SYNOPSIS: In “Eleanor the Great,” the directorial debut of Scarlett Johansson now playing in theatres, June Squibb plays a woman who tells lies to fit in with a new group of people.
CAST: June Squibb, Erin Kellyman, Jessica Hecht, Chiwetel Ejiofor. Directed by Scarlett Johansson.
REVIEW: A story of loss and grief, “Eleanor the Great” gives 95-year-old star June Squibb the best role of her decades long career.
When we first meet Eleanor (Sqibb) she’s living in Florida with Bessie (Rita Zohar) her best friend of 70 years. Their husbands have passed, and the two are so tight they share everything, including a bedroom equipped with twin beds. When Bessie has nightmares of her time in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, Eleanor comforts her with conversation and tea.
When Bessie passes away, Eleanor she moves in with her daughter (Jessica Hecht) in New York. Lonely without her best friend, she attends a support group, unaware it’s for Holocaust survivors. A convert to Judaism, Eleanor is Jewish but grew up in the Midwest, far from the horrors of the Holocaust. Flustered when she is pressed to share her experience, she co-opts Bessie’s stories, telling them as her own.
When Nina (Erin Kellyman), a young journalism student takes an interest in her stories, the lie gets bigger than she ever could have imagined.
For her directorial debut Johansson tackles a touchy subject. The use of the Holocaust as a plot device and the essaying the ethical implications of Eleanor’s fabrications is daring stuff, but Johansson and screenwriter Tory Kamen use the story to study themes of grief, community and friendship. Eleanor’s telling of Bessie’s experiences is her way of keeping her friend alive, in memory anyway. It is a lie, and a hurtful one, but it is her misguided expression of grief for the loss of her closest friend.
Squibb hands in a feisty performance. Eleanor is quick witted, with a bit of an attitude, but she exhibits an emotional depth that conveys the heartbreak that fuels the events of the movie.
“Eleanor the Great” is a solid, if uneven debut for Johansson, but it provides Squibb with a career high.
SYNOPSIS: Based on Stephen King’s 2020 novella of the same name, “The Life of Chuck,” a new science fiction drama starring Tom Hiddleston now playing in theatres, begins as an apocalyptic drama but, by the film’s end, reveals itself to be a life-affirming look at the way we embrace the fleeting experience of life.
CAST: Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Jacob Tremblay, Matthew Lillard and Mark Hamill. Written and directed by Mike Flanagan.
REVIEW: Many people die in “The Life of Chuck,” the winner of the People’s Choice Award at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Young people, middle-aged people, old people. In fact, by the end of the film’s opening half hour, it’s suggested that everyone is a goner. And still, the film, adapted from a Stephen King novella of the same name, manages to be tearily life affirming in its compact hour and 45-minute run time.
Structurally “The Life of Chuck” is challenging, divided into three stand-alone, but related pieces.
It begins at the end with Act 3. Chiwetel Ejiofor is Marty, high school teacher and ex-husband of Felicia (Karen Gillan). As the world crumbles around them—California falls into the sea, the internet is gone, earthquakes and wildfires are ravaging most of the planet and entire species of birds and fish disappear overnight—they struggle to understand the billboards and TV ads that thank Charles “Chuck” Krantz for “39 Great Years” that suddenly appear everywhere. “It’s all Krantz all the time,” Marty says. “Anyone know who he is?”
Act 2 focuses on Chuck’s (Tom Hiddleston) adult life, including an afternoon spent dancing with a stranger in public.
Act 1 ties the segments together with a look at Chuck as a youngster and his introduction to the vagaries of life. “You contain multitudes,” says his teacher, placing her hands on either side of his head. “Isn’t that wonderful?”
“The Life of Chuck” is an eclectic film with an odd upside-down presentation, but its themes are anything but strange. A chronical of a life’s journey, it reveals, like Amanda Marshall sang, that everybody, even an “ordinary” accountant like Chuck, has “a story that’ll break your heart.”
A mix of memories, dance and family bonds paint an empathetic portrait of an everyman who, as Walt Whitman said, “contains multitudes.” Chuck is a surrogate for all of us, a microcosm of the inner universe of experience, emotions, and connection that give color to all our lives. And while the movie grapples with mortality, it’s not a downer. Instead, it’s a vibrant testament to the small moments that make up a life, and how small gestures can imprint on those around you.
