Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the all-singing, all-dancing, all-powerful Genie in the live action remake of “Aladdin,” the wild and wooly “Booksmart” and a doc about the life and times of a Canadian legend, “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind.”
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By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
Once upon a time a movie princess was a damsel in distress, swathed in pink and jewels, waiting for Prince Charming to come to the rescue.
Lately, however, the movies have given us a different kind of princess, one who is more into grrrl-power than girly-girl. This weekend Disney helps redefine their traditional princess in their 56th animated feature film, Moana,
The thirteenth official Disney princess is inspired by Polynesian mythology. Sixteen-year-old Moana (voiced by newcomer Auli’i Cravalho) is a natural born navigator with a mystical connection to the ocean and all its creatures who goes on a sea quest to find a mysterious island. She’s high-spirited and adventurous, but as Maui (voice of Dwayne Johnson), reminds her, “You’re the daughter of a chief and you’re wearing a dress: you’re a princess.”
Moana isn’t the first movie to shatter the stereotype of the pretty pink princess.
“All these Disney heroines, the princesses, they’re a product of their time,” Maleficent screenwriter Linda Wolverton told the Associated Press. “The princesses created in the 1940s and ’50s, were the best of what a woman should be then: You’re the good girl. You took abuse and through it all, you sang and were nice. But we’re not like that anymore. We kick ass now.”
According to Roger Ebert, Ariel, the teenage mermaid princess of The Little Mermaid, “is a fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently, even rebelliously, instead of hanging around passively while the fates decide her destiny.”
In other words, she still marries her prince charming, but for the first time a Disney princess gave a lesson in independence and had a hand (or fin) in deciding her fate.
The success of that movie led to a new batch of princesses who were empowered and could look after themselves and others.
Jasmine, the daughter of the wealthy Sultan of Agrabah and the princess at the heart of Aladdin, didn’t fight off invaders but did do something that made her unique in the Disney princess world.
Tired of life in the royal palace, instead of waiting for rescue, the independently minded aristocrat made her own way, even deciding to marry a commoner rather than a prince.
Mark Andrews, the co-director of Brave, the story of a Celtic princess who rebels against her mother and escapes from castle life, calls the movie’s lead character “an anti-princess.” The Princess and the Frog’s Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose), the first ever African-American princess lead in a Disney film, is also an ambitious character in a way that would have been unthinkable in Snow White’s day.
More recently the phenomenally successful Frozen was the story of two royal sisters, the Princesses of Arendelle, Anna, a spirited adventurer, played by Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel’s Elsa, a cryokinetic queen with the awesome power to manifest ice and snow. Like Carrie, but colder. Both are powerful, determined women, but the real twist here is in the definition of the true meaning of love. There’s a male hero, but the real love on display here is between the two sisters.
When you thinks about movie princesses a few names come immediately to mind: Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora and Belle. This fab four have come to define what being a movie princess is all about. Or at least they used to.
Richard sits in with CP24’s Stephen LeDrew to discuss Robin Williams’s contributions to the big screen.
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By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
The first time I saw Robin Williams was on 90 Minutes Live with Peter Gzowski, a Canadian late night talk show that aired from 1976 to 1978.
Thirty-five years later, I can still remember the frantic burst of energy that emanated from my television that Friday night. Gzowski grinned as the comic careened through their chat, jumping from joke to joke, impression to impression, including Williams’s take on the world’s most intelligent child. “I find most adults very banal, but I’ll talk to you anyway.”
“Where did you get that character from?” Gzowski asked, “Was it based on anyone?”
“Me, basically. As a kid.”
“Were you brilliant as a child?”
“Yes, and as a young man, too,” replied the impish 27-year-old.
The stand up comedians I had seen on television wore suits and told one-liners. This was stream of consciousness, a wild look at a comedic mind that didn’t work the way I was accustomed to. For six minutes it felt like an alien had taken control of my TV, a life force like I had never seen before.
Appropriately enough, soon afterward he appeared as Mork, the extraterrestrial from Ork, on Happy Days and his career was officially launched.
For the next 35 years Williams was a constant on our screens, big and small. His first starring role in a movie, 1980’s Popeye, was met with critical scorn and a weak box office, but Roger Ebert had praise for the star, calling Williams’ “perpetual squint and lopsided smile” completely convincing.
Moving from strength to strength he embarked on a remarkable run of films, earning the first of three Best Actor Oscar nods for Good Morning, Vietnam and winning an Academy Award for his work as an empathetic therapist in Good Will Hunting. A handful of Golden Globes celebrated his work in Good Morning, Vietnam, The Fisher King and Mrs. Doubtfire.
He leaves a diverse legacy from the laughs of The Birdcage, to the drama of Awakenings,to the chills of One Hour Photo, the seize-the-day uplift of Dead Poets Society and the ad-libbed brilliance of Aladdin. Every decade since that appearance on 90 Minutes Live has given us a memorable Williams performance. He will live, on the screen at least, with three more films scheduled for release this year and next.
Everyone has a favourite Robin Williams character. For me its Parry, the treasure hunter in The Fisher King. It’s a funny, bittersweet performance in a movie that mixes fantasy and reality in equal doses.
“I’m a knight on a special quest,” Parry says, words that could apply to the comedian’s crusade to entertain in weird and wonderful ways.
“Canada AM” film critic Richard Crouse says news of Williams’ death is terribly sad, and tells the story of his first time seeing the actor.
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CP24 film critic Richard Crouse speaks with Rena Heer about Robin Williams’ career, the impact of his death, and how he will be remembered.
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Oscar-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams has been found dead in California from an apparent suicide.
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