Cineplex Entertainment’s Great Digital Film Festival is no doubt going to delight geeks, nerds and cinema buffs starting January 30th all across Canada. This year has a lot of comic book properties being played out and that shows where the direction of pop culture cinema is headed. With movies ranging from Dick Tracy to the X-Men, the latter is going to be a mega-marathon that will start from the latest film, Days of Future Past, and go backwards to the original — all happening on Saturday. For Dick Tracy, this year marks its 25th anniversary!
“The best way to see any movie, no matter what hands-down, is to see it in the theatre,” said Canada AM film journalist, Reel to Real co-host and author Richard Crouse. “I like seeing movies on the big screen — the way the director intended it…” READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
Film buffs who missed “Blade Runner,” “Alien” and the “Rocketeer” in theatres the first time around are getting a long-delayed chance for a do-over. Cineplex is bringing its national Great Digital Film Festival to Ancaster’s SilverCity from Jan. 30 to Feb. 5, showing 16 popular films released between 1979 and last year, at a ticket price of $6.99.
The festival’s roster hones in on action, sci-fi and cult favourites, most of them shot on celluloid film, before the industry began its ongoing transition to digital cinematography.
Festival programmer and film critic Richard Crouse says the trouble with showing older movies in theatres is that the film itself breaks down with time and use. By selecting older films that have since been released digitally, viewers get to see a picture that is as sharp as when it was first released.
“Often it’s difficult to find really crisp prints,” Crouse told The Spec on Thursday. “These films have been remastered. You’ll see them as they were meant to be seen…” READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
Richard sits in with legendary loudmouths Humble and Fred to talk about the Great Digital Film Festival, colon cancer, rating H&F’s caricatures, blasphemy and Humble’s addiction to yoga porn.
“The focus is to show great movies that haven’t been seen on the big screen for a long time — kind of in the way that they are best seen,” Richard Crouse, a film critic responsible for choosing the films screening at the festival, said. “The best way to see movies is to see them in the theatre with the picture and the sound that the director wanted you to see, and be surrounded by strangers who are laughing and crying and gasping and doing whatever it is that they do.”
The festival will bring a wide-selection of movies back into cinemas, including the entire X-Men series, Blade Runner, Alien and Aliens, Kill Bill and Pan’s Labyrinth… READ THE WHOLE THIKNG HERE!
This year, St. John’s will be participating in Cineplex’s annual Great Digital Film Festival. 2015 marks the sixth year of the festival, in which certain Cineplex theatres all over Canada screen a set of films spanning a variety of genres and years. This year’s lineup, playing from January 30 to February 5, includes selections from Alien all the way to X-Men: Days of Future Past. Behind the selections are Matt DeVuono and well-known film critic Richard Crouse, who spoke with the Muse before the festival.
Award season is a busy time for Crouse. When it comes to perhaps the most popular award show, the Oscars, Crouse believed there were certain notable snubs. In terms of the best picture nominees, he felt that The Lego Movie was overlooked. Crouse also noticed an underrepresentation of female directors… READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
Like most movie critics, Richard Crouse has strong and fairly predictable views of how to best watch films.
“The best way to see a movie is in a big dark room surrounded by strangers, watching it as big and loud as possible, they way that the director intended you to see it and hear it,” says Crouse, in an interview from Toronto. “I love sitting in a crowd of strangers, hearing them laugh or hearing them scream at something that scares them. Whatever the reaction might be, I really like being part of the community of all that.”‘
Which is a guiding principle for Cineplex’s Great Digital Film Fest, which will start on Friday at Scotiabank Theatre Chinook.
Crouse, an author and film critic who appears on CTV’s Canada AM and CP24, co-programmed the sixth annual festival with a focus on films that beg to be seen on a giant screen… READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
THUNDER BAY — Movies are meant to be seen on the big screen.
“For me the best way to see a movie is to see it on the big screen surrounded by strangers so you can listen as they laugh all at the same time or as they gasp in horror or whatever reaction they have,” said film expert Richard Crouse.
Crouse, who is Canada AM’s regular film critic, is participating in Cineplex’s sixth annual Great Digital Film Festival from Jan. 30 to Feb. 5 by interacting with fans on Twitter, answering questions and engaging in conversation on the classic and fan-favourite films chosen for this year’s lineup.
Thunder Bay’s SilverCity is one of the theatres that will be hosting the festival.
As a reviewer, Crouse has every closet and cupboard in his house filled with DVDs and Blu-rays, but he finds he doesn’t watch them that often.
“Given the choice, I’d always rather see something on the big screen,” he said, adding this festival is a way for him to see some of these films the way they were meant to be seen…” READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
Front Row Centre Events presents the Great Digital Film Festival for one week only, January 30 – February 5, 2015. Showcasing favourites in digital on the big screen. For select screenings Richard introduces the films on the big screen (that’s Richard shooting the intros at left) and you don’t want to miss the exclusive chat with Guillermo Del Toro on “Pan’s Labyrinth.”
The Great Digital Film Festival 2015 will take place on January 30 – February 5, 2015. Learn more HERE!
TOP THIRTEEN HITS (click on the title to see trailer)
1. 12 Years a Slave. There’s a key line near the beginning of “12 Years a Slave, “ the new drama from “Shame” director Steve McQueen. Shortly after being shanghaied from his comfortable life as a freeman into a life of slavery Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) declares, “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.” Based on Northup’s 1853 memoir the movie is an uncompromising story about will, suffering and injustice.
