Did you love “Halloween III: Season of the Witch”? Wipe it from your memory. What about “Halloween H20: 20 Years Later”? Fuhgeddaboudit. How about “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” or any of the other masked killer films that came after John Carpenter’s 1978 slasher classic? They don’t exist. When you lay down money for a ticket to the new “Halloween” you are erasing four decades of slashing and dashing and seeing a direct follow-up to the original film.
Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode, the resourceful babysitter who, forty years ago, bravely stood up to masked killer Michael Myers (Nick Castle). The intervening years have seen her raise her now estranged daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and live in a home fortified with booby-traps in case Myers should reappear. “He’s waited for this night,” she says. “I’ve waited for him.”
At the beginning of the film Myers—known as ‘The Shape’ in the first movie—is still paying the price for killing his teenage sister Judith and the subsequent slaughter of four others. Tucked away in Smith’s Grove Sanatorium he is silent, a man who hasn’t spoken since committing his first murder at the age of six.
When Aaron Korey (Jefferson Hall) and Dana Haines (Rhian Rees), two British true crime podcasters, try to pry and interview out of Myers they arrive just before the Bogeyman escapes on October 31, 2018, put on the famous mask and reboot his killing career with an eye toward the one victim who got away all those years ago.
The 1978 and 2018 movies share more than a title and a leading lady. They share structural DNA and frights galore. The 2018 film feels fresh, timely and like a throwback to the moody low-fi scares of the original slasher flicks.
Castle is as eerie as always but it is Curtis who steals the show. Strode is grown up, suffers from PTSD and by her own words is “a basket case.” What she is not is broken. “I prayed every night for him to escape,” she says, “so I could kill him.” The trauma of 40 years ago has hardened her but she’s a warrior and a survivor who uses the great personal price Myers extracted from her as fuel to keep going. It’s tremendous stuff and in the #MeToo era the kind of heroine reclaiming her power that should make audiences cheer.
“Halloween” is both a reboot and a bloody love letter to the director who started it all, John Carpenter.
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk about “Halloween,” the bloody love letter to the director who started it all, John Carpenter, the film Robert Redford says may be his swan song “The Old Man and the Gun” and the political comedy “The Oath.”
Welcome to the House of Crouse. It’s a packed show. Jake Gyllenhaal, Tatiana, Miranda Richardson and Jeff Bauman, the real life inspiration for “Stronger” swing by to talk about their take on the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013. It’s is not the story of a bomb or the radical politics that saw it planted at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. It’s the story of the aftermath and one man’s inspirational recovery. Then “Battle of the Sexes” directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton come by to talk about why Billie Jean King is such an important thread in our cultural fabric. It’s all good stuff, so c’mon in and sit a spell.
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 Billie Jean King and retired pro Bobby Riggs in “Battle of the Sexes,” Taron Egerton’s stylish spy thriller “Kingsman: the Secret Circle” and the Jake Gyllenhaal real life drama “Stronger.”
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at about Billie Jean King and retired pro Bobby Riggs in “Battle of the Sexes,” Taron Egerton’s stylish spy thriller “Kingsman: the Secret Circle” and the Jake Gyllenhaal real life drama “Stronger.”
People call Jeff Bauman a hero but it’s not a label he enjoys.
“I don’t like being called a hero,” he says. “In my eyes, there are heroes I look up to, the people who saved my life, the caretakers, my surgeon and my wife, the love of my life. She’s my hero. I lost something but my heroes picked me up.”
Jake Gyllenhaal plays Bauman in Stronger, the story of the man whose life changed the morning of April 15, 2013. Bauman, while waiting at the Boston Marathon finish line for his ex-girlfriend to finish the race, was standing next to one of the Boston Bombers. Gravely injured after the blast he was rescued by a stranger in a cowboy hat and rushed to the hospital where both his legs were amputated above the knees. The tragedy thrust Bauman into the spotlight, making him a reluctant beacon for the Boston Strong movement.
“Through a number of circumstances the movie was hard to get made,” says Gyllenhaal who also produced the film. “Number one, movies like this, stories like this, aren’t being told as much. There is a real balance in this movie of humour and a certain type of depth that I think tonally can confuse people who want something that seems a little simpler.
“I think also, in a lot of ways, when they heard about this story people thought it was too soon or who wants to make a movie out of that event. In truth, the movie is not about the event at all. That’s why I loved it.”
Stronger is not the story of a bomb or the radical politics that saw it planted at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. It’s the story of the aftermath and Bauman’s inspirational recovery.
