Richard joins CP24 anchor Nathan Downer to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the Elton John fantasy flick “Rocketman,” the foot-stompin’ “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” and the fashion documentary “Halston.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard has a look at the new movies coming to theatres, including the glittering Elton John musical fantasy “Rocketman,” the big monster movie “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” and the fashion doc “Halston” with CFRA Morning Rush host Bill Carroll.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
A weekly feature from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at the Elton John fantasy flick “Rocketman,” the foot-stompin’ “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” and the fashion documentary “Halston.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
From the get go “Rocketman,” the new Elton John jukebox biopic starring Taron Egerton, is more revealing and blunter than last year’s wildly popular but hagiographic Queen movie “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Using flashbacks John, in full stage regalia, tells the story during an AA meeting. The movie and his tale begin with a revelation. “My name is Elton Hercules John and I’m an alcoholic, and a cocaine addict, and a sex addict and a bulimic and a shopaholic who has a problem with weed and anger management.”
From the blunt introduction we’re led through the singer’s life on a broken timeline, jumping to and fro, blending fact and fantasy.
Jumbled up in the mix are his terrible parents (Bryce Dallas Howard and Steven Mackintosh)—when he tells mom he’s gay she replies, “We will never be loved properly.”—his songwriting partner and muse Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell), plus mounds of cocaine and hit songs used to punctuate the autobiographical action. Unlike “Bohemian Rhapsody’s” prudish attitude regarding Freddie Mercury’s homosexuality, “Rocketman” is out and proud, detailing John’s intimate relationship with partner and manager John Reid (Richard Madden).
Part “Moulin Rouge” by way of Ken Russell‘s “Tommy,” “Rocketman’s” startling opening number, “The Bitch is Back,” establishes that this is no warmed over “Bohemian Rhapsody” clone. It is a musical, not simply a musical biopic. Characters burst into song and Elton John songs are woven into the score.
Of course, music is a large part of the story. In the tradition of musical theatre “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” isn’t simply performed as one of John’s biggest hits, it’s moves the story forward as a duet between John and his ex-wife-to-be Renate Blauel (Celinde Schoenmaker).
To illustrate the transcendent nature of John’s star-making US debut at the Troubadour in Los Angeles director Dexter Fletcher gets metaphysical. As he plays “Crocodile Rock” both John and the audience levitate as if the music is taking them to a higher place. It’s trippy but wordlessly conveys the excitement of those early gigs. Add to that dancing Teddy Boys and flamboyant stage costumes and “Rocketman” feels Broadway bound.
The surreal storytelling effortlessly captures the heady, “Who wants to go to a party at Mama Cass‘s house?“ days of Elton John‘s early rise to stardom. Later, when John becomes a walking, singing rock n’ roll cliché director Dexter Fletcher amps up the style to portray the lifestyle the musician himself describes as “madness.” As such the biographical details are jumbled but “Rocketman” is more about capturing the moment not the exact details.
It is glittering eye candy but there is much humanity on display. In one remarkable scene Taron Egerton as John prepares for a live show with copious amounts of cocaine and wine. Staring into the mirror he tries to find his game face. From dead-eyed to sparkly in the flash we see the two sides of a man who once said, “I wish I was someone else.” Egerton is a dead ringer for John, even if doesn’t sound like the voice from the classic recordings. In a performance that portrays the humanity and the outrageousness of someone who says, “I do not live my life in black-and-white,” Egerton grabs the singer’s essence.
Nice supporting work from Jamie Bell as lyricist Bernie Taupin, Richard Madden as John’s boyfriend and manager Reid and Stephen Graham as music industry wheeler-dealer Dick James, who advises John to “buy something flashy, put on a great show and don’t kill yourself with drugs,” add to the flavour of the piece but it is Egerton’s show. He can sing and dance but also mines the character to find an emotional resonance missing from many biopics.
“Rocketman” is sometimes a little too on the nose in its song selections. As Taupin, who will eventually call the singer his brother, and John bond the soundtrack plays “Border Song’s,” “He’s my brother let us live in peace,” refrain. It’s a tad obvious for a movie that pushes buttons in terms of style, portrayal of sexuality and the flexibility of the biographical timelines.
By the film’s coda, however, it’s clear this is a tale of self-reckoning. There is much talk of reinvention, of “killing the person you were born to become the person you were born to be,” and as John becomes the person he is meant to be this very specific story’s “I’m Still Standing” message of resilience becomes universal.
