Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies, the Tatiana Maslany drama “The Other Half,” the rom com “Lovesick” and “Antibirth” starring “Orange is the New Black’s” Natasha Lyonne.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the weekend’s new movies, the Tatiana Maslany drama “The Other Half,” the rom com “Lovesick” and “Antibirth” starring “Orange is the New Black’s” Natasha Lyonne.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“Lovesick” turns the usual romantic comedy journey of self-discovery on its head by flipping the main character’s sex from female to male. Other than that this is a by-the-book rom com that amiably balances the rom with the com.
Jacob Tierney is Dash, a thirtysomething mural artist recently separated from his long time girlfriend Lauren (“Mad Men’s” Jessica Paré). Childhood sweethearts, they were together for twelve years and their break-up has hit Dash hard. Compounding his hurt is her new love Mark (Jay Baruchel). He’s a wiseguy, quick with a barb, who has asked Lauren to marry him.
Dash’s lovesickness has affected every aspect of his life and when he meets Nora (Ali Tataryn) sparks fly, but he is still obsessed with Lauren. Hashing out his feelings of unrequited love with a therapist he searches for a way to let go of the past. Will it be a rehash of “The Graduate” or will Dash move on and move forward?
“Lovesick” doesn’t reinvent the wheel. The most remarkable thing about it is that it sets the action in Winnipeg rather than in the rom com cradle of New York. The same clever, slightly damaged people are on display, wearing their hearts on their sleeves in a movie that follows the rom com formula.
Luckily the cast has great chemistry. Montrealers Tierney, Baruchel and Paré click, making the most of the script’s charms. Rom coms are all about squeezing out laughs and a few heartfelt moments from a formula. “Lovesick” does that effectively, building a cast of quirky characters to surround Dash as his life crumbles.
“Lovesick” is a journey of self discovery, mixed with a few laughs, a tiny bit of romance (it’s more fixation than desire) and just enough darkness to separate it from the run of the mill rom com.
Think of “Preggoland” as “Sex and the City” without the shoe budget. Or maybe a grittier “Desperate Housewives.”
It’s the story of Ruth (screenwriter Sonja Bennett), a 35 year-old grocery store cashier (along with co-worker Danny Trejo) who hasn’t embraced maturity. She lives in her father Walter’s (James Caan) basement and spends her off hours drinking and partying. Her perpetual hungover condition stands in stark contrast to her circle of friends, most of which have settled down and are raising families.
After an embarrassing episode at a baby shower—she hits a kid with a baseball bat and gifts the mom-to-be with a sex toy—Ruth becomes a pariah… until her friends, Shannon (Laura Harris), Cherry (Denise Jones) and Deb (Carrie Ruscheinsky), mistakenly get the idea that she is pregnant. She’s welcomed back into the fold and comes to enjoy the plusses of pregnancy minus the procreation.
“Preggoland” is part farce, part semi-serious examination of a lost thirty-something trying to make her way in a social sphere that is changing too rapidly for her to keep up. Director Jacob Tierney balances the two approaches, blending laugh-out-loud comedy with some of the painful revelations Ruth must come to grips with. It’s a nuanced look at a desperate attempt to be part of the motherhood in-crowd and the fallout from trying to hard to belong.
“Preggoland’s” not-so-secret weapon is screenwriter and star Bennett. Relatable, even in her dark moments, she grounds the outlandish elements of the story, making them believable and poignant.
Telefilm Canada’s Talent to Watch series of panel sessions is designed to spotlight the creative talents of our country’s emerging and established filmmakers. Whether it’s making the transition from shorts to features, the creative possibilities afforded by new technologies, or the cultural, artistic, and linguistic diversities of our landscape, a panel of young Canadian directors at various stages in their careers reflect on the art of storytelling and engaging audiences. Richard hosted this panel with Jacob Tierney, director Preggoland, Jeffrey St. Jules director Bang Bang Baby, Andrea Dorfman director Heartbeat and Mathieu Denis, director Corbo.
