On the Saturday May 4 edition of the Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet novelist and writing coach Heidi Reimer. Her front-row seat to the theater world of her debut novel, “The Mother Act,” began two decades ago when she met and married an actor, and her immersion in motherhood began when she adopted a toddler and discovered she was pregnant on the same day.
Then, we’ll meet photographer-turned-film director, Caitlin Cronenberg. Her new movie “Humane” stars Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire and Enrico Colantoni is a wild story about a family dinner that erupts into chaos when a father’s plan to enlist in the government’s new euthanasia program goes sideways.
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!
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“Humane,” the debut film from director Caitlin Cronenberg, and now playing in theatres, places a violent family drama against the backdrop of a global ecological collapse.
Set in the near future, the movie takes place as a climate change has reached a critical point. Crops are failing around the world, and food is so scarce that world governments have ordered a voluntary 20% cull in the overall population to reduce the strain on the planet.
“We are engaged in a life and death struggle against our own extinction,” says Professor Jared York (Jay Baruchel).
Into this situation comes the rest of the wealthy York family, led by patriarch Charles (Peter Gallagher). A retired newscaster, Charles has had a good run and, to the surprise of his family, has signed up, along with wife Dawn (Uni Park) for the euthanasia program.
Despite his big talk on television news shows, Professor York doesn’t think the rules apply to his wealthy, well-known family, which includes piano playing adopted brother Noah (Sebastian Chacon), edgy sister Rachel (Emily Hampshire), Ashley (Alanna Bale) and the youngest, Mia (Sirena Gulamgaus).
The family’s resolve is put to the test when cheery government exterminator Bob (Enrico Colantoni) arrives to euthanatize and collect two bodies. Trouble is, Dawn has taken off.
“I can’t do it,” she says in a note. “I will always love you.”
One body short of his quota, Bob announces, “I need a second cadaver. We’re here to collect two bodies. We’ve got three hours before my next appointment.”
His offer to give the family time to decide which of them should sacrifice themselves for the betterment of the world, sends the siblings into a chaotic fight to stay alive.
“Think about your lives,” Bob says. “I’m sure one of you will realize it’s not all that great.”
Using dark humor to expose the selfishness and cruelty of human nature, “Humane’s” social farce cuts like a knife. As the action escalates, dirty secrets are revealed and the soft underbelly of the family exposed as each member makes a case for survival. It’s a dystopian “August: Osage County” with hints of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Step Brothers.” Cronenberg keeps the action contained to one day, mostly in one house, decisions that bring a sense of ticking-clock urgency and claustrophobia to the proceedings.
The tone vacillates between life-and-death and oddly chipper—thanks to Colantoni’s sprightly executioner Bob—but its far-fetched situation is taken as seriously as a heart attack, which amps up the dark, deadpan humor.
That none of the characters are particularly likable, save for Bob, turns the tables. Bob may be the bringer of doom, and an enthusiastic one, but the villains here are the family and Hampshire and Baruchel, who previously appeared together in “The Trotsky” and “Good Neighbors,” revel in their 1% smarminess.
“Humane” makes good use of Trooper’s fatalistic hit “We’re Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time)” and wisely never allows the focus to wander away from the family satire.
It’s hard to remember now, but there was a time when we were not tethered to our smart phones. A new film, “BlackBerry,” starring Jay Baruchel and Matt Johnson, and now playing in theatres, vividly recreates the scrappy story of friendship, betrayal and hubris that began our obsession with our phones.
Baruchel and Johnson play Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin, founders of small tech company Research in Motion. When we first meet them it’s 1996 and they are about to pitch a new kind of pager to hotheaded executive Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton). He’s the kind of Art of War-style boss who snaps at an assistant who reaches for a bottle of water. “Thirst is a display of weakness.”
Too busy trying to backstab his way to the top of the corporate ladder to give the tech nerds his attention, he dismisses the awkward pitch before they even get to the end. But when his latest grab at a promotion gets him fired from his cushy corporate job, he reaches out to RIM with an offer.
Under his aggressive leadership, coupled with Lazaridis’s uncompromising search for perfection and Fregin’s clever engineering and heart, the Waterloo, Ontario storefront start-up soon debuts “the world’s largest pager.” Or is it “the world’s smallest email terminal?” Either way, it is a handheld game changer that combines a phone with the capabilities of a computer.
The odd little phone, with a QWERTY keyboard, encrypted messaging and low data cost, becomes a status symbol, used by some of the world’ most powerful people. In the hands of everyone from President Barack Obama and Justin Timberlake to Katy Perry and Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, the phones helped the world communicate in a whole new way.
