Check out the Richard Crouse Show on NewsTalk 1010 for December 16, 2017! This week Richard has an hour long, spoiler free look at “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”
Here’s some info on The Richard Crouse Show!: Each week on The 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 find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favorite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Richard also lets you know what movies you’ll want to run to see and which movies you’ll want to wait for DVD release. Click HERE to catch up on shows you might have missed! Read Richard NewsTalk 1010 reviews HERE!
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A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at ”Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” the no-bull kid’s tale “Ferdinand” and the coming-of-age romance “Call Me By Your Name.”
One of the most famous quotes from the “Star Wars” saga must haunt the dreams of every director who signs on to make one of these continuing stories. “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” The “Star Wars” films aren’t simply a night out at the movies, they are part of the fabric of many people’s lives. Some take it VERY seriously. On a 2001 census 21,000 Canadians put down their religion as Jedi Knight. That is serious fandom.
Finding a balance between the nostalgia many aficionados hold for the iconic series and moving it forward in an entertaining and organic way is a juggling act, one that director Rian Johnson has pulled off in “Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi.”
Tried he did. Fail he did not.
Johnson, who has already been hired to pilot a new three-film “Star Wars” franchise, pushes the characters and the story into new territory while maintaining the gist of George Lucas’s vision.
Beginning immediately after the events of “The Force Awakens,” Force-sensitive Resistance fighter Rey (Daisy Ridley) is in the most “unknowable place in the galaxy,” the planet Ahch-To, home to the exiled Jedi Master (and Mister Miyagi stand in) Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). As she tries to convince him to train her in the ways of the Jedi, General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and her Resistance do battle with the First Order, lead by the evil Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) and his minions, General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and Vader-wannabe Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).
Like the other films “The Last Jedi” is basically a tale of good versus evil. Snoke wants control of the galaxy while the Resistance is exposed and fighting back. It’s an echo of the original story but our real world has become a more complicated place since the first movie hit theatres and this movie reflects that. There have always been grey areas and nuance in the portrayal of heroes and villains in the franchise but here Kylo wrestles with primal urges. His leader Snokes, eggs him on—“Kylo you are no Vader,” he taunts. “You are just a child in a mask.”—as he battles with the yin and yang of his personality. That to and fro gives Driver the latitude to surprise the audience in ways (NO SPOILERS HERE!) that may shock even the most hardened fans.
Johnson has not simply remade “Empire Strikes Back,” he’s made a film that bristles with energy and invention. With one eye on the past and one to the future “The Last Jedi” finds a winning mix of humour and humanity, of old and new and good and evil.
When the talk of resistance and legacy of the Jedi threatens to weigh things down Johnson counters with some comic relief. It’s a treat to see Carrie Fisher in her last turn as Leia—the film is dedicated to her: “In loving memory of our Princess Carrie Fisher”—and Hamill with light sabre in hand but it’s the spirit of the thing that will please audiences. Although a tad long, “The Last Jedi” is a giddy, gripping good time.
A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at Andrew Garfield’s romantic medical drama “Breathe,” the ice cold crime drama “The Snowman” and the controversial “Una.”
Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the Nordic Noir “The Snowman,” the romantic medical drama “Breathe” and the controversial “Una.”
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at Andrew Garfield’s romantic medical drama “Breathe,” the ice cold crime drama “The Snowman” and the controversial “Una.”
In “Breathe” Andrew Garfield plays Robin Cavendish, one of the longest-lived responauts in Britain history. It is, among other things, undoubtedly the bubbliest movie about polio ever made.
The opening moments of breeze are so unrelentingly chipper that as an audience member you just know the party will soon and in some sort of tragedy will happen. When we first meet Cavendish it’s 1958. He’s a young, vital man who falls in love at first sight with Diana Blacker (Claire Foy), a beautiful, rich woman he meets at a cricket match. It’s all sunshine and roses as they quickly fall in love, get married, get pregnant and move to Kenya to pursue Robin’s career as a tea merchant.
It’s a picture perfect romance until Robin’s health begins to falter. He’s short of breath, his limb ache. Soon he can barely stand. By the time he is diagnosed with polio he is paralyzed from the neck down. “The result is you become like a ragdoll,” Diana is told by the doctor. “He can’t breath for himself. The paralysis is irreversible.”
Grim news for the newlyweds. Given just three months to live Robin asks to be allowed to die but his doctors and Diana will hear nothing of it. Hooked up to a ventilator he lays motionless and despondent in a hospital ward waiting for the inevitable. Unable to find any joy in life he tries to push Diana away but she perseveres, visiting everyday.
Then the jaunty music reappears on the soundtrack and a smile returns to Robin’s face. The couple hatch a plan to move home so Robin can live out his final moments surrounded by the creature comforts of home. “No one, anywhere in the world with your husband’s degree of disability exists outside a hospital,” warns the doctor. Except that he does. In fact he thrives, living for decades, becoming an activist for disabled people and helping to design mobile life support machines to untether patients from their beds. “Do you see a creature who is barely alive,” he asks, “or a man who escaped the confines of a hospital board? I don’t want to just survive I want to truly live.”
“Breathe” breathes the same air as other indomitable spirit movies like “My Left Foot” and “The Theory of Everything.” The big difference is that this is a relentlessly upbeat film. “Are we plucky or pitiful” asks Diana. The answer is obvious but eventually there is something endearing, winning even, about its uncompromisingly buoyant tone. Perhaps that’s because director Andy Serkis paints the story as a love story rather than a medical drama or maybe it’s because of the winning performances from Garfield and Foy.
Garfield is ostensibly the lead but it is Foy who impresses. “The Crown” actress is the heart and soul of the story, providing a rock solid foundation for Garfield’s character.
“Breathe” doesn’t have the gravitas of “The Theory of Everything”—it spends too much time trying to wring all the emotion out of the story like tears from a sponge—but it does have compassion and heart.
A new feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at “War for the Planet of the Apes,” “Mermaids” and “The Little Hours.”
Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies the ape-tastic “War for the Planet of the Apes,” the fin-tastic “Mermaids” and the sin-tastic situation comedy “The Little Hours.”
Check out the Richard Crouse Show on NewsTalk 1010 for December 16, 2017! This week Richard has an hour long, spoiler free look at “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”