Richard will host a panel session with Jacob Tierney, Jeffrey St. Jules, Mathieu Denis and Andrea Dorfman on Friday September 5, 2014.
Here is some info from the tiff.net website:
Telefilm Canada’s Talent to Watch series of panel sessions is designed to spotlight the creative talents of our country’s emerging and established filmmakers. Whether it’s making the transition from shorts to features, the creative possibilities afforded by new technologies, or the cultural, artistic, and linguistic diversities of our landscape, a panel of young Canadian directors at various stages in their careers reflect on the art of storytelling and engaging audiences.
Date: Friday, September 5
Time: 11:45am-12:30pm
Venue: Glenn Gould Studio
(MODERATOR)
Richard Crouse is the film critic for CTV’s Canada AM, the 24 hour news source CTV’s News Channel and CP24. In 2011 he hosted In Short, a series of hour long shows showcasing BravoFact’s best short films. He was the host of Reel to Real, Canada’s longest running television show about movies, from 1998 to 2008 and is a frequent guest on many national Canadian radio and television shows. His syndicated Saturday afternoon radio show, Entertainment Extra, originates on News Talk 1010 in Toronto. He is the author of six books on pop culture history including Who Wrote the Book of Love, the best-selling The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, its sequel The Son of the 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, the bestselling Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of The Devils and the upcoming Elvis is King: Costello’s My Aim is True. He also writes two weekly columns for Metro newspaper.
Jeffrey St. Jules was born in Montreal and grew up in Nova Scotia. Three of his short films, The Sadness of Johnson Joe Jangles (04), The Tragic Story of Nling (06), and Let the Daylight into the Swamp (12) premiered at the Festival. His other shorts include The Long Autumn (10), and The Rarebit Fiend (14). Bang Bang Baby (14) is his debut feature.
Mathieu Denis studied cinema at l’Université du Québec à Montréal. He directed the short films Silent Remains (06) and Code 13 (07), the latter of which premiered at the Festival, and wrote and co-directed the feature film Laurentie (11). Corbo (14) is his solo feature debut.
It’s hard to know how the ROC will react to “French Immersion,” a new comedy from the makers of “Bon Cop, Bad Cop.” ROC, if you don’t know, is Rest of Canada, a term the small town French characters in the film use to describe any part of the country that doesn’t fall within Quebec’s borders.
“French Immersion” sees a disparate group of five English speakers—a chef (Jacob Tierney), a flight attendant (Olunike Adeliyi), a mailman (Fred Ewanuick), a firefighter (Martha Burns) and a Member of Parliament (Gavin Crawford)—enroll at a language camp in a remote town to learn French and have a Quebecois experience. That means no English, not even “American Idol” on TV. One by one they become immersed not only in French culture but in the crazy goings on in this deceptively quiet town.
“French Immersion” is a willfully silly movie about a subject that lies at the very center of Canadian culture. It’s an equal opportunity bilingual comedy which gently, but not so subtly, pokes fun at both sides of the language issue.
It plays like a silly sitcom and like a sitcom if you scratch the surface there’s not much underneath. Despite tackling one of the country’s most divisive topics it doesn’t add much to the language debate other than a few one liners like “I love Canada, but I hate the English.”
Buried director Rodrigo Cortés on his admiration for Ryan Reynolds
“I hope that all Canadians are not like Ryan Reynolds because that embarrasses the world. People like him should be forbidden.”
Woody Allen on aging
“I’ll be 75 in another couple of months and I do see myself as becoming waning and decrepit.”
Jacob Tierney on working with a cat in Good Neighbours:
“He starred in 300. That’s the cat from 300. Do you know how many times the trainer told me that? I was like, ‘Awesome. Shall I talk to his agent?’”
Paul Giamatti on the famous “merlot” line in Sideways:
“The funniest thing about that line is the only reason it is merlot is that we tried all these different wines and that was the only one that was funny… was the word merlot. For some reason that sounded funnier than chardonnay.”
Josh Brolin on Diane Lane:
“If you look at my wife’s boobs you’ll see that she doesn’t need a boob job.”