2. American Hustle. “American Hustle” is one of the year’s best. It’s an entertainingly audacious movie that will doubtless be compared to “The Wolf of Wall Street” because of the similarity in tone and themes, but this time around David O. Russell has almost out-Scorsese’d Scorsese.
3. Before Midnight. “Before Midnight” is beautifully real stuff that fully explores the doubts and regrets that characterize Jesse and Celine’s (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) love affair. Done with humor, heart and pathos, often in the same scene, it is a poignant farewell to two characters who grew up in front of us.
4. Blue Jasmine. Darker than most of Woody Allen’s recent output, “Blue Jasmine” doesn’t go for laughs—very often anyway—but is an astutely crafted psychological character study. Jasmine is a modern day Blanche Du Bois, a faded bright light now forced to depend on the kindness of strangers. Getting in her way are delusions of grandeur and a continued sense of denial—likely the same sense that kept her guilt free during the years the illegal cash was flowing—that eventually conspire to fracture her psyche. “There’s only so many traumas one can take,” she says, “ before you end up in the street, screaming.”
5. Captain Phillips. I don’t think it’s fair to charge audiences full price for screenings of “Captain Phillips.” While watching this exciting new Tom Hanks thriller I was reminded of the old Monster Trucks ads that bellowed, “You Pay for the Whole Seat but You’ll Only Need the Edge!”It a film about piracy and I don’t mean the sleazy guys who bootleg movies but the real pirates who were responsible for the first hijacking of an American cargo ship in two hundred years.
6. Dallas Buyer’s Club. In “Dallas Buyer’s Club” Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée has made an emotional drama that never stoops to melodrama. Instead it’s an inspirational film about standing up for what you believe in.
7. Frances Ha. The seventh film from “Greenberg” director Noah Baumbach isn’t so much a traditional narrative as it is a character study of Frances (Greta Gerwig), an underemployed dancer struggling to find herself in New York City. It plays like a cleaned up black-and-white version of “Girls”; an emotionally rich and funny portrait of twenty-something ennui. “Frances Ha” is a collection of details. There is an engaging story, but it’s not exactly laid out in three acts. It feels more intimate and raw than the usual twenty-ish crisis flick and with each detail we get another piece of the puzzle that makes up Frances’ life.
8. Fruitvale Station. It’s important to remember that “Fruitvale Station” isn’t a documentary. Director Ryan Coogler has shaped the movie for maximum heartrending effect, and by the time the devastating last half hour plays out it’s hard to imagine any other movie this year packing such a emotional wallop.
9. Gravity. “Gravity” isn’t an epic like “2001: A Space Odyssey” or an outright horror film like “Alien.” There are no monsters or face hugging ETs. It’s not even a movie about life or death. Instead it is a life-affirming movie about the will to survive.
10. Her. “Her” is an oddball story, but it’s not an oddball film. It is ripe with real human emotion and commentary on a generation’s reliance on technology at the cost of social interaction.
11. Inside Llewyn Davis. “Inside Llewyn Davis” is a fictional look at the vibrant Greenwich Village folk scene. Imagine the cover of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” come to life. Sharp-eyed folkies will note not-so-coincidental similarities between the people Llewyn meets and real-life types like Tom Paxton, Alert Grossman and Mary Travers, but this isn’t a history, it’s a feel. It gives us an under-the-covers look at struggles and naked ambition it takes to get noticed.
12. Nebraska. The humour doesn’t come in the set-up-punch-line format but arises out of the situations. A scene of Woody’s gathered family—his elderly brothers and grown sons—watching a football game redefines the word taciturn but the subject of the sparse conversation, a 1974 Buick, is bang on, hilarious and will likely sound familiar to anyone with a large family.
13. Wolf of Wall Street. “Wolf of Wall Street” makes for entertaining viewing, mostly because DiCaprio and Jonah Hill are able to ride the line between the outrageous comedy on display and the human drama that takes over the movie’s final minutes. Both are terrific, buoyed by the throbbing pulse of Scorsese’s camera. With its fourth wall breaking narration, scandalous set pieces and absurd antics “The Wolf of Wall Street” is an experience. At three hours it’s almost as excessive as Balfort’s $26,000 dinners. It feels a bit long, but like the spoiled brats it portrays, it will not, and cannot, be ignored.
TOP FIVE MISSES
TREND: Big stars don’t guarantee box office!
1. The Fifth Estate – Budget: $28 million, Global box office: $6 million, Return: 21% Late into “The Fifth Estate” Guardian investigative journalist Nick Davies (David Thewlis) says, “most good stories start at the beginning.” I argue that he’s right– about 99% of the time. Unfortunately this look at WikiLeaks and hacker-turned-whistleblower Julian Assange falls into the 1%.
2. Bullet to the Head – Budget: $25 million, Global box office: $9 million, Return: 36% With a name like Bullet to the Head you know the new Sylvester Stallone movie isn’t a romantic comedy. Although he paraphrases the most famous rom com line of all time, “You had be at BLEEP BLEEP!” the movie is nothing but an ode to testosterone.
3. Getaway – Budget: R180-million, Global box office: R105-million, Return: 58 percent. On a scale of zero to stupid, ”Getaway” ranks an eleven. It is what we call in the film criticism business a S.D.M. (Silly Damn Movie). OK, I made that last part up, but I couldn’t really think of any other category to place this movie under. Maybe E.S.D.M. (Extremely Silly Damn Movie).