Once you get acclimatized to the wonky backwards structure, director Mike Flanagan’s abstract commentary on life and legacy gels and the appreciation of life, even in the face of death, becomes clear. It’s sentimental, but never syrupy. It’s heartfelt but not overbearing. It is just like the character of Chuck: likable, multi-layered and nuanced.
On the Saturday June 7, 2025 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet magician and New York Times crossword constructor David Kwong. A Harvard graduate with a passion for the history of magic, he created “The Enigmatist,” an acclaimed theatrical show combining immersive puzzles and illusions that the Chicago Reader said, has one a-ha moment after another. David brings the show to Toronto at the Black Box Theatre until June 22. Get more info tickets at starvoxent.com.
Then, we’ll get to know Matthew Lillard, one of the stars of the new film “The Life of Chuck,” an adaptation of a Stephen King novella. You know him as Stu Macher in “Scream,” and became a household name as Shaggy Rogers in the live-action Scooby-Doo films. Today we talk about stepping into Stephen King’s world, especially in a non-horror story like The Life of Chuck.
Finally, we’ll meet Nashville-based, P.E.I. raised rising country artist Alli Walker, who was recently announced as the opener for Shania Twain’s Toronto show on July 16 at The Theatre at The Great Canadian Casino Resort. This marks Alli’s second time sharing the stage with Shania—following their viral moment at the 2024 Churchill Music Festival, where Shania invited Alli onstage to showcase her bagpipe skills, captivating millions online.
With a unique blend of traditional country sounds and pop/rock sensibilities, showcased in hits like “I Like Big Trucks,” “Creek,” and “Dirt On Us,” Alli has quickly become one of the most exciting voices in the genre.
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 Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
SYNOPSIS: Renee Zellweger returns as the title character in “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.” In this romantic comedy, now streaming on Prime Video, Bridget finds herself widowed with two children and a job as a television producer. Four years after the death of her beloved husband Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), she decides to restart her life, and meets a much younger man.
CAST: Renée Zellweger, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Leo Woodall, Isla Fisher, Josette Simon, Nico Parker and Leila Farzad. Directed by Michael Morris.
REVIEW: The general rule of thumb for sequels is that the further you get away from the source, the worse the movies get. The first cut is almost always the deepest, and while there are exceptions, by the time you get to the fourth movie and twenty-fourth year of a franchise, it’s all about diminishing returns.
One cinematic guest who hasn’t worn out their welcome, however, is Bridget Jones as played by Renée Zellweger. Since 2001 at the movies (and 1995 in Helen Fielding’s article and books) her quirky, and often messy, romantic adventures have entertained without a trace of sequelitis.
The new film, “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” sees Bridget restart her romantic life after the death of her husband. “It’s time to live,” she writes in her famous diary.
Of course, there are complications. It wouldn’t be a Bridget Jones movie without them.
The awkward Bridget never met an embarrassing situation she couldn’t amplify, and lip filler is definitely not her thing. Those slapstick moments provide the nostalgic blast of the old Bridget we’ve come to expect, as do cameos by series regulars like Hugh Grant, as aging playboy Daniel Stern (who teaches Bridget’s kids to make a cocktail called a Bad Mommy) and Dame Emma Thompson as Bridget’s friend and gynecologist, but this time around it’s the story’s more poignant aspects that resonate.
Bridget Jones has grown up, somewhat, and so have the movies. This time around there is a melancholy vibe, the result of Mr. Darcy’s passing, and Bridget’s difficulties navigating life as a single mother.
The callbacks to the other movies serve as a reminder of how long we’ve been part of Bridget’s life. And while “Mad About the Boy” is loaded with familiar jokes and echoes the first film in terms of its romantic entanglements (no spoilers here), it is in its examinations of what it means to move on and maybe even find happiness, without leaving the past and someone you love completely behind, that it tills fresh ground. It’s a welcome new chapter for Bridget and for those of us who have known her for almost a quarter century.
