Richard and the “Canada AM” hosts Marci Ien, Beverly Thomson and Jeff Hutcheson play King Louie, Kaa, Shere Khan, Bagheera and Baloo as they lend their voices to “The Jungle Book” trailer!
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard’s CP24 reviews for Matt Damon in “The Martian” and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Pierre Petit in “The Walk.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“The Walk,” a new film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as French high-wire artist Philippe Petit, harkens back to an era when Evel Knievel was a superstar and human achievement wasn’t measured by how many Instagram followers you have. Even though we know how it ends—it’s a matter of historical record in the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary—the last half hour packs some vertiginous thrills.
Unsurprisingly of the story of a man who became famous for staging a 1974 tight rope walk between the world’s tallest buildings is unabashedly theatrical. When we first see Petit he’s setting up the story perched atop the Statue of Liberty with the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center looming in the background.
His narration is as straight and taut as a tightrope strung between two poles, walking through the narrative step-by-step. The story begins with the young Petit learning his trade at the feet of high wire maestro Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley), through to meeting his beautiful muse Annie (Charlotte Le Bon) and hatching a plan to illegally string a wire between the two towers and perform a walk on “the most spectacular stage in the world.”
“It’s impossible,” he says, “but I’ll do it,” and he does, with the aid of several accomplices, in spectacular fashion.
“The Walk” is based on a true story but presented as an urban fairy tale, the story of a man determined to show the world that anything is possible. It’s a tall but true tale. Gordon-Levitt swings for the fences with a big, exuberant performance. He’s high strung, charming and arrogant, the kind of guy who says, “For me to walk on the wire is life. C’est la vie.” He’s also a dreamer, a man whose passions demonstrate for the rest of us that art still has the power to instil wonder. It’s a lovely message told in a shambling way.
Director Robert Zemeckis takes his time getting to the walk. He treats the story as a procedural, although a whimsical one, that tries to slide by on charm for two thirds of it’s running time. It’s certainly the first major movie of the year to future mime, and just to make sure we get the dreamy, mischievous feel he’s trying to portray, lilting snippets of the “La Dolce Vita” soundtrack can be heard in an early sequence.
When he gets to the end, the ascent to the top of the tower and the walk itself, the film becomes a thriller with 3D visuals that should come with a vertigo trigger alert. Anyone with a fear of heights be warned, “The Walk” has a ‘You are there’ feel as soon as Petit takes his first step on the rope. It’s a beautiful, lyrical and visually stunning sequence that is worth the wait through the film’s slow start.
“The Walk” takes too many tentative steps in it’s first hour and is a bit on the money in its storytelling—for instance “I Want to Take You Higher” blares on the soundtrack when Petit sees the Towers in person for the first time—but Gordon-Levitt’s relentless charm offensive, Le Bon’s charisma and a breathless climax provide a tribute not only to the power of art to elate but also the to the buildings that set the stage for Petit’s feat.
Richard’s “Canada AM” reviews for Matt Damon in “The Martian” and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Pierre Petit in “The Walk.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard’s CP24 reviews for “We Are Your Friends,” “Cop Car,” “Learning to Drive,” and “Z for Zachariah.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard’s “Canada AM” reviews for “We Are Your Friends,” “Cop Car,” “Learning to Drive,” and “The End of the Tour.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
Ben Kingsley is an Academy Award winner and one of the most recognizable faces in movies. He is an actor, and a very good one but he prefers to be called something else.
“I’m sure I am a storyteller,” he says. “I’m sure that is the right place for my DNA to be.”
Whether he is playing Darwan in this weekend’s Learning to Drive or Mohandas Gandhi, Itzhak Stern in Schindler’s List or Sexy Beasts’ Don Logan, he strives to tell stories that get under the audience’s skin.
“Something happened to me and it stayed with me forever,” he says. “I had the privilege of playing Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company and I was walking and it was always in my head. It is a very all-consuming role.
“I was in Snitterfield, an open field just outside Stratford Upon Avon. A lovely young woman was on the opposite side of the field and seemed to be walking towards me, so I decided to tack to my right to avoid her feeling that I was intruding on her space. She tacked to her left. In other words, she mirrored me. Then I went the other way and she mirrored me. She was determined to meet me in the middle of this field. Then face-to-face, she said, ‘I saw Hamlet last night. How did you know about me?’
