As you may or may not know, when I’m not here talking to you on my show, I can be seen on the CTVNewsChannel and loads of other places talking about movies. I saw almost three hundred movies this year, wrote reviews for two hundred of those and there were high highs and the very lowest of lows.
I rate my movies on a scale of 10 to 5 stars. I never a full 5 stars because nothing is perfect, but this year there were several 4 ½ star movies. The lowest rating I have ever given was “Minus Infinity x 10” for a movie whose name I will never mention again.
Most movies fall into the 3 to 3 ½ star category, but there is a fairly wide range. Ten percent of the movies I see every year are terrible, ten percent are great but 80 percent fall into that mushy middle. Good to almost great.
I don’t care about the box office. I love it when a movie makes a lot of money because it means the industry is healthy and people are supporting theatres, and that’s a good thing, but just because a movie makes bank doesn’t mean it is a good movie.
Every now and again, though, there are movies that, for whatever reason, are great, but don’t connect with audiences. There have been a few of those this year, and for every movie that took a well-deserved dive, like “Joker: Folie a Deux” or “Borderlands” there were others that should have found an audience. On this show I’ll tell you about those movies!
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.
I take a look back at the year that was at the movies. From a chimp who becomes a pop superstar and a 93-year-old action star to an all-singing-all-dancing villain and an enormous elf, the movies gifted us the best and worst–the naughty and nice, the champagne and lumps of coal–of what Hollywood and elsewhere has to offer.
Here is the Nice List, a compendium of the very best films of the year, presented alphabetically.
Instead of attempting to unwind Dylan’s mystique, “A Complete Unknown” director James Mangold, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks, wisely opts for a portrait of the time, the America and, in microcosm, the Greenwich Village folk era, that produced the singer. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the battle for civil rights indirectly hang heavy over the film, completing the portrait of the time that fuelled Dylan’s early work. The back-to-basics approach benefits the movie, allowing Timothée Chalamet’s tour de force lead performance to shine.
“A Different Man” is a singular movie. Schimberg digs deep to examine the skin-deep notions of attractiveness, and the effect of beauty on the eye of the beholder.
Part screwball comedy, part fight for survival, “Anora” is a triumph of controlled chaos. As in his earlier films, “Tangerine,” “The Florida Project” and “Red Rocket,” director Sean Baker keenly observes his characters with empathy and emotion in stories that examine money, class, and power. An insightfully made look at the wealth divide, with elements of suspense and comedy, it never fails to entertain.
“Better Man,” the biopic of Take That singer-turned-solo superstar Robbie Williams is a sex, drugs and British Pop story given an audacious treatment by “The Greatest Showman” director Michael Gracey. A surreal mix of “Behind the Music” and “Planet of the Apes,” it is a raw portrayal of the singer’s vulnerabilities and foibles in which he’s rendered throughout as a CGI monkey. No explanations are offered, and none are needed. Whether it’s a comment on the performing monkey nature of his work, or his ever-evolving emotional state, or whatever, it’s a startling and surprisingly effective gimmick in a wildly entertaining film.
The flirty, intimate and indulgent “Challengers” is a ménage à trois of ever shifting power games, mind games and tennis gameplay in which the power dynamics are batted back-and-forth, just like in a real tennis match.
There are no monsters or supernatural aspects in “Civil War,” but make no mistake, this is a horror film. The horrors of war are detailed in a visceral and chaotic way but it is the idea of a societal collapse that haunts.
“Conclave” has a hushed, restrained feel, but even though the characters all carry bibles as they walk the ecclesiastical halls, director Edward Berger understands this story is more pulpy thriller than holy book.
If the word bombastic took steroids it might come close to describing the R-rated “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Filled with fan service, it’s a good time, even if the experience of watching it sometimes feels like being on the inside of a blender set to puree.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is a high-octane apocalyptic tale with a fierce Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth as a charismatic warlord, that features action scenes that’ll make your eyes pop out of their sockets.