SYNOPSIS: In “Venom: The Last Dance,” the final instalment of the “Venom” franchise, and now playing in theatres, Tom Hardy returns as Eddie Brock, former investigative journalist whose body plays host to extraterrestrial symbiote Venom, whose presence imbues him with super-human abilities. Imagine an anti-superhero Jekyll and Hyde situation where Ed and Venom are a hybrid, two beings in one body, and you get the idea. Pursued by soldier Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), scientist Dr. Payne (Juno Temple) and powerful alien supervillain Knull (Andy Serkis), the dynamic duo are on the run to save themselves and the world. “Eddie,” says Venom, “I’m with you to the end.”
CAST: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach, Andy Serkis and Stephen Graham. Written and directed by Kelly Marcel.
REVIEW: More an interspecies bromance comedy than end of the world movie, “Venom: The Last Dance” is a frat party of a film, complete with swearing, booze, dancing and a disregard for the rules (in this case, the rules of storytelling).
Episodic in nature, the story ping pongs between the misadventures of Eddie/Venom, the military alien warehouse Area 51, the Paris Casino in Las Vegas and the back of a Volkswagen Westfalia Camper.
The disparate puzzle pieces fit together to form a fast paced, if disjointed, whole, but most often, the movie feels like it’s biding its time, waiting for the climactic battle scene, which, when it comes, takes up about a third of the film’s runtime with frenetic, often hard-to-follow alien-on-alien action.
For instance, the Volkswagen dwelling alien hunters, led by the ever-reliable Rhys Ifans, add little, except for a few minutes on to the film’s scant runtime. Ifans and family sing a song, but their musical contribution pales compared to their real purpose—to be victims in need of rescue in the film’s final moments.
The star of the show is the interplay between Eddie and Venom. It’s a smart-alecky double act, with Hardy playing Eddie as a bit of a bubblehead, and Venom as the reckless, sharp-tongued alien. It’s Abbott and Costello, housed in one body, with an extra-terrestrial twist.
The first two films in the franchise—“Venom” (2018) and “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” (2021)—often felt unintentionally funny. The new movie embraces the absurdity of the character(s) and, as a result, Eddie/Venom’s odd-couple bickering is the film’s highlight.
What it is not, is emotional. Their bond is played for laughs, up to, and including, a montage of their happiest moments together set to Maroon 5’s syrupy tune “Memories.” Don’t expect a poignancy or to shed a tear. There’s nothing wistful about the final outing between Eddie and Venom. It’s all fun and games until it isn’t.
“Venom: The Last Dance” is an action-packed time waster that zips through the story in just ninety minutes (plus an endless credit roll and two lame post credit scenes) to wrap up the current iteration of the character, while opening the door for future sequels.
The “Doctor Strange” movies are the trippiest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The mystical superhero’s introduction, 2016’s “Doctor Strange,” was a kaleidoscopic mix of images and ideas. The new film, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” starring Benedict Cumberbatch and now playing in theatres, kicks it up a notch. With a visual style that suggests M.C. Escher on an acid trip, it is a hallucinogenic ride that will make your eyeballs spin.
The action begins in Dr Stephen Strange’s (Cumberbatch) universe with the introduction of America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a teenager with the ability to navigate the multiverse and access portals into alternate realities. In the search for her parents, she has explored 73 universes, each with their own, unique sets of rules, all the while pursued by a demon who wants to steal her powers.
This is not sorcery, Strange says. As old Blue Eyes once sang, it’s witchcraft, so who better to consult than Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), former Avenger and powerful practitioner of witchcraft?
He’s looking for advice that will help him save America, but instead is sent off on a wild and dangerous trip into a series of alternate realities to fight a power that threatens to subjugate the entire multiverse.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” begins with a bang. A loud and proud action scene kicks things off with an exaggerated H.P. Lovecraft creature terrorizing Chavez. It sets the wild and wacky tone that applies to most of the picture. A mix of action, horror and comic book comedy, it recalls the sweet spot that made director Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” movies such a blast. Raimi brings a kind of anarchy here that is missing from the carefully controlled Marvel films and when it is fun, it’s really fun. There’s even a battle of the bands, a musical showdown, that is equal parts ridiculous and rad.
