Posts Tagged ‘Carrie’

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY JUNE 17, 2016.

Screen Shot 2016-06-17 at 2.46.24 PMRichard and CP24 anchor Nneka Elliot talk about the weekend’s four big releases, including “Finding Dory,” the buddy comedy “Central Intelligence” with Duane Johnson and Kevin Hart, and a duo of documentaries, “De Palma,” an unflinching look at the films of Brian De Palma and the self explanatory “Raiders! The Greatest Fan Film Ever Made.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL REVIEWS FOR JUNE 10 WITH Todd van der Heyden.

Screen Shot 2016-06-17 at 9.36.51 AMRichard and CTV NewsChannel morning show host Todd Van der Heyden chat up the weekend’s big releases, including “Finding Dory,” the literary bio “Genius” with Jude Law and Colin Firth, and a duo of documentaries, “De Palma,” an unflinching look at the films of Brian De Palma and the self explanatory “Raiders! The Greatest Fan Film Ever Made.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

DE PALMA: 4 STARS. “a simple film about a complex subject.”

Screen Shot 2016-06-11 at 1.04.52 PMTracking shots. Split screens. Eighteen-minute Steadicam sequences. Visually spectacular set pieces. All are part of the Brian De Palma canon, but absent from a new, comprehensive look at his career. “De Palma,” a love letter to the director from filmmakers Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow, makes up for its lack of visual pyrotechnics with De Palma’s storytelling prowess.

“Many of movies were considered great disasters at the time,” says the director of “Phantom of the Paradise,” “Dressed to Kill” and “Body Double.” Now, decades after his commercial peak, many of De Palma’s films are considered classics. This new talking head documentary chronicles them all, warts and all.

From his early days as an indie filmmaker, working in the shadow of better known friends like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, to his critically reviled (“You are always being criticized against the fashion of the day,” he says.) but commercially successful period to a brief era when reviews and audiences lined up in tandem, he holds nothing back.

We learn how the director kicked “Scarface” screenwriter Oliver Stone off the set for talking to the actors, that in “The Untouchables” Robert De Niro wore the same kind of silk underwear Al Capone wore (“You never saw it but it was there,” says De Palma.) and how the studio loved the controversial “Body Double” “until they saw it.”

There’s more, told in De Palma’s bemused, colourful way—“I love photographing women,” he admits. “I’m fascinated by the way them move.”—but the real meat of the doc comes when he auteur talks about being a square peg trying to fit into Hollywood’s round hole. “The values of the system are the opposite of what goes into making good original movies,” he says.

“De Palma” is a simple film about a complex subject. “The thing about making movies is every mistake is right up there on the screen,” he says. “Everything you didn’t solve. Every shortcut you made. You will look at it for the rest of your life. It’s like a record of the things you didn’t finish.” It’s a master’s class not just in De Palma’s life and career, but also in how movies were made in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Metro: Introducing Chloë Grace Moretz: not your typical teen star

Screen Shot 2016-01-20 at 10.17.13 AMBy Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus

Eighteen-year-old Chloë Grace Moretz played a young vampire in Let Me In, a would-be superhero in Kick Ass and cinema’s most famous telekinetic, Carrie. It’s a diverse group of roles, but Moretz says she can draw a straight line from character to character.

“They’re linear,” she says, “in the sense that they’re all strong characters. A lot of them are like me, the basis of them. They all have a big mountain in front of them but they are going to climb it and fight as hard as they can.”

This weekend she stars in The 5th Wave, a world-under-attack sci-fi flick based on Rick Yancey’s young adult novel of the same name. Moretz plays Cassie and her “big mountain” is an alien invasion that devastates the planet, separating her from her younger brother. Can she find her sibling before the deadly 5th wave hits?

You’ll have to buy a ticket to find out. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that it is another spunky performance from the actress.

