Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to do a high five! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the transformational horror of “Wolf Man,” the resilience of “The Last Showgirl” and star power of “Back in Action.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV Atlantic anchor Todd Battis to talk about the transformational horror of “Wolf Man,” the resilience of “The Last Showgirl,” the star power of “Back in Action” and the life and times of David Lynch.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the transformational horror of “Wolf Man,” the resilience of “The Last Showgirl” and star power of “Back in Action.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In the new Netflix action comedy “Back in Action” Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz star as retired CIA spies drawn back into action when their secret identities, and quiet family life, is compromised. “I always knew you guys were lying about something,” says daughter Alice (McKenna Roberts), “but I never thought you were cool enough to be spies.”
CAST: Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Kyle Chandler, Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, Jamie Demetriou, McKenna Roberts, Rylan Jackson. Directed by Seth Gordon from a script he co-wrote with Brendan O’Brien.
REVIEW: After appearing together in the 1999 sports drama “Any Given Sunday” and 2014’s all-singing-all-dancing “Annie” remake, Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz reteam for the amiable Netflix action comedy “Back in Action.”
Tasked with pulling off a dollop of romance and large-scale action, all set against a backdrop of a “Married with Kids” style family comedy, the frequent co-stars bring versatility and charm to the predictable, but entertaining story.
Diaz, in her first movie in a decade, reminds us why she was such a commercial and critical success before she stepped away from the spotlight. Toggling between relatable mom and kick-ass spy, she delivers the funny and some high-flying action.
Foxx makes short work of Matt. Like Diaz, he makes the mix-and-match of action and comedy look easy and shares effortless chemistry with his co-star.
As the kids, McKenna Roberts and Rylan Jackson ably assist the headliners, with Jackson delivering some of the movie’s funniest lines. “They’re not criminals,” he says of his parents. “They belong to a pickleball league! They watch HGTV!”
Glenn Close shows a previously unseen flair for action (no spoilers here) and British comedian Jamie Demetriou takes a role we’ve seen before—a bumbling fool who aspires to greatness—and milks it for all it is worth.
It’s the characters and performances that make “Back in Action” a bit of distracting fun.
The movie itself delivers on its promise. There are laughs and a big action set piece every fifteen minutes or so, but, story wise, there isn’t much here we haven’t seen before. It plays a like a sequel to a movie that doesn’t exist, something that seems familiar, but you can’t quite put your finger on where you’ve seen it before.
“Back in Action’s” story may be as generic as its title, but although predictable, it’s still an old-school crowd pleaser.
There will likely not be a more melancholic movie this year than “All of Us Strangers,” a new, otherworldly study of grief, adapted from a Japanese ghost story by Taichi Yamada, that is grounded by real, earthbound emotion
Andrew Scott, best known for portraying James Moriarty in the BBC series “Sherlock,” and his role as the “hot priest” on “Fleabag,” is lonely screenwriter Adam. He lives alone in an abandoned London high rise, empty save for Harry (Paul Mescal), who lives on the sixth floor.
They meet when Harry, unannounced, arrives at Adam’s door with a bottle of whiskey. “I saw you looking at me from the street,” he says. “I’ve seen you a bunch of times, coming and going with your head down.” He’s fishing for an invite in, but Adam keeps the door between them.
Adam’s new project is a script set in 1987. To put himself in the right mindset he listens to music from the era, and makes a visit to his childhood home. There, he encounters the ghosts of his parents, played with warmth by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell. Killed in a car accident when Adam was twelve, they are stuck in 1987, while he exists in present day.
“You were just a boy,” says mom, “but now you’re not. You look different but it’s you. I thought you’d be hairier, like your dad.”
Visiting with these apparitions from the past provides a measure of closure for him, as he attempts to make up for decades of missed moments.
Back in London, he and Harry begin a relationship, the first meaningful connection of his adult life. “I’d always felt alone,” says Adam. “This is a new feeling.”
“All of Us Strangers” is a supernatural family drama, but it isn’t an “I see dead people” rehash. It is a chance for Adam to get to know the parents who left him, to tell them about his life, hear them tell them they love him and are proud of him, and possibly most importantly, get to say goodbye. It’s a work of melancholy, a study of one man coping with grief and loss, that is both gentle and devastating.