“The Greatest Night in Pop” doesn’t reinvent the music documentary wheel, but it is more than a star-studded episode of I Love the 80s as it vividly captures the remarkable effort and magic that went into the recording of We Are the World.
Make no mistake, “Hey, Viktor!” is a comedy, first and foremost, and a raunchy one at that, but as it works its way to the end, it careens through a dysfunctional journey of self-discovery.
“Hit Man” is a rom com and a caper comedy with some thrilling twists, anchored by a smart script that acts as a showcase for the lead performances from Glen Powell and Adria Arjona.
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” is jam packed with big ideas and even bigger action scenes but feels intimate because of its emotional content.
A closer look at the remastered “Let It Be,” free from the furor of the break-up that coloured the 1970 release, reveals the shared joy of creation.
Romance and ‘roid rage collide in “Love Lies Bleeding,” a pulpy romp that is a bloody and brutal twist on the neo noir that harkens back to films like “Wild at Heart” and early Coen bros.
Despite a title that suggests a 1990s teen comedy, “My Old Ass” is a surreal coming-of-age story that stays anchored to reality with natural, heartfelt performances and a great deal of humor.
“Nosferatu” will be categorized as a horror film, and there are elements of gore, death and the unnerving auditory experience of hearing Count Orlock drain his victims, but it is an old-school horror movie that aims to unnerve its audience with just a few jump scares and no vats of fake blood. Eggers conveys terror with the film’s atmosphere of dread and depiction of madness, decay and unrelenting, elemental evil
“The Piano Lesson” is crisply complex, a tangle of emotion, the paranormal and family dynamics, with characters so carefully written each of them could be the star of their own story.
Younger audience members should enjoy the characters and the animation in “Robot Dreams,” but there is a depth to the story that will strike adults differently.
Because the uplift and empathy on display is such a departure for a prison movie, it would be easy to be cynical about a movie like “Sing Sing.” But it is impossible to deny the crowd-pleasing universal story of the redemptive power of art and community.
Clever and subversive, “Strange Darling” is an expertly made exercise in nihilism. What begins as a standard serial killer flick soon widens and deepens to become a thought provoking, provocative rethink of the whole genre.
“The Substance” goes on a bit too long, but director Coralie Fargeat’s gruesome vision, and the finale’s ankle-deep bloodbath, is a thing of terrible beauty.
“Suze” is a funny, never-judge-a-book-by-its-cover dramedy, that succeeds because of its engaging lead performances and in the way it presents a platonic relationship based on mutual respect.
“Thelma” is something you don’t see very often, a thriller starring a 93-year-old action hero. The fantastic June Squibb, in the lead role, may not exactly be Ethan Hunt, but she’s more endearing and delightful than Jack Ryan and Jason Bourne combined.
A mixture of nostalgia and hard-edged reality, of bittersweet poetry and heartfelt relationships, “We Grown Now” is a nuanced look at the ties that bind and their importance, even when those ties begin to fray.
Part rom com and part essay on what lingers after we’re gone, “We Live in Time” is a five-hankie tear-jerker fueled by the intimate and charismatic performances of its leads Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.
The animated “The Wild Robot” will put you in the mind of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and WALL-E, but carves out its own, unique, rewarding space andhas the makings of a classic.
On the Saturday June 8, 2024 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet George Miller. He has made pigs talk and penguins tap dance. He’s been a doctor and a film director. Among the bold-faced names on his resume are the titles “Babe: A Pig in the City,” “The Witches of Eastwick,” “Happy Feet” and “Lorenzo’s Oil.” One name, however, looms larger than the rest.
“Mad Max.”
He returned to theatres recently with “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” his fifth Mad Max inspired film in 45 years.
A mix of Norse and Greek mythology set against an apocalyptic backdrop, and set 15 to 20 years before the events of “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is a high-octane origin story. Kidnapped from the Place of Great Abundance by Warlord Dementus’s (Chris Hemsworth) henchmen, young Furiosa (played by Alyla Browne as a child, Anya Taylor-Joy as an adult) vows vengeance for the death of her mother as warlords Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and Dementus vie for supremacy of the Wasteland.