Over the course of a short but eventful career spirited characters have become her stock in trade. She has made a habit of playing people with rich lives swirling around them. For instance, she’s a sparkplug teenage prostitute in The Equalizer, a confused best friend to Keira Knightley in Laggies and a movie star with a scandalous life in Clouds of Sils Maria.

Here are her top three career defining roles:

Spunky: In If I Stay Moretz plays Mia, a gifted teenage cellist from a family of musicians. When a catastrophic accident throws her into a coma she has an out-of-body experience. The rest of the story is told from the perspective of her memories before the accident and in the present, as she observes, ghostlike, the aftermath of the car crash.

Here she delivers what may be her best performance yet. As Mia she is a talented teen just discovering a life beyond the cello that has been her constant companion since she was young. It’s a simple and uncluttered performance with a lot going on behind the eyes.

Spunkier: In the 2013 remake of Carrie she put her own spin on Stephen King’s most famous character, originally played by Sissy Spacek in 1976. Where Spacek was a true outsider, an abused, naïve girl, Moretz plays her with a bit more pluck. Both are Ugly Ducklings transformed into swans and then monsters, unwitting and undeserving victims of horrible abuse, but Moretz gives Carrie more backbone than her predecessor.

Spunkiest: Undoubtedly her signature spunky performance came in 2010’s Kick-Ass. If Quentin Tarantino made a kid’s coming-of-age movie it might look something like Kick-Ass. It has most of his trademarks — clever dialogue, good soundtrack and some high octane violence — but there’s a twist. The bloodiest, most cutthroat purveyor of ultra violence in the film is an 11-year-old girl.

The action scenes are plentiful and frenetic and once you get past the question, “Why would Chloë Moretz’s parents allow her to do this?” they’re really fun. It’s a little unsettling to see a young girl wielding a switchblade, gunning down dozens of bad guys and going hand-to-hand with a full grown man, but not since Natalie Portman in Léon has the screen seen such a sweet-faced assassin.

Chloë Grace Moretz on the common thread that connects Carrie and If I Stay

chloeBy Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

Seventeen-year-old Chloë Grace Moretz has played a young vampire in Let Me In, a would-be superhero in Kick Ass and cinema’s most famous telekinetic, Carrie. It’s a diverse group of roles, but Moretz says she can draw a straight line from character to character.

“They’re linear,” she says, “in the sense that they’re all strong characters. A lot of them are like me, the basis of them. They all have a big mountain in front of them but they are going to climb it and fight as hard as they can. The weakest character, but also the strongest character, I’ve played is Carrie. She is two different characters in one, so diverse and so dark. There is so much to learn from her.”

In her new film If I Stay, she plays Mia, a gifted teenage cellist from a family of musicians. When a catastrophic accident throws her into a coma, she has an out-of-body experience.

The rest of the story is told from the perspective of her memories before the accident and in the present, as she observes, ghostlike, the aftermath of the car crash.

The character appealed to her because she saw some of herself in Mia.

“She’s an introvert until she plays the cello and the cello brings her alive. It’s how I am. I’m pretty shy, unless I’m speaking about my job. I’m really shy around teenagers my age. Sometimes it’s because they judge me and it kind of scares me. Crowds scare me, teenagers scare me, new people. I get really quiet and awkward.”

With that insight, she hoped to make Mia true to the character created by author Gayle Forman in the bestselling book that inspired the movie.

“My biggest thing was making her honest to the book,” she says.

“I have been a fan of book series, and then I’ll see the movie and think, ‘That was such a let-down.’ I hate that feeling because for me, I want to be able to be a fan of my own work.”

The movie is a tear jerker, but Moretz says she doesn’t like it “when people chalk up a movie to being all about crying. I like to walk out of a movie feeling like I have learned something, that something’s changed.”

After seeing If I Stay, she hopes audiences “leave feeling they felt something. It is a really beautiful movie about life and death and happiness and sadness and music.

“It is a beautiful story — a moment in time that doesn’t really have any boundaries.”

