Richard joins NewsTalk 1010 host David Cooper on the coast-to-coast-to-coast late night “Showgram” to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” This week we talk about Baz Luhrmann’s rockin’ and rollin’ biopic “Elvis,” the masked horror of “The Black Phone” and the Arctic thrills of “Slash/Back.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“Elvis,” the new King of Rock ‘n Roll biopic from maximalist director Baz Luhrmann, begins with a sparkling, bedazzled Warner Bros logo and gets flashier and gaudier from there.
The movie is told from the point of view of Elvis’s (Austin Butler) manager Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks under an inch or two of makeup), a huckster with a flair for spotting talent and a gift for manipulation.
Working on the carnival circuit taught Parker that a great act “gave the audience feelings they weren’t sure if they should enjoy,” a standard the early, hip-shaking Elvis met and exceeded.
Their partnership is one of the best known, and well documented success stories of the twentieth century. For twenty years, through the birth of rock ‘n roll of the late 1950s and the cheesy Hollywood years to the legendary 1968 Comeback Special and the Las Vegas rise and fall, Elvis and the Colonel shimmied and shook their way to the top of the charts and into the history books.
“Elvis” covers a lot of ground. From young Elvis (Chaydon Jay) discovering his love of music from the Black rhythm and blues artists and Mississippi church music he absorbed as a kid to his final white jumpsuit days in Vegas, Luhrmann shakes, rattles and rolls throughout in a blur of images and spectacular sound design.
It entertains the eye but feels akin to skipping a stone on a lake. If you hold the stone just right and throw it across the still water at the correct angle, it will skim along for what seems like forever without ever piercing the surface.
“Elvis” is a great looking movie. A pop art explosion that vividly essays the story’s various time frames and styles, it makes an impact visually and sonically. Unfortunately, Luhrmann is content to make your eyeballs dance, your gold TCB chains rattle and simply skim across the surface.
We do learn that Elvis was the sum of his country music and R’n’B experiences and influences, was fueled by the adoration of his audience and aware of the social change of the 1960s, but there is no excavation, no real exploration of what made the singer or his manager actually tick. It may seem fitting that a movie about a man who drove pink Cadillacs and wore phoenix embroidered jumpsuits and capes is over-the-top, but those images are so woven into the fabric of popular culture already that this feels clichéd, more like greatest hits album than a biography.
Butler is a charismatic performer, playing Elvis through several stages of his life, and despite the superficiality of the storytelling hands in a rounded performance that transcends impersonation of a man who spawned a generation (or two) of impersonators.
It’s rare to see Hanks play a character with no redeeming qualities. “I am the man who gave the world Elvis Presley,” he says, “and yet there are some who would make me out to be the villain of this story.” His take on Colonel Parker grates, with the theatrical Dutch accent and imperious, manipulative manner, he is certainly the villain of the piece. He’s a pantomime of the big, bad music manager, one who saw his client as a musical ATM machine and little more.
By the time the end credits roll “Elvis” emerges as an idealized look at the boy from Tupelo who became the King by paying tribute to the power of the music that made a legend.
Richard speaks to “CTV News at 11:30” anchor Andria Case about television and movies to watch this weekend, including the experimental documentary “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets,” the forlorn romance “Dirt Music” and the quirky Jenny Slate comedy “The Sunlit Night.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 19:42)
Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel with host Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the new movies coming to VOD and streaming services including feel-good “From the Vine,” the based-on-true-events thriller “Target Number One,” the hybrid barumentary “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” and the forlorn romance “Dirt Music.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
It may be possible to gauge your interest in “Dirt Music,” a new film on VOD starring Garrett Hedlund and Kelly Macdonald, by its advertising tagline. “Lose Yourself… Find Yourself… In Love.” That inspirational, Nicholas Sparks-style slogan tells you all you need to know about this movie. Much like the story itself, it’s vague, involves love but what does it really mean?
Stretched over two hours the film sees Macdonald play Georgie Jutland, a former nurse now playing step mother to the two sons of her new boyfriend, crayfish magnate, Jim Buckridge (David Wenham). Life in the tiny Australian fishing port of White Point is uneventful and unhappy until Georgie slips out for a midnight swim. While splashing around in the cleansing waters she meets Luther Fox (Garret Hedlund), a fish poacher plying his illegal trade. It is love at first sight and soon the two begin a passionate affair.
