Richard joins Ryan Doyle and Jay Michaels of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show The Rush for Booze and Reviews! Today he talks about the Death in the Afternoon, a drink that sprung from Ernest Hemingway’s legendary liver, the Death in the Afternoon, the new “Velvet Underground” documentary, the latest from Michael Myers “Halloween Kills” and the reason Andrew Lloyd Weber bought a comfort dog.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard and CTV NewsChannel morning show host Jennifer Burke chat up the weekend’s big releases including the relentless return of Michael Myers in “Halloween Kills,” the emotional family drama “Mass” and the rock ‘n’ roll documentary “The Velvet Underground.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Keeping track of the storylines of the various “Halloween” movies and their sequels can be a mind-bending experience. Forty-three years ago the original John Carpenter-directed movie established many of the rules of the slasher genre, and spawned a prolific franchise that so far has churned out an additional 11 movies detailing unstoppable masked killer Michael Myers’ penchant for killing good looking teenagers.
There have been reboots, returns, prequels and sequel to remakes. Laurie Strode, the original film’s heroine played by Jamie Lee Curtis, has faked her own death, gone into hiding, decapitated, shot and stabbed Myers and yet, a new movie, “Halloween Kills,” featuring Strode and Myers, hit theatres this weekend.
Director David Gordon Green gets around the labyrinthine comings-and-goings of the mad masked killer by simply ignoring the movies made between 1981 and 2009. His 2018 film, “Halloween,” is a direct sequel to the 1978 film of the same name.
Confused? No need to be.
All you really need to know is that after an extended flashback to 1978, it’s Halloween night in Haddonfield, Illinois, and the action picks up minutes after the 2018 sequel. Michael Myers, the “essence of evil,” is in the basement of a burning house, trapped there by Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). The nightmare should be over, but this a “Halloween” movie which means the nightmare will never be over. Myers manages to escape and, as he resumes his killing spree, Laurie, her family and some motivated townsfolk aim to end his reign of terror. “You and Allyson should not have to keep running,” Laurie tells Karen. “Evil dies tonight.”
The best horror movies are never about the monster or the killings. That’s the gooey, gory stuff that keeps us in our seats, ready to absorb the larger social messages woven into the script. “Halloween Kills” wants to make poignant, timely points about how anger divides us and fear keeps us apart, but, trouble is, “Halloween Kills” is not one of the better horror films.
Far from it.
It is brutal. Michael Myers is as unrelenting and remorseless as ever, maybe even more so. Green’s interesting POV shots of the victims coupled with nasty, squishy sound effects provide several memorable moments of gory glee that horror fans will enjoy. Slash, slash, squirt, squirt! Oh my! He’s got blood on his shirt!
The first half of the movie offers up rather inventive kills. It’s fun when Myers is onscreen, lumbering his way toward another victim. Unfortunately, it’s less fun when the vigilante mob endlessly chants “evil dies tonight.” We get it.
And everything else about the plot.
For such a simple story, they sure do waste time explaining the same points over and over. Add to that over baked dialogue—”Let him take my head,” Laurie sneers, “as I take his.”—and a too-long running time and you’ll be wishing it was already November 1.
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
Topher Grace doesn’t need me to put words in his mouth, but in this one instance I’m going to.
I recently sat down with the former That ’70s Show star to talk about his new Netflix movie War Machine. Based on the Michael Hastings New York Times bestseller The Operators, it fictionalizes the real life career implosion of General Stanley McChrystal, Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan. An article in Rolling Stone that reported on the McChrystal’s disappointment with Obama and his policies undid the General’s distinguished career. In the film he is renamed Gen. Glen McMahon and played by Brad Pitt, who also produced the film.
“What I love so much about the film [director and writer David Michôd] made,” said Grace, “and it was in the script but I really felt it when I saw the film, is the emotional journey. That is so hard to get into a war movie. Anyone who is willing to watch it understands it on an emotional level, which is a much more effective way to communicate to the audience than just using facts.”
Here’s where I chime in. “I think that when you have a very specific story it can become universal because of the emotions,” I said. “None of us will find ourselves in that particular situation but all of us, at some time in our lives, will end up in a mess of some kind. It’s relatable.”
“That’s what I meant to say,” said Grace with a laugh. “Can you quote yourself and use that?”
Consider it done.
Grace plays Matt Little, McMahon’s civilian press adviser. He’s young, brash, and according to Grace, not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
“What is the definition of an idiot?” he asks. “Is it knowing you don’t know but still going ahead anyway? I don’t think it is, but that’s who he is.
“On the first day I popped my collar up and the military advisor said, ‘They don’t do that in the military.’ The director said, ‘No, no, no! He’s playing an idiot. He would totally have his collar popped up.’ He’s a civilian and he doesn’t even really care about the war going on.”
The thirty-eight-year-old actor says despite the story’s timely nature and the inclusion of a character based on recently disgraced National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, the film isn’t political.
“I want people to check their politics at the door and take the emotional ride of what it would feel like to be in that position.
“The really cool thing is that it is not an American telling the story. David is a great talent out of Australia and no matter what he brings a non-American POV. The fact that it can be that heightened in terms of humour at some points and so real when they are out on the battlefield is really great. He told me he wanted to make a war film before Brad’s company sent him the book but he couldn’t think of a way to do a war film that didn’t glorify war. This does not glorify war.”
It may not be political but Grace says it is timely.
“We made it in Obama’s America,” says the thirty-eight-year-old actor. “It’s crazy releasing it now. It is timelier than when we shot it. I haven’t been on a lot of projects that were like that.”
Rusty Griswold may have grown up but the humor of the movies that made him famous hasn’t. “Vacation” is a reboot of the “National Lampoon Vacation” series that featured Chevy Chase as the hapless patriarch, Beverley D’ Angelo as his wife, daughter Audrey (played in different movies by Dana Barron, Dana Hill, Juliette Lewis and Marisol Nichols) and Rusty (played variously by Anthony Michael Hall, Jason Lively, Johnny Galecki and Ethan Embry in different movies).
In the new film Ed Helms plays Rusty as a sweet-natured adult, father to James (Skyler Gisondo) and Kevin (Steele Stebbins) and husband to Debbie (Christina Applegate). The family is falling apart and on the eve of their usual summer holiday, a boring trip to a camp that everybody hates, Rusty decides to try something different to bring his family together, a recreation of a childhood road trip with his parents to Walley World.
Anyone who remembers the original 1983 film knows the 2500-mile trip turned into a vacation from hell. It seems Rusty learned nothing from his father’s ill-fated journey. “From the moment we left nothing has gone right,” says Debbie. “Can’t you just admit this was a mistake?” From an angry GPS and a menacing trucker to an inappropriately well-endowed brother-in-law and an open sewer, the trip is fraught with problems.
If not for certain brand of anatomical humour “Vacation” would be about 12 minutes long. Remove the swearing and jokes about sexual acts—Wait! Don’t forget the bodily functions!—there wouldn’t be much going on here. Not that I’m a prude. Far from it. Some of it is genuinely funny. It hits many of the same notes as the original—the father’s verbal break down the extremely unseemly relatives (Leslie Mann and Chris Hemsworth)—but doesn’t have the same good-natured feel. It tries hard to inject some heart into the story in the last half hour but up until then is rough around the edges. Need convincing? Check out the fate of the pretty motorist in the sports car.
Co-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have a tendency to give away the jokes too soon, but Helms and cast sell the jokes, no matter how raunchy. Particularly good are Gisondo as the sensitive son James and Hemsworth who displays an until now unseen sense of comic timing.
Ultimately “Vacation” is about bringing the Griswold family back together, but it’s not a family movie.