It’s a pedal-to-the-metal epic, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” follows the big-block engine power of “Fury Road” with a film that brings a backstory to the strong-willed Furiosa (Taylor-Joy). As expected, Miller delivers a high-octane apocalyptic tale with a fierce Taylor-Joy and charismatic warlord Hemsworth, that features action scenes that’ll make your eyes pop out of their sockets.
We’ll also meet Simon Lewis, author of the book “Making ‘A Bridge Too Far” which takes a deep dive into the making of what many people call, the greatest World War II movie of all time.
Just ahead of the 80th anniversary of Operation Market Garden, which happened in September 1944 when the Allies attempted to capture several strategically important bridges in the Netherlands in the hope of breaking the German lines, comes the book which details the making of the movie based on the famous military maneuver.
In recreating Operation Market Garden on film, director Richard Attenborough enlisted a company of actors and trained them to behave like soldiers. These actors underwent weapons training and were trusted to bring authenticity to their roles, a groundbreaking approach that hadn’t been tried before.
I spoke with legendary film director George Miller about making five “Mad Max” films over the last forty-five years, the political timeliness of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and what all his movies have in common.
LOGLINE: A mix of Norse and Greek mythology set against an apocalyptic backdrop, and set 15 to 20 years before the events of “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is a high-octane origin story. Kidnapped from the Place of Great Abundance by Warlord Dementus’s (Chris Hemsworth) henchmen, young Furiosa (played by Alyla Browne as a child, Anya Taylor-Joy as an adult) vows vengeance for the death of her mother as Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and Dementus vie for supremacy of the Wasteland. “When things go bonkers,” says Dementus, “you have to adapt.”
CAST: Anya Taylor-Joy, Alyla Browne, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Lachy Hulme, Nathan Jones, Josh Helman, John Howard, Angus Sampson, Charlee Fraser, Quaden Bayles, Daniel Webber. Directed by George Miller.
REVIEW: A pedal-to-the-metal epic, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” follows the big-block engine power of “Fury Road” with a film that brings a backstory to the strong-willed Furiosa (Taylor-Joy). As expected, Miller delivers a high-octane apocalyptic tale with a fierce Taylor-Joy and charismatic warlord Hemsworth, that features action scenes that’ll make your eyes pop out of their sockets.
The extended “Stowaway” action sequence, for instance, featuring all manner of souped-up vehicles blazing through the dusty Wasteland, makes Monster Trucks look like a Hot Wheels rally. Frenetic in the extreme, Miller’s restless camera is in constant motion, capturing the (mostly) practical stunts in his singular, propulsive style.
The actual revenge story is “Fury Road”-Lite, but the breeziness of the plot is offset by the scorching leads. The transition between Alyla Browne as the young Furiosa to Taylor-Joy, who is a reflection of the character played by Charlize Theron, is graceful and effective.
With a minimum of dialogue—she speaks maybe 30 lines in total—Taylor-Joy portrays the strong will, intelligence and furious emotion that drives the character on her hero’s journey, even if we don’t meet the adult Furiosa until roughly an hour into the action. As a warlord who snacks on human blood sausages, Hemsworth has a fake nose and the showier role. He’s an operatic villain who licks the tears of his victims and gets around on a grand Roman chariot powered by motorbikes, not horses. He’s entertainingly over-the-top, even in a bigger-than-life movie featuring characters with names like The People Eater and Rictus Erectus.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is an experience. It doesn’t hit the heights of “Fury Road,” one of the greatest action movies ever made, but in its examination of love and hope in hopeless times, it is both ridiculous and sublime as it tears across the screen like greased lightning.
As you may or may not know, when I’m not here talking to you on my show, I can be seen on the CTVNewsChannel and loads of other places talking about movies. I saw almost three hundred movies this year, wrote reviews for two hundred of those and there were high highs and the very lowest of lows.