The halcyon days of BlackBerry lasted a few years until shady business dealings, ambition and lack of vision relegated RIM’s products to the scrap heap; the “phone people had before they bought an iPhone.”
“BlackBerry” isn’t just a business story or the story of innovation. Instead, it is an underdog tale that emphasizes the human foibles that led to RIM’s downfall, not just the financial ones.
Baruchel and Howerton, as the characters who provide the story’s yin and yang, hand in strong performances.
Baruchel, topped with a shock of white hair, goes deep to play Lazaridis as a socially awkward man with a rich inner life, a perfectionist who can’t help himself from fixing a buzz on the office intercom in Balsillie’s office on the day of their big pitch.
As Balsillie, Howerton is all bluster, a thin-skinned man who covers his weaknesses with a thick veneer of bellicosity. From attempting to buy a hockey team after a rival slights the game to his wanton manipulation of RIM to suit his own ambitions, he is simultaneously the best and worst thing that ever happened to Lazaridis and Fregin.
As director and writer (as well as co-star), Johnson concentrates on the human side of the story, amping up the anxiety with a terrific sense of pacing and claustrophobic close-ups of his cast as their lives and business unwind.
“BlackBerry” is an interesting slice of recent history, made all the more interesting by the study of hubris that makes this tech story so human.
It’s hard to remember now, but there was a time when we were not tethered to our smart phones. A new film, “BlackBerry,” starring Jay Baruchel and Matt Johnson, and now playing in theatres, vividly recreates the scrappy story of friendship, betrayal and hubris that began our obsession with our phones.
Today, we going to focus on that story, courtesy of the film BlackBerry, which opens in theatres on May 12.
There was a time when the Canadian made, odd little phone, with a QWERTY keyboard, encrypted messaging and low data cost, was a status symbol, used by some of the world’ most powerful people. In the hands of everyone from President Barack Obama and Justin Timberlake to Katy Perry and Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, the phones helped the world communicate in a whole new way.
They were the original smart phones, which makes their Canadian creators Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin, visionaries, the men who gave us the future.
Recently I sat down with BlackBerry co-writer, co-star and director Matt Johnson, and Jay Baruchel who stars as the awkward genius behind the BlackBerry tech, Mike Lazaridis.
Matt is the director of The Dirties, which won Best Narrative Feature at the Slamdance Film Festival, Operation Avalanche, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and mockumentary television series Nirvanna the Band the Show.
You know Jay from his voice role as Hiccup Haddock in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, and for roles in Knocked Up, Tropic Thunder, The Trotsky, Fanboys, She’s Out of My League, Goon, This Is the End, and the action-fantasy film The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. You can also see him as the host of We’re All Gonna Die (Even Jay Baruchel) on Crave.
BlackBerry is the story of the company Research in Motion, Jim Balsillie, the hotheaded businessman, played by Glenn Howerton, who was there for the rise and fall of the iconic company.
“BlackBerry” isn’t just a business story or the story of innovation. Instead, it is an underdog tale that emphasizes the human foibles that led to RIM’s downfall, not just the financial ones.
We began the interview with the idea of talking about the film, but were soon sidetracked by a discussion inspired by the lessons learned from the film, about what it means to be Canadian, why we don’t celebrate our own stories and much more. Stay tuned, it often doesn’t sound like an interview as much as a conversation we might have had over a drink or two. Like the movie we were supposed to concentrate on, before the conversation took a few left turns, the interview is passionate, patriotic, funny and not quite what you might expect.
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!
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Check out episode twenty-six of Richard’s web series, “In Isolation With…” It’s the talk show where we make a connection without actually making contact! Today, broadcasting directly from Isolation Studios (a.k.a. my home office) we meet Jay Baruchel. He’s been acting since the age of twelve and has appeared in everything from “Knocked Up” and “Tropic Thunder” to “The Trotsky” and “She’s Out of My League” to the action-fantasy “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “This Is the End.” He’s probably best known as the voice of Hiccup in the wildly successful “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise but he says, despite all the success in front of the camera, what he really wants to do is direct.
