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 kid-friendly Halloween flick “The House With A Clock In Its Walls,” the politics of “Fahrenheit 11/9” and the faux tear-jerkery of “Life Itself.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
That director Eli Roth, he of “Cabin Fever,” the “Hostel” movies and the coiner of the term “torture porn” is making a film about a warlock and a haunted house should come as no surprise. That it is a spooky PG rated movie for kids is. Based on the children’s classic “The House With A Clock In Its Walls” by John Bellairs with illustrations by Edward Gorey, the film stars Jack Black and Cate Blanchett.
The movie begins with 10-year-old Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) losing his parents. Sent to live with his eccentric Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black), a wizard who lives in a rambling old house—the locals call it the “slaughter house”—with a mysterious tick-tocking heart. “There’s a clock in the walls,” he says. “We don’t know what it does, except… something horrible.” It’s a place of wonder and magic, complete with tentacle monsters—“He’s safe as long as he’s fed,” Jonathan assures the youngster—and deadly secrets. “It’s scary,” says Lewis. “I see things out of the corner of my eye and I think Uncle Jonathan is hiding something from me.”
Next door is witch Florence Zimmerman (Blanchett), a friendly face and substitute mother figure for young Lewis. Stumbling into this world of magic Lewis unleashes holy heck when he accidentally awakens Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan), Jonathan’s former best friend and warlock, from the dead. The trio must stop Isaac from locating the sourcing of the house’s mysterious doomsday clock, whose tick-tock is a threat to all of humankind, but the onus is on the preteen. “I can give you the right books, teach you the right spells,” says Jonathan, “but that last 1%, that’s up to you.”
“The House With A Clock In Its Walls” is a fantasy-based thriller with gothic flourishes for kids raised on the “Goosebumps” books. Imagine a mix of “The Addams Family” and “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” and you’ll get the idea. For the most part it is harmless Halloween fun, more spooky than scary, although Isaac’s reanimation scene, complete with white, rotting flesh and stray maggots and the barfing pumpkins may inspire nightmares for the younger set.
Roth pays attention to the details—the set decoration and costumes are terrific—but draws out the action in the first half of the movie. Black and Blanchett chew the scenery and are clearly having fun but the tick-tocking clock seems to be running extra slow in the movie’s set-up scenes.
Once “The House With A Clock In Its Walls” kicks in, it’s good, silly fun, a throwback to the goodtime horror films of 1980s Amblin flicks.
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk about the PG-scares of “The House With A Clock In Its Walls,” the politics of “Fahrenheit 11/9,” and the tear-jerking of “Life Itself.”
Listen to 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 Denzel Washington in “The Equalizer 2,” the delightful “Eighth Grade” and the biopic “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard joins CP24 anchor Nathan Downer to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including Denzel Washington in “The Equalizer 2,” the delightful “Eighth Grade” and the biopic “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Erin Paul to have a look at the weekend’s big releases, Denzel Washington in “The Equalizer 2,” the delightful “Eighth Grade” and the biopic “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far on Foot” isn’t as much about the story of John Callahan, the Portland based quadriplegic who became a famous, if controversial cartoonist after a car accident, as it is about his personal journey.
The film starts at the end, beginning after the accident and backing up into Callahan’s story of misfortune, self-discovery, and redemption. Our first glimpse of Joaquin Phoenix as the cartoonist comes at a settled place in his life. From there director Gus Van Sant moves along the timeline of Callahan’s life. We see him on the bender that resulted in the car accident that left him in a wheelchair, his treatment,
Alcoholic’s Anonymous meetings presided over by sponsor Donnie (Jonah Hill) and at home with his helper (Tony Greenhand).
It’s fragmented approach that focuses on the themes in Callahan’s life rather than the events. His journey is a metaphysical one, from unhappy, aimless slacker to someone who embraces community. Van Sant and Phoenix explore the artist’s psyche, detailing how being put up for adoption at birth fuelled his alcoholism and unresolved feelings of abandonment. Phoenix, limited in his movement for much of the film, hands in a rich performance, both volatile and vulnerable.
