Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to strum a guitar! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the funny and fantastic “Poor Thing,” the whimsical “Wonka” and the rock doc “The Immediate Family.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with NewsTalk 1010 host Jim Richards on the coast-to-coast-to-coast late night “NewsTalk Tonight” to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” This week we talk about the funny and fantastic “Poor Thing,” the whimsical “Wonka” and the rock doc “The Immediate Family.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I joined CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres. Today we talk about the funny and fantastic “Poor Thing,” the whimsical “Wonka” and the rock doc “The Immediate Family.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Akshay Tandon to talk about the funny and fantastic “Poor Thing,” the whimsical “Wonka” and the rock doc “The Immediate Family.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with guest host Stefan Keyes to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the funny and fantastic “Poor Thing,” the whimsical “Wonka” and the rock doc “The Immediate Family.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“Immediate Family,” a new rock doc now playing in theatres, and available December 17 to rent or buy on the Apple TV app and other VOD platforms, is a feature length look at musicians you’ve listened to your whole life.
“I would buy records just because they were on it,” says Phil Collins.
They were to the 1970s singer-songwriter era what The Funk Brothers were to Motown or The Wrecking Crew to Los Angeles based pop music. They were the four names that graced the back covers of albums by singer-songwriter Hall-of-Famers like James Taylor, Keith Richards, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, Stevie Nicks and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
“The creative input of these session guys cannot be overstated,” says Taylor.
Legendary session musicians, drummer Russ Kunkel, bassist Leland Sklar, and guitarists Danny Kortchmar and Waddy Wachtel, are the Immediate Family, a group who’ve played together on-and-off for more than fifty years, and treat one another as brothers, hence the band’s name.
The story brings together each of their stories, from Kortchmar’s first exposure to James Taylor, when both their families were vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, to Sklar admitting he hides his insecurities behind his trademark ZZ Top-worthy beard to Kunkel’s story about being kicked out of the 5th grade orchestra.
Each has a tale to tell, and, of course, there are accounts of excess on the road and studio stories galore, but director Denny Tedesco isn’t interested in a tell-all or gossip. The most rock ‘n roll moment comes when Linda Ronstadt says she always won their tour bus poker games because she “was the sober one.”
“Hammer of the Gods” this is not. Instead, this is a warm-hearted story of friendship and music.
There is an undeniable chemistry in their group interviews, as they share a lifetime of experience punctuated with lots of laughs. It doesn’t dive deep. This is a hangout movie with great music. To that end, Tedesco makes sure to include lots of archival musical footage, bolstered by newly shot performances.
Tedesco, the director best known for his doc “The Wrecking Crew,” is clearly a fan and while “Immediate Family” is a companion piece to movies like “Echo in the Canyon” and “20 Feet from Stardom,” it doesn’t have the same in-depth flavor. Still, as a snapshot of an iconic era, it’s a bit of fluffy fun.
Richard’s “Canada AM” reviews for “Hot Tub Time Machine 2,” “McFarland” and “The Duff.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
The name Tommy Tedesco is likely unfamiliar to you, but if you have played air guitar sometime in the last fifty years, chances are you have mimed to at least one of his guitar licks.
Tedesco was one of the guitar players of an unofficial group of musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, the session band who played on records by everyone from the Byrds to Cher and Nancy and Frank Sinatra to the Beach Boys, the Monkees, and Captain and Tennille.
In “Wrecking Crew” Tedesco’s son, filmmaker Denny Tedesco, has brought together many of the anonymous west coast players who provided much of the back beat of the 1960s and 70s.
It’s a personal project for Denny who spends a great deal of time reminiscing about his dad. We learn about how his father became the most recorded guitar player in history, some personal and studio stories and there is even a clip of Tommy on “The Gong Show,” wearing a pink tutu singing his satirical song “Requiem For A Studio Guitar Player.” “I used to be number one / Did all the work in this town / In the Fifties I was something / In the Sixties I was king / Now the Seventies come around and I will do anything…” It’s a funny moment that really speaks to the big picture story of The Wrecking Crew. They were the kings and queens of the Los Angeles music scene, hitmakers who worked round the clock and became millionaires until the work dried up as the singer-songwriter phase of the 1970s took hold.
Tedesco doesn’t focus on the post 70s careers of the players. Light and breezy, “Wrecking Crew” is as frothy as the music it details but he does mine some interesting biographical details about musicians like Hal Blaine, the genius drummer who went from millionaire to security guitar to working musician again, Carol Kaye, the lone female member of the band and Earl Palmer, a jazz drummer who played with everyone from Count Basie to Little Richard.
“Wrecking Crew” is a heartfelt and interesting peak into an unexplored part of our collective musical history and it has a good beat and you can dance to it.