Luther is an enigma, a man with a tragic past. His family gone, he drifts though the world, mourning their loss. He’s a damaged guy who abruptly leaves White Point when it appears Buckridge has discovered the affair with Georgie. He heads north to the remote Coronation Island, looking for solitude and safety. Unable and unwilling to let him go, Georgie, with Buckridge‘s unlikely assistance, embarks on an epic search to find her love.
“Dirt Music” is a story of longing that turns out to be over-long. At a hair over two hours it is a feast for the eyes—the Australian landscape is breathtaking—but the story is as under developed as the film’s terse tagline. Considering the epic nature of Georgie’s search for Luther, these star-crossed lovers spend very little on-screen time together. Certainly not enough for the depth of the connection to be made clear. The result is a bit of a head-scratching exercise in lust and longing. Despite the soaring Australian temperature the pair barely have time to generate the heat needed to make us care when they are torn apart.
The story telling in “Dirt Music” trades in melodrama while Macdonald and Hedlund are playing it straight. She’s an open book, he’s broody whose hobby seems to be staring blankly into the ether. Both are bound by grief but the very thing that connects them feels at odds with the film’s over dramatic edge.
Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies, “Office Christmas Party” with T.J. Miller, Jason Bateman and Jenifer Aniston, “Jackie” starring Natalie Portman, “Lion” with Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman and Jessica Chastain as “Miss Sloan.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with Erin Paul to have a look at the weekend’s new movies, “Office Christmas Party” with T.J. Miller, Jason Bateman and Jenifer Aniston, “Jackie” starring Natalie Portman, “Lion” with Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman and Jessica Chastain as “Miss Sloan.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“Lion,” the heart-tugging true tale of Saroo Brierley, is the story of one determined man’s attempt to connect with a past he barely remembers.
When we first meet Saroo (played as a child by Sunny Pawar) he’s a lively five-year-old boy living in abject poverty in a small town in India. His mother is a labourer, moving rocks to eek out a living for her family. Saroo and his brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) help out, stealing coal from passing trains to make money to buy milk. When the boys get separated while looking for work the youngster ends up on a train, destined for Calcutta, 1600 km from home.
Alone and lost, he desperately tries to find his way home, but without knowing the name of his town or mother—“Her name is Mum,” he says.—he wanders the streets, his only possession a piece of cardboard to sleep on. For weeks he navigates through the dangerous city streets, learning who to trust and when to run. Found and sent to an orphanage, he is then adopted by Australians Sue and John Brierley (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham). “Did you really look for my mom?” he asks as his caseworker signs off on the paperwork.
Cut to twenty years later. Saroo (now played by Dev Patel), raised by loving parents, has grown into a handsome young man, but is increasingly troubled by the question marks of his early life. “I’m lost,” he says to girlfriend Lucy (Rooney Mara). “Do you have any idea knowing what it is like knowing my real mother and brother spent every day looking for me?” Thoughts of his early life plague him until he begins to piece together the details of where his journey began.
Nicole Kidman may be the Academy Award winner in the cast, and she is very good, but the performances you’ll remember come from the two Saroos, Sunny Pawar and Dev Patel. Two actors, one character; both looking to find themselves, physically and spiritually. It’s an engrossing and often heart-wrenching journey and the pair keep us interested for the whole trip.
Pawar is a wide-eyed charmer, innocent but fearless, who conveys both the desperation to get home and the will to survive in dangerous situations. It’s a performance completely free of the preciousness that often mars kid’s work; one that effortlessly cuts through to the core of the character.
Patel navigates a different part of Saroo’s journey. As an adult he speaks English with a heavy Australian accent and can no longer remember the Hindi of his youth. Thoroughly westernized it isn’t until he accesses some long repressed memories that his need to find his real home surfaces. Patel embodies the emotional battle between the home he has grown up in, with all the comforts of a loving adopted family, and a need to understand where and who he came from.
“Lion” isn’t perfect—some of the Google Earth searches are as interesting as you might imagine a Google Earth search on the big screen to be—but it is emotionally engaged with all of its characters, and you will be to.