But there is much more to the story than interdimensional shenanigans.
At its heart “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” isn’t a story about magic, it’s a tale about the things we do for love. Whether it is Wanda’s search for family, ably brought to life by Olsen’s poignant performance, or Strange’s attraction to Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), this story has a strongly beating heart.
Unfortunately, it also has a bumpy, uneven script. As it careens toward the Marvel friendly climax it loses steam as the action becomes muddied and the script begins to sew up any loose ends left dangling across then universes.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” doesn’t have the weight of “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” another recent examination of the multiverse, but despite its unevenness, it’s a good, and sometimes gory, time at the movies.
“The Old Guard,” a new superhero flick starring Charlize Theron on Netflix, has the earmarks of an action flick, but brings the genre kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century by focusing the story on not just one, but two female characters.
Theron channels the dark side that made her characters in “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Atomic Blonde” so compelling. She’s Andy, a tough-as-nails immortal mercenary with the power to heal herself, no matter how deep the wound. “She has devised more ways to kill than entire armies will ever know,” says unkillable sidekick, and former soldier for Napoleon, Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts). For centuries they have fought the good fight—depending on which side you take—along with Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli), sticking up for the maltreated and oppressed. “Through history, we’ve protected this world,” says Andy, “fighting in the shadows.”
In modern day they come across Nile (KiKi Layne), a Marine who shares their “extremely rare skillset.” “She stabbed me,” Andy says admiringly, “I think she has potential.”
Nile is the first of their kind they have come across since 1812 and soon they recruit her to join their ranks. “You haven’t figured this out yet?” Andy asks her. “You can’t die.” At the same time a mad-scientist big pharma type (Harry Melling) sets his sights on them as lab rats in his experiments to find a cure for death. “If we can unlock their genetic code, the entire world will be begging us for the key.”
“The Old Guard” is an action film, with carefully staged and exciting fight scenes, but first and foremost it’s a set-up for a franchise. Like an action-packed trailer for a movie it teases the possibility of the next film. The origin story is talky, illustrated by flashbacks, while the main plot is resolved quickly in a hail of bullets and a few swings of an axe. Then the set up begins, as they hint at further adventures. Trouble is, I’m not sure “The Old Guard’s” appeal is as immortal as its characters.
Theron and Layne are strong characters who deliver in the fist-to-the-face action department, but the movie doesn’t let them shine. As mentioned, the fight scenes are well staged but their relationship is never fully developed. Everyone, except for Melling who appears amped up on something he didn’t share with the rest of the cast, is on a slow simmer which gives the movie a laid-back vibe which doesn’t spark interest.
“The Old Guard” does a good thing by placing two women at the center of an action movie but the all-set-up all-the-time script doesn’t do the characters or the movie any favors.
A fitting tag line for the new, photo-realistic “The Lion King” would be something along the lines of, “You will believe a meerkat can sing! And lions too!” The good folks at Disney and director Jon Favreau have created computer-generated animals that chatter and sing like high-tech Mr. Eds but does it improve on the original or is it a deepfake copycat of the 1994 classic?
Beat for beat the story is familiar. We see young Simba, the lion prince voiced by JD McCrary as a cub, then by Donald Glover as a full-grown king of the jungle, presented to his tribe by proud parents Mufasa (James Earl Jones) and Sarabi (Alfre Woodard). One day the Pride Lands, everything the sun touches, will be his (“It belongs to no one,” intones Mufasa, “but it will be yours to protect.”) unless his evil uncle Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who feels he is the rightful heir, has his way. After an attempt or two to jump the succession queue Scar succeeds, manufacturing the ultimate betrayal of his brother and nephew. Simba, riddled with guilt, wrongly thinking he caused the death of his father, goes into exile. “The king is dead,” Scar hisses, “and if it weren’t for you he’d still be alive. A boy who killed a king. Run-away Simba and never return.”
The young cub finds his way into the arms of a brave warthog Pumbaa and wise-cracking meerkat Timon (voiced by Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner). They teach him the philosophy of “Hakuna Matata”—essentially, “Turn the ‘WHAT!’ into ‘So what.’”—and how to survive without eating them or any of their friends. When Simba’s childhood girlfriend Nala (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter) brings stories of how Scar and his hyena henchmen are destroying the Pride Lands with over hunting and cruelty, Simba returns to reclaim his rightful birthright.
