Posts Tagged ‘Here’

NEWSTALK 1010 with Jim and Deb: DOES RICHARD CROUSE LIKE THESE MOVIES?

I sit in with hosts Jim Richards and Deb Hutton on NewsTalk 1010 to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” This week we talk about the family drama “Here,” the odd couple “A Real Pain” and the sci fi flick “Levels.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 28:36)

CTV NEWS TORONTO AT FIVE WITH ZURAIDAH ALMAN: RICHARD ON WHAT TO WATCH!

I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with host Zuraidah Alman, to talk about the family drama “Here,” the odd couple “A Real Pain” and the courtroom drama “Juror #2.”

Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 12:12)

CTV ATLANTIC: RICHARD AND TODD BATTIS ON NEW MOVIES IN THEATRES!

I join CTV Atlantic anchor to talk about the family drama “Here,” the odd couple “A Real Pain” and the courtroom drama “Juror #2.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND REVIEWS FOR FRIDAY NOVEMBER 1, 2024!

I  join the CTV NewsChannel to talk about the family drama “Here,” the odd couple “A Real Pain,” the courtroom drama “Juror #2” and the vartel musical “Emilia Pérez.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S CP24 WEEKEND REVIEWS & VIEWING TIPS! FRIDAY NOVEMBER 1, 2024.

I joined CP24 Breakfast to have a look at new movies and television shows coming to theatres and streaming services.  Today we talk about the family drama “Here,” the odd couple “A Real Pain,” both playing oin theatres, and two shows about psychiatrists, “Shrinking” and “Before,” boith streaming oin Apple TV+.

Watch the whole thing HERE!

CFRA IN OTTAWA: THE BILL CARROLL MORNING SHOW MOVIE REVIEWS!

I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with guest host Andrew Pinsent to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the family drama “Here,” the odd couple “A Real Pain,” the courtroom drama “Juror #2” and the vartel musical “Emilia Pérez.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

YOU TUBE: THREE MOVIES/THIRTY SECONDS! FAST REVIEWS FOR BUSY PEOPLE!

Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to tie a bowtie! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the family drama “Here,” the odd couple “A Real Pain” and the courtroom drama “Juror #2.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

HERE: 1 ½ STARS. “technical prowess overwhelms the heart embedded in the story.”

SYNOPSIS: In “Here,” a new, experimental intergenerational family drama starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, and now playing in theatres, director Robert Zemeckis sets a century of love, loss and life in the living room of a one-hundred-year-old American home.

CAST: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, and Kelly Reilly. Directed by Robert Zemeckis.

REVIEW: At one point near the end of “Here,” Richard Young (Tom Hanks) says, “Time flies,” as he reflects on his daughter’s progress in life. In reply, his increasingly exasperated wife Margaret (Robin Wright) snaps, “You always say things that are kind of obvious.”

Richard is not alone in the expression of easy platitudes. Director Robert Zemeckis may be daring in his use of “Here’s” technology, but the story takes no chances.

Based on the 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire, the film chronicles thousands of years, on one piece of land, from rampaging dinosaurs to the building of a house in 1900 whose front room provides the location for 99.9% of the action. With the camera locked into position, Zemeckis ping pongs through history, focusing on three generations of the Young family in the one setting.

Major historical events are seen on television, or heard on the radio, but this isn’t a history lesson, it’s an “if these walls could talk” look at the lives lived in the cozy home. It’s a clever idea, but you can’t help but wish “Here” would narrow its focus. The constant transition from one era to the next prevents any one of the stories to work up a head of steam or make us care about the characters.

From a technical point of view, Zemeckis’s transition from one time frame to the next are sometimes clever—a Halloween party, with Richard dressed as Benjamin Franklin, that morphs into a colonial era scene works—and sometimes silly, as in the scene where a leaking roof, dripping puddles on the floor, transitions into Maragret’s water breaking on the same spot. It’s in those moments, and there are many of them, that the movie feels trapped, unable to cast off the restraints of its concept and truly come to life.

Most of the families on display are given a short shrift. The Harter’s (Michelle Dockery and Gwilym Lee) turn of the century story, for example, is meant to provide some emotional heft but falls short because of the film’s inability to make us care much about characters we hardly know. I would have liked more time with Leo and Stella Beekman (David Fynn and Ophelia Lovibond), the inventor and pin-up model who make the most of their vignettes, but the brief glimpses of their free-spirited time in the house are short lived.

It is nice to see Hanks and Wright together, but for much of the runtime they are rendered digitally de-aged and dead-eyed, which takes some of the fun out of the “Forrest Gump” reunion.

“Here” is ambitious, but its technical prowess overwhelms whatever heart is embedded in the story.