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the Elton John musical fantasy “Rocketman” and the big monster movie “Godzilla: King of the Monsters.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard joins midday host Jerry Agar to have a look at the Elton John biopic ‘Rocketman,” listen to “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again,” the new song from the movie’s soundtrack and talk about the unique way Cannes’s audiences show their displeasure.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard’s “Canada AM” reviews for “Fantastic Four,” “Shaun the Sheep Movie” and “The Gift.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“Fantastic Four,” the reboot of Marvel’s original superhero gang starring Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell, should have had a subtitle. I’d suggest “Fantastic Four: Prologue!” or perhaps “Fantastic Four: Failure to Launch.” The latest entry into the superhero sweepstakes is a leaden affair that seems to exist only to set up a sequel and doesn’t even do a good job at that.
Miles Teller stars as Reed Richards, a boy genius who started working on his interdimensional travel device when he was in grade five. Cut to years later at his high school science fair. He’s still slogging away on the machine with the help of his best friend Ben (Bell). His science teacher disqualifies him—“This is a science fair, not a magic show!”—but a visiting scientist (Reg E. Cathey), the living embodiment of the “those who can, do, those who can’t, teach” maxim, offers him a job at research lab Baxter Industries.
There he works with Johnny and Susan Storm (Jordan and Mara) and Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell)—can you guess which one becomes the bad guy?—to build a proper teleportation device. After successfully sending a monkey to Planet Zero the core group, plus Ben but minus Sue, make the trip themselves. Much Saturday morning cartoon dialogue later they are forced to leave Victor behind and make a desperate dash for earth. Once back home things have changed. Reed has turned into Stretch Armstrong, with elastic arms and legs, Johnny is a literal fireball of energy, Ben is a rock star now known as Thing and Sue, who soaked up some radioactive rays now “shifts in and out of the visible spectrum.”
There’s more, but really, who cares? From this point on “Fantastic Four” becomes a studio superhero franchise film, regurgitating situations and visuals we’ve seen before in better movies. There’s the giant ray of matter shooting from an interdimensional portal into the sky, the maniacal bad guy and terror here on earth.
Been there, done that.
Director Josh Trank makes an effort to distinguish the movie with an hour of character development off the top but the pace is anything but fantastic—there’s a low energy chase scene that feels like the cars are driving through molasses—and the movie plays more like an emo indie than a superhero flick. The serious tone is appreciated after the smirky “Avengers: Age of Ultron” but the empty millennial platitudes—“We can’t change the past but we can change the future!”—and lack of any really compelling characters make it a slog. The beauty of the “Fantastic Four” comic books was the chemistry between the characters, an element, despite good actors, missing from the reboot.
Maybe “Fantastic Four” doesn’t need a subtitle. Perhaps it simply needs a more accurate title, like “Qualified Quartet” or “Fair Four.”
Defiance is the story of three brothers who fought back. It’s the little known history of a community of Warsaw Ghetto refugees who survived in the Belarusian forests despite the constant threat of the Nazis. Based on the true story of the Bielski partisans, Defiance stars Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell as the three Jewish brothers who escaped the Nazis in Poland and fought to rescue 1200 Jews.
Defiance is two-thirds of a good movie. It’s hard to fault the idea of shedding some light on the brave men and women who fought back against the Nazis, but I think that simply because the movie tells an important story doesn’t necessarily mean it is good storytelling. Director Ed Zwick has most of the elements of a good story—compelling true premise, well known actors, dramatic conflict—but he puts it all together with all the spark of a wet match.
He’s done better in the past with similar material. Glory, the untold story of the US Civil War’s first all-black volunteer company was a masterful blend of historical fact and entertainment. Defiance, on the other hand, tries too hard to create unnecessary story elements. The basic premise of three brothers saving large groups of people is compelling enough, why muddy it up with superfluous romantic tangents? The peripheral plotlines add nothing to the overall movie, in fact, often they distract from the main focus. Add to that some clunky dialogue and the film’s 137 minute running time seems much longer.
Also, Zwick doesn’t take the time to show us how the brothers managed to build a giant village in the forest and yet go undetected by the Nazis. We are told several times that the woods are vast and dangerous, but they always seem to be near a roadway or farm, close to civilization. Surely someone would have spotted the smoke from their camp fires. Perhaps more time spent on showing us how isolated the refugees were and less time spent on romance would have given this movie more of a ring of authenticity.
When the movie sticks to the basic elements of the story—freedom, faith, protection against persecution—it works. When Craig says, “Every day of freedom is an act of faith, and if we should die, at least we die like human beings,” he gets to the meat of the story, only to be sidelined later by a rambling script.
Craig brings the same kind of physicality to the role of Tuvia as he dose to the James Bond movies, but here he is overshadowed by Schreiber who is ferocious as brother Zus. He’s a powerful presence on screen and almost out-Bonds James Bond.
Defiance is a remarkable story of courage, unfortunately, unremarkably told.