Something (I did) must have gone right in there (he points to his heart), straight through the sternum and said, ‘I know.’ That’s the connection.”
In his new film Kingsley makes a connection with co-star Patricia Clarkson. She plays Wendy, a divorcee who hires Darwan to teach her how to drive so she can travel to upstate New York to visit her daughter. As she learns to navigate Manhattan’s mean streets, they form a bond, teaching one another about life and love.
“I think in a really beautifully fashioned play or screenplay you have a feeling that the gods look down and say, ‘I’m going to bring you two together.’ I love that idea in mythology that the gods look down and send somebody to somebody. It is only through very unfortunate, heartbreaking circumstances that she finds herself in a taxi.
Heartbroken. I am driving a heartbroken woman. And I loved in the way, as in all great stories, the little coincidences are the gods guiding and bringing people together for some purpose. Here it is not for a great romance, it is to heal.”
The are driving lessons in “Learning to Drive,” a new film starring Patricia Clarkson and Sir Ben Kingsley, but learning how to parallel park or merge into traffic isn’t the point of the story.
Clarkson is literary critic Wendy, a recent divorcee who hires Darwan (Kingsley) to teach her how to drive so she can travel to upstate New York to visit her daughter (Grace Gummer). Still stinging from the separation she learns to navigate Manhattan’s mean streets, as the unlikely pair form a bond, teaching one another about life and love.
“Learning to Drive” is a Prius hybrid, a well-meaning movie that isn’t as flashy as other contemporary models. It is, however, a smooth ride, fuelled by the lead performances. The lessons learned aren’t revelatory—“It doesn’t matter what is going on in your life out there,” says Darwan, “you must shut it out. When you are at the wheel of a car, that is all there is. Your life right now.”—but because the characters are so compelling the simple metaphors kick into gear.
Clarkson is a live wire, a fiery woman torn between a lust for life and the shattering realization that in the wake of the divorce her life is unalterably changed. Kingsley brings warmth, vulnerability and charm that nicely mirrors her heartbreak.
“Learning to Drive” is a touching movie that isn’t so much about the destination—frankly that part is a mild let down—but about the journey and the words. The pleasure of the film is taking the trip and listening in to these two professionals deliver them.
“Self/less,” a new sci fi thriller starring Ben Kingsley and Ryan Reynolds, asks a simple question. What could geniuses like Edison, Einstein or Steve Jobs have done with another fifty years?
The story begins with New York real estate mogul Damian (Kingsley) living out his last days. He’s been enormously successful but not even his great wealth can stop the cancer that is eating him from inside. Or can it? A shadowy figure named Dr. Albright (Matthew Goode) sees him as a candidate for an expensive and exclusive process known as shedding—changing an old worn out body for a new one. The new bodies are grown in a lab and should provide decades more life for the intelligence and personality of the patients. On other words, one day you look like Ben Kingsley and after a short nap you wake up looking like Ryan Reynolds.
Along with the new body comes a new identity and a vow of secrecy. You have your old personality but a new life.
What could possibly go wrong?
There are some side effects. Hallucinations, which, it turns out are echoes from the new body’s former life. (MILD SPOILER) The carcasses aren’t test tube babies but bodies harvested from living donors. Damian is having flashbacks to a former life and his investigation leads to a large conspiracy that threatens not only his new life but the lives of everyone he knows.
“Self/less” is the kind of movie where the main character says things like, “I know you don’t have any reason to… but you have to trust me right now.” It’s the kind of standard thriller scripting that prevents “Self/less” from being a truly thought provoking story about identity and the ethics of playing God. Instead it’s a by-the-numbers psychological thriller that never gets more than skin deep.
Reynolds doesn’t disappear into the role. He’s not Damien, he’s not his host body, he’s Reynolds. Charming, yes, good looking yes, but never convincing as a man who feels trapped inside another person’s body. Because the center of the film doesn’t hold the rest of the drama flops around, unable to take hold.
“Self/less” is a handsomely shot movie—director Tarsem Singh also made the extraordinary looking “The Cell”—but suffers from a generic approach.
