Richard Crouse

RICHARD CROUSE’S MOVIE SHOW airs on Canada’s Independent Film Channel on Friday’s at 10:30 am and on the E! Channel on Sunday’s at 6:30 pm.

What’s the show all about?

RICHARD CROUSE’S MOVIE SHOW combines probing analysis of new theatrical films and DVDs, fascinating interviews with actors, directors and cult heroes and investigative journalism to understand what it is about the medium of movies that holds us in such a state of thrall. Richard draws on ten years experience hosting Reel to Real to bring the viewer the most informed and entertaining movie commentary on television. He’ll answer pressing film trivia questions like “Why do all movie phone numbers begin with 555?” and “Whose picture is on the Sheik condom wrapper?”

Along the way he’ll welcome guest critics who specialize in various topics. For instance a musician might join Richard to review The Last Pogo or a barber might share some insight to the DVD release of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street!  The half-hour weekly show will be breezy but informative, in depth without being intimidating and will be appointment viewing for movie fans.

Q&A with Host ~ Producer Richard Crouse

Q: How is Richard Crouse’s Movie Show different than Reel to Real?

A: Richard Crouse’s Movie Show is the evolution of Reel to Real. We’re still doing the same kind of in depth movie coverage, but the show itself is a bit faster paced with tighter reviews and longer interview segments, but the basic idea of covering an eclectic range of movies—everything from foreign language documentaries to Canadian features and Hollywood blockbusters—hasn’t changed.

Q: Where will the show be shot?

A: We’re shooting Richard Crouse’s Movie Show in the same studio that I do my radio show in at CFRB in Toronto. I love the irony of shooting a television show about movies in a radio station.

Q: What is your methodology when it comes to writing your reviews?

A: I have a rule when it comes to reviews; I either write them 24 hours after seeing the film or wait 24 years. One is a gut reaction, the other a considered response with the benefit of hindsight and reflection. In my new book Son of the 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen I mostly used the latter approach but most often I write the reviews within hours of seeing the film.

Q: Will you feature celebrity interviews on Richard Crouse’s Movie Show?

A: Yes, but that won’t be the focus of the show. We live in an age of celebrity overdrive and I sometimes think that it’s actually more exciting, and these days, even revolutionary, to simply shine a spotlight on the movies and not the star’s personal lives.

Q: You’ve been interviewing celebrities for years, but do you remember your first celebrity encounter?

A: It was probably in 1982. E.T. had come out and become a huge hit. I was standing in a movie line at the Cumberland Theatre in Toronto to see something, I can’t remember what. The line was moving really slowly because of a hold up at the ticket booth. I noticed a little girl being told she couldn’t go in to see whatever movie was playing because she was too young. After some interjecting from an older handler of the “do you know who this is?” type the little girl was finally allowed in. Later she was sitting in front of me at an R-rated movie and I saw it was Drew Barrymore. She might have been 7 or 8 years old.

Q: Do you plan on covering Canadian movies on every show?

A:  Absolutely. The biggest problem Canadian film has is a lack of awareness. Audiences simply don’t know the movies are out there. We make good movies in this country but often they go unseen because there is rarely enough money to mount really effective marketing campaigns. I aim to make people aware that there are good movies that reflect their Canadian experience playing on screens in their neighborhoods.

Q: What kind of shape is the Canadian film industry in these days?

A: Around the time of Bill C-10 and other proposed funding cuts to the arts I was asked what killed Canadian film, and I said ‘You and I did because we didn’t go see them.’ Now, I’m happy to report, the industry is far from dead. The last while has been really good with filmmakers like Bruce MacDonald, Guy Maddin, Benoît Pilon and David Cronenberg making the best films of their careers and the future is bright. It’s hard making films in Canada, but as long as some kid picks up a camera in Victoria or Winnipeg or Newfoundland and starts making home movies in their basement there is a hopeful and exciting future.

Q: What have been some of the stranger experiences you’ve had while shooting Richard Crouse’s Movie Show?

A: Aside from Faster Pussycat Kill Kill star Tura Satana almost breaking my arm during an interview as she demonstrated a karate move on me, the strangest and most dangerous part of the job happened when I interviewed the cast of Twilight.

I had no idea how popular the movie Twilight was going to become until I interviewed the cast and then shot a stand-up on Queen Street in Toronto in front of hundreds of teenage girls, most of whom had waited in the rain all night to get a glimpse of the cast. While we were shooting I thought it might be fun to talk to them, so I walked over and mentioned that I had just interviewed Robert Pattinson, the movie’s heart throb. Two things happened. First there was a collective shriek—the kind only young girls are capable of producing—that made my ears ring for a week afterwards, and then they started grabbing at me, wanting to touch me because I had touched him. It was scary, but that little bit of hands-on market research taught me how popular that movie was going to be.

Q: Do you have a catch phrase or a slogan for the show?

A: I Watch Bad Movies So You Don’t Have To… I’ve been using that for a while now and the other day a guy yelled, “Hey, you watch bad movies so I don’t have to!” out of his car window as he passed me on the street, so I guess it’s catching on.