I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the coming-of-age story “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” the sports biopic “Big George Foreman” and the relationship dramedy “The End of Sex.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to roll the dice! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the coming-of-age story “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” the sports biopic “Big George Foreman” and the relationship dramedy “The End of Sex.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“The End of Sex,” now playing in theatres, stars Emily Hampshire and Jonas Chernick as a couple looking to spice up their stale sex life while the kids are off at sleepaway camp.
Emma (Hampshire) and Josh (Chernick) shared their first kiss as teens, and have been partners in life ever since. Two daughters later, they’re in a rut, but it’s a happy enough rut. They’re still in love, creating a happy, loving life for themselves and the kids. But one thing is missing. Their sex life.
“Our sex has become mechanical,” says Emma.
“So,” says Josh, “let’s surprise each other.”
With the kids away for the first time ever, they have the house to themselves. Without the prying eyes of the little ones watching their every move, they have a chance to reevaluate their “mutual apathy and shared disinterest in sex.”
As the pressure to have a “normal” sex life mounts—there’s a ménage à trois tinged with obsession, extasy popping and an embarrassing visit to a sex club—their sexual odyssey doesn’t quite go as they hoped.
Despite the provocative title, “The End of Sex” isn’t really about sex. Ultimately, it’s about trust and togetherness. And an awkward threesome. An exploration of long-term marriages, it places its characters in mild relationship jeopardy as a way to dig into what it really means to spend one’s life with another person.
We see examples of that long-term commitment in the shorthand between Emma and Josh. It’s in the easy way they communicate (most of the time) and the understanding of things that are left unsaid between them. We see the hurt that comes from complacency—”The past few days I’ve been thinking a lot about sex,” says Emma. “You’ve been thinking about sex with people who aren’t me,” replies Josh.—and the often ridiculous lengths couples will go through to spice things up.
It’s all a bit predictable and a bit heightened, but is buoyed by funny cameos from Melanie Scrofano, as the Emma’s obsessed friend, and Colin Mochrie in an unlikely situation.
As a date night movie “The End of Sex” offers up an earnest portrait of the intimacy and connection necessary for a couple to weather the storms of an on-going relationship. It’s no “A Married Couple”—Alan King’s legendary 1969 documentary about a marriage in uproar—but it does deliver some insights into what makes relationships tick.
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Akshay Tandon to talk about Joaquin Phoenix in “Beau is Afraid,” the historical biopic “Chevalier” and the romantic action adventure “Ghosted.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard joins CP24 to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the first Hollywood movie in 25 years to star an all-Asian cast, “Crazy Rich Asians,” the new Mark Wahlberg shoot ’em up “Mile 22,” and the mystery thriller “Never Saw it Coming.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the weekend’s big releases, the glitz-glammy rom com, “Crazy Rich Asians,” the new Mark Wahlberg actioner “Mile 22,” and the mystery thriller “Never Saw it Coming.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at the first Hollywood movie in 25 years to star an all-Asian cast, “Crazy Rich Asians,” the new Mark Wahlberg shoot ’em up “Mile 22,” and the mystery thriller “Never Saw it Coming.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“Never Saw it Coming,” based on the novel by Linwood Barclay, is a very dark comedy set against a backdrop of violence, murder and fraud.
Emily Hampshire is Keisha Ceylon, a con artist in an unhappy relationship who puts food on the table as a pseudo psychic. For a fee—always upfront—she preys on vulnerable families, offering phony information in outstanding missing person’s cases. An edgy character through and through, she even occasionally sets up a disappearance and later split the finder’s fee with a the supposedly disappeared person. When a consultation with Wendell Garfield (Eric Roberts), a wealthy man whose wife had vanished, takes a bad turn, Keisha discovers an even darker path in life.
Tightly constructed, “Never Saw it Coming” is a story about the lengths a person will go to survive, to provide for their family. Keisha’s morally dubious—to say the least—actions have unexpected results and that’s what keeps the story buoyant. In any other film Keisha would be the villain, or at the least, a very shady character not to be trusted. Here Hampshire infuses her with considerable charm, even when she is doing terrible things. She is one of the rare baddies you might just end up rooting for.
“Never Saw it Coming” isn’t a complicated tale. It’s an aptly named story that sees its main character thrown into a bad situation, ripe with violence and deceit, that provides enough twists to keep you guessing until the end credits roll.
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with guest host Ken Connors to talk about the first Hollywood movie in 25 years to star an all-Asian cast, “Crazy Rich Asians,” the mystery thriller “Never Saw it Coming” and the rock ‘n roll biopic “Nico, 1988.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