“The thing that is most important to me is that people see this movie,” says Gyllenhaal. “We have always been that movie that has a little of that underdog spirit. It has been a long and pretty incredible journey. I just want people to see it because I think today there are so many hard things happening in the world and Jeff’s story sort of proves to people that they can keep going, that they can take another step. That they can survive that minute or that second or that hour that they don’t think they’ll be able to get through. He is a beacon for that and I want people to see that.”
Bauman says he’s proud of the movie but says watching it for the first time was “sensory overload” as it forced him to relive the worst moment of his life.
“I cried a lot,” he says. “I kind of just went, ‘I want to go home afterward and go to sleep,’ and I did. I went home and went to sleep. The next day things hit me a little bit more. It’s emotional for me.”
Bauman may not want to be called a hero, but Gyllenhaal, who became close with the Boston native during he making of the film, says, “A lot of people have asked me over my career: ‘When are you going to play in a superhero movie?’ I feel like I finally kind-of have. To me, that’s how I feel about him. He’s a total inspiration to me.”
“Stronger” is not the story of a bomb or the radical politics that saw it planted at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. It’s the story of the aftermath.
When we first meet Jeff Bauman (Jake Gyllenhaal) he’s a goofy, out-going 28-year-old guy working as a chicken roaster at Costco. The only thing he loves more than the Red Socks is his ex girlfriend Erin Hurley (Tatiana Maslany), an uptown girl who is running in the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. The night before the run he bumps into her. “I suffered an industrial chicken related accident today,” he says, flirting, “but I’ll be there at the finish line for you.”
History reports what happened next. Bauman, standing next to one of the Boston Bombers, was gravely injured. Rescued by a stranger in a cowboy hat (Carlos Sanz as Carlos Arredondo) he is rushed to the hospital where both his legs are amputated above the knees.
The tragedy shines a spotlight on Jeff who becomes a reluctant beacon for the Boston Strong movement. Released from hospital a hero, as he struggles to learn how to navigate his new body, Erin re-enters his life, drawn by love and guilt for being the reasons he attended the race. As that relationship blossoms and the city embraces him, Jeff grows uneasy, plagued by PTSD. “I don’t want to relive the worst day of my life,” he says.
As he grapples with fame, a mother (Miranda Richardson) who lives vicariously through his newfound celebrity, his relationship with Erin becomes strained. It isn’t until he reconnects with Carlos, the man who saved his life, that Jeff begins to piece together the broken shards of his life.
Because we know the story of the Boston bombing so well, tension builds soon as the marathon scene begins. A man with a backpack, ball cap and shades bumps into Jeff, signalling what is to come but this isn’t an action movie. It is strongest when it gets to be emotional care of the film, Jeff’s inability to deal with his new reality.
Director David Gordon Green is aided by a nuanced performance from Gyllenhaal that mutes his usual movie star physique in favour of a more vulnerable physicality—the scenes of his struggle to adapt to his wheelchair are painful—in favour of a rich inner life. His performance provides a glimpse of Jeff’s complicated feelings as he comes to grips with his new reality. He’s less a movie star and more a down-home heroic figure in-the-making. “I’m reluctant hero,” he says. “People see that I don’t let anything hold me down and maybe they won’t let anything hold them down either.”
As Erin, Maslany is the very embodiment of empathy. She delivers a quiet performance that subtly conveys an olio of emotions from love and guilt to compassion and anger. It’s terrific work that brings some much-needed subtlety to a film that occasionally goes a bit over-the-top.
Jeff’s plain-spoken, high strung family, lead by Jeff Sr (Clancy Brown) and Patty “Did you have sex with my son?” Bauman, is played a bit too broadly. A hint of rough-and-tumble Boston caricature seeps in whenever the Bauman clan gathers in a movie that is at its best when it is restrained.
“Stronger” is sometimes a bit too on the money—“You’re a symbol to a lot of people,” gushes dad, “you’re Boston Strong.”—but works well when it lets go of the triumph of the human spirit angle and allows the characters to behave like people, not heroes.
Did you love “Halloween III: Season of the Witch”? Wipe it from your memory. What about “Halloween H20: 20 Years Later”? Fuhgeddaboudit. How about “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” or any of the other masked killer films that came after John Carpenter’s 1978 slasher classic? They don’t exist. When you lay down money for a ticket to the new “Halloween” you are erasing four decades of slashing and dashing and seeing a direct follow-up to the original film.