The photo-realistic look of “The Lion King” resembles one of those Disney nature documentaries. The visuals, made up of bits and bytes, are remarkable in their life-like appearance but ultimately feels like a triumph of technology over emotional storytelling. The Shakespearean narrative arc of the story still reverberates with echoes of “Hamlet” but with the realism comes less nuance in expression. Simba and Nala look like lions who have learned to speak but the character work, a raised eyebrow or a scrunched face, the things that make characters really come alive, is missing. They sing and dance but their faces are weirdly without the joy that should come along with their actions. Favreau takes pains not to anthropomorphize the animals any more than necessary but in staying faithful to the innate inspirations for the characters he misses something crucial, the human element that connects with the audience.
The intense scenes, particularly the death of the patriarch, may be too intense for younger viewers. The animated version was one thing but the hyper-realistic version of events is horrific the first time we see it and even more-so in flashback.
The voice work mostly works. It’s a pleasure to hear James Earl Jones’s dulcet tones and the inclusion of African actors like John Kani, who plays the mystical mandrill Rafiki, is a very comfortable fit in the film’s soundscape. Rogen and Eichner provide some much-needed comic relief and enliven any scene they’re in.
The songs will be familiar to “Lion King” fans, although they appear in altered form. “Hakuna Matata” and “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” brim with fun but two of the original film’s best-known songs—Scar’s “Be Prepared” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”—have been reworked. Scar’s song is underplayed while “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” is, for no good reason, set during daylight hours.
“The Lion King” is a stunning technical achievement, but feels like a risk-free exercise in nostalgia that will entertain your eye but likely won’t engage your heart.
In an unconscious way Rachel McAdams has been preparing to play Dr. Christine Palmer in Doctor Strange her whole life.
“My mother is a nurse,” says the London, Ontario born actress. “She is a very compassionate kind of nurse and Christine is sort of that way as a doctor. She has excellent bedside manner as opposed to Doctor Strange. I took a page from my mom.
“I’ve been talking to her about it for my whole life. She brought her job home sometimes. I picked it up over the years.”
Doctor Strange, the fourteenth film in the Marvel Universe aims to introduce you to the neurosurgeon, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who goes from saving lives to saving planets. Trauma surgeon Dr. Palmer is his ex-girlfriend but still a constant in his life, and later, when things get mystical, his anchor to the real world.
“It’s a much less typical love trajectory,” she says of their connection. “I think because we had so few scenes to establish our relationship it was a better jumping off point. We had a lot more subterranean life and a much richer history for the characters.”
In the comic books Christine Palmer is a very different person than the one McAdams brings to life on the screen.
“She is an amalgamation of a couple of characters,” she says. “It gave us a lot of creative freedom. We were inventing something. I kind of looked at the comic books more for the flavour of the world and Doctor Strange himself and less so for my character.”
McAdams’s nurse mother may have helped the actress access the emotional side of playing a doctor, but what about the practical stuff, like tying a suture?
“This great neurosurgeon we had on set with us taught us how to sew up a raw turkey breast,” she laughs. “I guess it’s the closest thing to a real live human being, Poor turkey. Then I used oranges, which were easier to carry in my purse. Better smell too. I also had a fake head to practice on. It was kind of like knitting. I would take the suture stuff around, put it on a light stand while we were shooting and practice. I still have sutures on my doorknobs. Haven’t gotten around to cutting them off yet.
“I was really nervous about it because I thought it was going to take forever but it is just one of those thing that one you get the hang of it it’s kind of fun to do.”
The result of all her work is a movie she calls “an ambitious film on the page that I think ticks a lot of those boxes for people are hoping for when they go see a big, blow-out Marvel film. There’s also a quiet deep emotion that runs through it that may catch people off guard.
“I find it hard to get swept away by a film I am in,” she adds, “because I look at it differently, but I actually jumped at one point in my own scene. My friends were laughing. ‘You knew that was coming!’ I know, but I was wrapped up in it.”