It’s never clear whether the parents are hallucinations, dreams or actual ghosts, but Scott’s contemplative performance renders that question moot. What’s important is Adam’s relationship to them, how they make him feel, not if they are real or not.
You may question what is real, and what is not throughout, but the individual moments—a father embracing his son for sins committed years ago, a mother’s comforting touch, Harry and Adam relaxing at home, happy and in love—feel real, and are by times moving, painful and utterly earthbound expressions of the power of love in the face of Adam’s unbearable loneliness.
“All of Us Strangers” is an intimate, haunting film that comforts and aches in equal measure.
This week on The Richard Crouse Show: Richard chats with “1917” co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns about tending bar, working with Sam Mendes and writing a film that is presented in one shot. Then he speaks to the two stars of the Fist World War story to discuss creating the characters and the challenges of shooting the epic film. Then we meet “Rise of the Skywalker” star Joonas Suotamo about playing the iconic Wookie character Chewbacca, and what it is like wearing the fur suit for ten hours a day and Yvette Nicole Brown who plays Aunt Sarah in the Disney+ version of “Lady and the Tramp.” They talk about adopting rescue dogs, wearing corsets and if Brown agrees that her character is the villain of the story.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Here’s some info on The Richard Crouse Show!:
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 Ethan Hawke, director Brad Bird, comedian Gilbert Gottfried, Eric Roberts, Brian Henson, Jonathan Goldsmith a.k.a. “The most interesting man in the world,” and best selling author Linwood Barclay.
Click HERE to catch up on shows you might have missed!
Richard sits down with Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay, the two stars of the Fist World War epic “1917” to discuss creating the characters and the challenges of the one-shot technique used to film the movie.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield (Captain Fantastic’s George MacKay) and Blake (Game of Thrones’ Dean-Charles Chapman) are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers—Blake’s own brother among them.
“1917” is a simple story of duty wrapped up in a high gloss technological package that delivers a vividly immersive look at life during wartime.
Designed to look like one continuous shot, the action in “1917” begins in the trenches of Northern France with two men, Lance Corporals Schofield (George MacKay) and Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), assigned a dangerous mission. With telephone lines down, their general (Colin Firth) dispatches the pair travel through No Man’s Land on foot to the front lines. If they can make it past the barbed wire, booby traps and German snipers, they are to deliver the message that the Germans have set a trap, enticing the unwitting British to attack. “If you fail,” says the general, “it will be a massacre.” If Schofield and Blake are successful they could save 1600 lives, including Blake’s Lieutenant brother (Richard Madden). But first they must travel through eight miles of the most dangerous territory on earth.
It’s easy to feel that “1917” is a gimmick film. In the opening scenes I found the continuous, one shot nature of the filmmaking a distraction. I kept wondering, “How is Sam Mendes doing this?” or looking for clever, surreptitious edits. It took me out of the story but once accustomed to the gliding camerawork by the legendary Roger Deakins I began to focus on the story’s tale of bravery and resilience and less on the trickery that created it.
The horrors of war are duly represented—there’s barbed-wire, dead, rotting bodies litter the landscape and a bombed-out town is nothing more than the skeletons of buildings—but “1917” doesn’t focus on that. This is a contemplative story of a mission and the men who sacrifice their own safety for the greater good. It highlights the ever-present danger of attack but it’s the character’s emotional journey that makes for the compelling story. Blake wants to stop his brother from walking into a trap while Schofield is driven by a sense of duty. Both men are working for the collective, which in our era of the individual, is a potent reminder of the importance of cooperative effort.
“1917” is a beautifully grim movie. Death lurks around every corner and the success of Blake and Schofield’s mission is never assured. Hope is a remote, elusive concept in the theatre of war but Mendes weaves in enough humanity—the relationship between the soldiers, a scene with a French mother and her daughter—to give us a window into the horrors of war.
Richard sits down with Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay, the two stars of the Fist World War epic “1917” to discuss creating the characters and the challenges of the one-shot technique used to film the movie.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield (Captain Fantastic’s George MacKay) and Blake (Game of Thrones’ Dean-Charles Chapman) are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers—Blake’s own brother among them.