RICHARD’S “CANADA AM” REVIEWS FOR OCT. 18, 2013 W/ MARCI IEN

Screen Shot 2013-10-18 at 9.37.38 AMFilm critic Richard Crouse sounds off on this week’s movie releases: ‘Carrie,’ ‘Fifth Estate,’ ‘Escape Plan’ and ’12 Years a Slave.’

Watch the whole thing HERE!

Carrie review: No reason to toy with a classic. Metro – Canada Reel Guys Oct. 18, 2013

00_18_scene_reelguys_md_lizSYNOPSIS: The third adaptation of Stephen King’s 1974 novel stars Chloë Grace Moretz as Maine high school outcast Carrie White, a lonely girl teased by classmates and abused by her deeply religious mother (Julianne Moore). Despite the best efforts of gym teacher Miss Desjardin (Judy Greer) to help Carrie fit in, a clique of mean girls led by Chris (Portia Doubleday) make it their mission to ensure that Carrie has a rough time at school. After being humiliated at her senior prom—pig’s blood will really ruin a taffeta dress apparently—she unleashes a terrible telekinetic vengeance on those who wronged her.

STAR RATINGS:

Richard: 2 ½ Stars

Mark: 2 Stars

Richard: Mark, people have been asking me about this movie for months. But they haven’t been asking, ‘Is it good?’ They’ve been asking me why anyone would remake the 1976 classic. After seeing it, I’m not sure. The new version is a perfectly serviceable adaptation of Stephen King’s famous book but it doesn’t have the vulnerability or frailty that made Sissy Spacek so memorable in the title role. First off, what did you think of Chloë Grace Moretz?

Mark: Richard, she’s the strongest thing in the movie. Although no one can compare to Sissy Spacek, she did an admirable job. The question isn’t whether this is a good film; it’s whether this is a necessary film. When I heard Kimberly Pierce would be directing this remake, I hoped she would bring some kind of post-feminist twist to it. But no, she didn’t direct the remake; she just colored within the lines.

RC: Agreed, but there are some good moments within those lines. There is a sweetness to Carrie, particularly in the prom scenes (pre pig’s blood) that makes the anticipation of what is to come all the more tense and I liked Julianne Moore’s head thumping self-punishment scenes. It works in those moments, but there’s too much CGI—the floating books are silly—and since when can Carrie fly?

MB: She can now! It’s just another example how everything in the movie is less subtle than in the DePalma version. The themes of religious and sexual repression-so shocking in 1976-seem overcooked now. But let’s pretend we know nothing of the original. Does the movie work? Sure, to an extent. The performances are good, the last third is exciting and full of blood and revenge, but it still feels a bit superficial and detached. None of my fingernails were harmed in the viewing of this production.

RC: Mine either, although a mother and daughter knife battle made me shift to the front of my seat mostly because it felt more organic and less computer generated than some of the other displays of Carrie’s mad telekinetic skillz. It felt dangerous in a way that the rest of the violence didn’t.

MB: And Julianne Moore does crazy very well, doesn’t she? Still, the script gave her some passages so clunky that even real-life maniac mamas would have demanded another draft

CARRIE: 2 ½ STARS. “pig’s blood will really ruin a taffeta dress.”

Carrie-Movie-Chloe-Moretz-650x406People have been asking me about this movie for months but they haven’t been asking, ‘Is it good?, they’ve been asking me why anyone would remake the 1976 classic.

After seeing it, I’m not sure.

The new version is a perfectly serviceable adaptation of Stephen King’s famous book but it doesn’t have the vulnerability or frailty that made Sissy Spacek so memorable in the title role.

