton speech to the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. Who knows exactly why? I suspect the high-octane chemistry between Gooding and Cruise ignited the words.
“The actual phrase was a mini-tribute to two people. One was Tim McDonald, the 49er defensive back, whom I’d interviewed during a negotiation period. ‘I work hard, I’ve served five years of my contract,’ he said to me. ‘Where’s the money? Where is the money?’ I’ve always remembered the confusion and desperation and need to support his family—all screwed up on his face as he waited for offers.
“Later, when writing, I turned McDonald’s yearning for financial self-worth into a war cry, with a little bit of my friend, producer, and coinage-king Art Linson thrown in for good luck. The ‘Show me the money’ sequence was a pure joy to direct. But I’ve always held a soft spot for the unnoticed concept of ‘Kwan.’ Some time later, during an Olympic performance by ice-skater Michelle Kwan, a friend called and told me to turn on the television. In the middle of a huge crowd, a lonely fan held up a sign reading ‘Show me the Kwan.’ Thank you for that.”
There was more to Cuba Gooding, Jr.’s performance than the catchphrase, of course—he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1997—but that line seemed to turn up everywhere in the late nineties, and in 2005 was voted number 25 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Movie Quotes: America’s Greatest Quips, Comebacks and Catchphrases list.
DREW GODDARD on CABIN IN THE WOODS By Richard Crouse
You wouldn’t expect that from the pen behind some of the creepiest episodes of TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lost. Or the man also wrote the big-monster movie Cloverfield and directed Cabin in the Woods, the genre busting horror flick. But Drew Goddard was so disturbed by the first horror film he ever saw he had trouble sleeping for a month.
“My younger brother loved horror movies way before I did and one night he put on Sleepaway Camp,” he says, “which is not a very good movie. But to be fair I don’t remember because I’ve never been able to watch it again because it scared me so bad. I remember the first scene being something along the lines of two kids on a boat with their father and it is a very realistic depiction of their father having an accident and dying. Absolutely traumatized me.
“Then the movie gets crazier and crazier. It was The Crying Game before The Crying Game. So it was definitely the kind of thing a seven year old should NOT be witnessing. I remember I had to sleep in the hall outside my parent’s room for months afterwards because I was so scared by that.”
Later, in his teens he discovered the fun and escapism in horror movies. “There is a joy in being terrified,” he says, and it is that kind of rush he brought to his directorial debut Cabin in the Woods, co-written with his Buffy collaborator Joss Whedon.
“This movie came from a place of love,” he says. “We just love horror movies and set out to make a great horror movie. Then we started working on it and thought, ‘We’re not developing this for a studio. We have the freedom to do what we want, so let’s do whatever we want. Let’s put everything we’ve ever wanted to see in one movie into this one movie.’”
The result is a movie HitFix said, “is not just a great horror film, but also a thesis on why we need horror films and what role they serve in our diet.”
Goddard appreciated the raves the film has been receiving, but wants people to know he and Whedon aren’t trying to reinvent the horror wheel.
“From the structure there is more to it than five kids going out to the woods,” says Goddard, “but it’s not like we set out to unravel everything. It was more like, let’s do this and let the have the character’s ask the questions and have it be part of the fabric of the movie.
“It really came about by us saying we love the experience of going to horror cinema, and let’s try and give the audience the best possible time.”
BARRY LEVINSON on THE BAY By Richard Crouse
Director Barry Levinson describes The Bay, his new found-footage film, as “a busy in-your-face movie.” The story of a Fourth of July eco disaster in the Eastern Seaboard town of Claridge has the shocks you expect from a horror film, but the scariest thing about the story is its plausibility. Levinson spoke about the film at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The beginning: “It came up when I had a meeting about doing a documentary about the Chesapeake Bay. That was the first time I had heard that it was forty percent dead, that it is seriously polluted; has dead zones in it. It is a toxic soup. They asked if I would do the documentary so I started to do some research, and part of my research was learning that PBS had already done a done a documentary and given all this information. I was like, ‘Holy god, this is amazing. What a terrific documentary.’ But somehow people didn’t seem to be all that concerned.
The next step: “I think there is so much clutter that we just sometimes don’t pay attention. Then I thought, maybe we need to take all that science, all of those facts and put it into a storytelling mechanism. A film, with characters struggling on that given day and maybe that makes the facts more interesting because we’ve given a real context to it all. People will die. This will happen. That’s what led to the idea of doing The Bay.”
The “found-footage” set-up: “If it was going to be a documentary why don’t we shoot it as though we collected all the footage from all these different people? That just by its nature seemed to be the way to go about it. That made the most sense. Then you have to use unknown actors because if you use really well known actors it kills all the credibility. Even though we’ll know it’s a movie if you try and say this is actual footage shot by these people and it’s Brad Pitt, it kills all credibility.”