He’s aided by a talented supporting cast lead by Hill. He’s tough love personified, a tell-it-like it is A.A. sponsor who calls his charges Piglets. The meetings at his home are a whose who of interesting casting from Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon as a Valium addict with a propensity of getting naked in public, Udo Kier and musician Beth Ditto’s unrestrained presence steals every scene she is in. Jack Black, in a small but pivotal role, gets to showcase both his gonzo and sensitive sides.
John Callahan is best known for his macabre drawings but the film of his life ois anything but. “Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far on Foot” is a breezy, life affirming look at a man whose misfortune was his salvation.
“Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle” has only the most tangential connection to the critically ravaged but popular Robin Williams movie which had only a fleeting connection to the 1981 story by Chris Van Allsburg. The basic premise of a game that springs to life survives, but that’s about it. The new film trades on the goodwill of the other projects and could just as easily have been called “Java 1.2: Welcome To The Jungle” or any other title that might conjure up nostalgia for the 1990s.
The premise is basic. Nerdy gamer Spencer Gilpin (Alex Wolff), mean girl Bethany Walker (Madison Iseman), jock Anthony “Fridge” Johnson (Ser’Darius Blain) and Martha Kaply (Morgan Turner) are assigned to detention. Stuck in a storage room, they discover a dusty old Jumanji gaming console. Hooking it up, the game sputters to life. “A game for those who seek to find,” it says, “a way to leave their lives behind.” As each click on an avatar they are suddenly swept away into the world of the game, plopped down in the Jumanji jungle and in the middle of an escapade.
They also look different. Their teenage selves are gone, replaced by heroic videogame characters. Spencer is now Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), a buff hero, fearless with no vulnerabilities. Martha is warrior Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) while Fridge is zoologist Moose Finbar (Kevin Hart). The biggest change is reserved for Bethany who is now cryptographer Professor Sheldon Oberon (Jack Black).
Adjusting to their new bodies presents challenges. “I don’t have my Claritin!” Spencer complains. “I look like a garden gnome,” whines Bethany. But soon a bigger problem presents itself. How do they get back? Enter game guide Nigel (Rhys Darby) who gives them the rules—to leave game they must return a jewel, stolen by the evil explorer John Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale), to the eye of the giant Jaguar statue located deep in the jungle. To do so they must complete different game levels. As they survive each level the danger increases on the next but each challenge also teaches them something about themselves that will apply to their regular lives if they are successful and make it home.
Robin Williams claimed the word “jumanji” is a Zulu word meaning “many effects.” It’s a definition director Jake Kasdan seems to have taken too literally. The family-friendly action is boosted by fake looking CGI effects that are almost entirely without charm.
Luckily the cast has charm to burn. When the CGI isn’t clogging up the screen the actors do a decent job of selling the story. Much of the movie’s humour comes from the actors playing against type. The muscle-bound Johnson as a scaredy-cat and Hart’s slapstick swing for the fences every time but it is Black, as a coquettish teenage girl, who has the best lines. When Bethany learns about going to the bathroom while standing up he/she squeals, “This is so much easier! You have a handle!” Later as the game intensifies he/she says, “I feel like since I lost my phone my other senses have heightened.”
You don’t have to work too hard to find the laughs here, but they are courtesy of the cast’s delivery and charisma not the flimsy script. When they aren’t cracking wise the script—credited to no less than five writers—has characters spend too much time talking about what they’re going to do just before they do it.
When they aren’t droning on about the game to one another or the audience they are engaged in some light pop psychology. “We’ve always only had one life to live,” Moose opines as Bravestone’s videogame power bars deplete, “it depends on how you live it.” It’s as deep as a lunch tray
There’s also much talk of empowerment. In the land of Jumanji the smart ones are gifted with physical progress while the damn bulbs are bumped up intellectually. The mean girl learns selflessness while the brainiac, who had no one use for Phys Ed class, learns the benefit of dance fighting as exercise. By the time the end credits roll everyone are better off than when the movie started… except maybe the audience who deserve more than a handful of laughs and warmed over 90s nostalgia.
Richard sits in with CP24 anchor Nneka Elliott to review the “legendary adventures of awesomeness” of “Kung Fu Panda 3,” the watery historical drama “The Finest Hours” and “JeruZalem’s” found footage thrills.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