The third adaptation of Stephen King’s 1974 novel stars Chloë Grace Moretz as Maine high school outcast Carrie White, a lonely girl teased by classmates and abused by her deeply religious mother (Julianne Moore). Despite the best efforts of gym teacher Miss Desjardin (Judy Greer) to help Carrie fit in, a clique of mean girls led by Chris (Portia Doubleday) make it their mission to ensure that Carrie has a rough time at school. After being humiliated at her senior prom—pig’s blood will really ruin a taffeta dress apparently—she unleashes a terrible telekinetic vengeance on those who wronged her.

Director Kimberly ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ Pierce has been more or less faithful to the flow of the book and Brian De Palma’s movie, but there are differences.

Where Spacek was a true outsider, an abused, naïve girl, Moretz plays her with a bit more pluck and I’m not sure it services the character. Carrie 2.0 still has a sullen look for the ages but she has more backbone than her predecessor and for me that eroded some of the tragedy of the story. Both are Ugly Ducklings transformed into swans and then monsters, unwitting and undeserving victims of horrible abuse, but Spacek’s take on the character brought more vulnerability to the character and that, for me, better underlined her deeply sad story.

Moretz’s best scene happens before the bloody revenge rampage. There is a sweetness to her in the prom scenes (pre pig’s blood) that makes the anticipation of what is to come all the more tense. Too bad the rest of the movie doesn’t hold that tension.  Also a mother and daughter knife battle made me shift to the front of my seat mostly because it felt more organic and less computer generated than some of the other displays of Carrie’s mad telekinetic skillz. It felt dangerous in a way that the rest of the violence didn’t.

Despite a slower-than-necessary pace, I liked Julianne Moore’s head thumping self-punishment scenes and Portia Doubleday’s take on the lead mean girl who takes just a bit too much delight in tormenting Carrie.

“Carrie” works in those moments, but generally there’s too much CGI—the floating books are silly—and since when can Carrie fly?

Carrie 2013: Hell has no fury like a woman scorned. Metro – In Focus October 16, 2013

CarrieThis weekend actress Chloë Grace Moretz will recreate one of the most famous sequences from 1970s cinema.

Years after the release of the 1976 Brian De Palma-directed Carrie, the movie’s impact was summed up by Esquire who wrote, “Like any top-tier, truly unforgettable scene in cinema [it’s] so well-known that you don’t even have to see it to know it.”

The image of the teenaged Carrie (Sissy Spacek), the victim of a cruel practical joke, dressed in her best Prom Queen outfit, wide eyed as pig’s blood covers her, dripping from the fake jewels on her tiara, has been referenced in everything from the sitcom Roseanne—daughter Darlene says the only way she would go to the prom is if she was the one sitting in the rafters with a bucket of pig’s blood—to the X-Files, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Scream, Gilmore Girls and even Veronica Mars.

The gore soaked scene also provided the inspiration for a sequel called The Rage: Carrie 2. In this unintentionally funny b-movie Rachel (Emily Bergl) is another high-schooler with the ability to make objects fly and explode with her mind. “Do not attempt to sit through this movie without a hefty supply of psychopharmaceutical drugs,” warned one critic.

Marginally better was Carrie, a 2002 television film meant to serve as a pilot for a proposed series. But that involved making some sweeping changes to the plot, including having Carrie survive the high school carnage and final run-in with her unstable mother. Bad reviews and poor ratings doomed this to the DVD delete bins.

From the screen to the stage Carrie provided the source material for an ill-conceived 1988 Broadway musical and several spoofs, including Scarrie! The Musical and Carrie’s Facts of Life, a mash-up of Stephen King’s story and the sitcom The Facts of Life.

All singing, all dancing versions of Carrie’s humiliation aside, the original film remains a horror touchstone, but don’t expect the new remake to be a carbon copy.

“The script is totally different from the [original],” Moretz told ET OnLine. “It’s more like the book. It’s a more Black Swan version – it messes with your mind.”

One thing is for sure, there will be blood—pig’s blood. Judy Greer, who plays Miss Desjardin in the new film, says the prom scene is “amazeballs,” adding, “It’s really totally jarring and creepy but also in a strange way gorgeous.”