“Found footage is normally pretty contained. It’s in a house. You’re in the woods. Here you’re all over the place. You’re underwater, you’re above water. It has a bigger canvas to it. But it was the footage that was collected to make sense of what happened and who didn’t do what they should have done, etc.”
What did Guillermo Del Toro say after reading “Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of The Devils”?
What did Guillermo Del Toro say after reading “Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of The Devils”? Well, let me tell you…
“An exhaustive, vivd and passionate account of one of the most powerful and transgressive films ever made. This is not only a great book, it’s a necessary book.”
HOPE SPRINGS: 4 STARS
The trailer for “Hope Springs” make it look like an elderomcom. That is, a romantic comedy for the old age pension set. Instead it is a touching look at a couple who have forgotten how to b a couple. Add to that a performance from Meryl Streep that could be at acting classes and you have an unexpectedly engaging adult movie released during the silly summer season.
The movie opens on the occasion of Kay (Streep) and Arnold’s (Tommy Lee Jones thirty-first anniversary. “It isn’t anything special,” says Kay, “just an off year.” The Nebraska couple have raised their kids, they sleep in separate rooms and enjoy a comfortable, but disconnected life. When Kay finds a book titled “You Can Have the Marriage You Want” she decides it’s time to have a real marriage again. She books an intensive week of couple’s therapy with the book’s author Dr. Feld (Steve Carell) even though Arnold is uninterested and thinks it is a waste of time. Travelling to Maine they check into the local Econolodge and begin to explore their marriage… and one another.
There is something touching about watching these two characters remembering and reliving their thirty-one years together. Even though the script doesn’t dig too deep—unusual for a movie with therapy as a central plot device—the performances are so rich with meaning the script’s vagueness isn’t a hindrance.
Streep is masterful as a woman who has suppressed her real feelings and is now ready to assert herself, no matter how painful the result. “To be with somebody,” she says, “but not really be with them is worse than being alone.” In a commanding performance she steals every scene she’s in, even when she is silent. Her reactions to Arnold’s behavior are subtle, but heartfelt and heartbreaking.
Tommy Lee Jones has playing a grumpy old coot down pat, but here he brings something more to the table. He’s a plain-spoken accountant who waits just a bit too long to understand that there is trouble at home. Where Streep’s performance is external—she’s a reactor who talks about her feeling—his is internal. It’s his body language and facial expressions that help us understand the character, and understand we do.
Carell is the most understated of the three, in a role that requires him to do little more than ask questions and bring his warm, compassionate side.
There aren’t many big surprises in “Hope Springs,” but what the story lacks in twists it more than makes up for in emotional depth.
HOT ROD: 3 ½ STARS
It’s been a while since a Saturday Night Live movie has been something to get excited about. Ladies Man and Stuart Saves His Family weren’t exactly laugh riots but a new film, Hot Rod, starring Andy Samberg may bring back the funny to the sagging SNL brand.
In Hot Rod Samberg, the slacker comic behind Lazy Sunday, one of SNL’s most talked about pieces of recent years—it was downloaded over one million times the day after it originally aired—plays amateur stuntman Rod Kimble. He’s a terrible stuntman, but is possessed of an inordinate amount of confidence, which keeps his dream of becoming the next Evel Knievel alive.
His biggest problem is his stepfather Frank (Deadwood’s Ian McShane). Frank is an ex-Navy Seal who treats Rod like a punching bag. In their weekly sparring sessions, scheduled to toughen Rod up, Frank mercilessly beats the youngster with his fists and weapons like Rhodesian fighting sticks. Rod willingly submits to the punishment hoping that his fighting skills will impress Frank and earn his respect. When Frank falls ills before Rod has a chance to beat him the dare devil hatches a plan to perform his most incredible stunt to date and raise money for Frank’s lifesaving operation. Once Frank is healthy and healed Rod plans to beat the crap out of him.
It’s a strange little story, one that ten years ago would have starred Adam Sandler as the revenge happy stuntman. This time out it’s Samberg and while the comparisons to Sandler are obvious, he makes the character of Rod his own. He’s more bizarre than Sandler has ever been on screen, (with the possible exception of Little Nicky), but he’s also quite sweet. Sandler made his bones playing characters who flew into rages, Samberg’s style is more gentle. I don’t know if he has any range, but he fits this role like a glove.
Hot Rod is a very silly comedy. It stretches the frat pack style of humor to the limit, milking every joke for everything it is worth. For instance, a scene where Rod falls down a mountain lasts forever. It’s funny at first, then not so funny, and then funny again just because of the sheer commitment the movie has to its gags. It’s not for everyone, but the audience I saw it with ate it up.
Hot Rod is a throwback to the SNL-inspired movies of yesteryear like Billy Madison. It’s childish and harebrained but it will make you laugh.