“I was really lucky in that my parents would give me a kind of film or music 101,” he says in the interview. “Whenever they would tell me something they would explain why it matters. Why they care about it. What the landscape that it came out in was like and then, of course ,then they would get into sort of inside jokes. They also showed me “Monty Python the Holy Grail” and pause after every punch line and be like, ‘Do you understand why that’s funny?’ This is called dry humor. Literally. Verbatim. This is called dry humour. Then dad bought me “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” on VHS for my ninth birthday. And that started my collection that I’m still crippled by because I still buy physical media. But I’ve never stopped. Somewhere in there I realized that as much as I adore writing stories, I realized that movies were the thing.”
Two years ago he wrote and directed the sports comedy “Goon: Last of the Enforcers.” Now he appears both in front of and behind the camera in “Random Acts of Violence,” a genre film that asks serious questions about how we relate to violence in art.
Based on a 2008 Image Comic, “Random Acts of Violence” begins with comic book writer Todd (Jesse Williams) suffering a case of writer’s block. His series, a grisly and successful adaptation of a real-life serial killer dubbed Slasherman, is coming to an end and he doesn’t know how to wind it down.
On a press tour from Toronto to New York to promote the final issue, Jesse and friends, visit the scene of the Slasherman’s crimes. As the group fall victim to a series of heinous copycat crimes the film asks, “What are the real consequences when life (and death) begin to imitate art?”
I talk about that with Jay in this interview but we started by reminiscing about the “beforetime” when we could go to the movies. I asked him what movie memories stand out for him when he thinks back to the theatre experience…
NOTE: The language in this interview is NOT suitable for all age. NSFW!
Watch the whole thing HERE on YouTube or HERE on ctvnews.ca!
True crime stories, retold as police procedurals, are television and podcast staples. Millions of people make a date every Friday with “Dateline” for a breathless retelling of the crime de jour and more folks kill time with crime podcasts than almost every other genre. Perhaps it’s because we like the rush of trying to figure out whodunnit or perhaps it’s because those shows give us an opportunity to feel relief that we’re not the victim.
Whatever the reason, we like it, but a new movie, “Random Acts of Violence,” now on VOD, may get us think about true crime in a different way. The film, co-written and directed by Jay Baruchel, details the consequences of turning a real serial killer into a pop culture phenomenon.
Based on a 2008 Image Comic by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, “Random Acts of Violence” begins with comic book writer Todd (Jesse Williams) suffering a case of writer’s block. His series, a grisly and successful adaptation of a real-life serial killer dubbed Slasherman, is coming to an end and he doesn’t know how to wind it down.
On a press tour from Toronto to New York to promote the final issue, Jesse and wife Kathy (Jordana Brewster), assistant Aurora (Niamh Wilson) and BFF, Hard Calibre Comics owner Ezra (Baruchel), visit the scene of the Slasherman’s crimes. As the group fall victim to a series of heinous copycat crimes the film asks, “What are the real consequences when life (and death) begin to imitate art?”
“One of our friends is dead,” Kathy yells, glaring at Todd, “because of what came out of your f***ed up head.”
First know that while “Random Acts of Violence” is a condemnation of elevating killers to iconic status, it is also a blood-fest complete with entrails on the wrong side of the stomach muscles and sound effects that will haunt your dreams. It’s the bloodiest morality tale since the Old Testament.
It rides a thin line between commenting on pop culture’s obsession with brutality while displaying much of the behavior it condemns. “You legitimize violence,” Kathy tells Todd. “You fetishize evil.”
What sets it apart is self-awareness. Baruchel confronts the audience with the kind of graphic murders that might even make Rob Zombie uncomfortable, just as the story confronts its own use of violence.
Meta, right?
Is it perfect in its exploration of the morality of glorifying violence? No. The social commentary is blunted by the carefully and stylishly staged violence that seems to play against the point Baruchel is trying to make. But the feeling of discomfort that comes with every stab of a knife asks us to examine why we view cruelty—particularly against women—as entertainment. “Random Acts of Violence” is confrontational, voyeuristic and difficult, and, if nothing else, a conversation starter.
IMDb lists dozens of titles containing the phrase “dragon slayer.” The Hobbit author J.R.R. Tolkien described dragon Smaug as “a most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm.” The Flight of the Conchords have a song called “Albi the Racist Dragon,” and on Dragon Day at Cornell University, an effigy of one of the giant beasts is burned while students shout and dance.
From “Game of Thrones” to “DragonHeart” the winged creatures are portrayed as fiery, fearsome creatures. Only one movie franchise shows the flip side, cinematic dragons who are more misunderstood than actually evil. “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” is the final instalment of the wildly successful trilogy of tales about a dragon whisperer and his flying pet.
Hero Hiccup (voice of Jay Baruchel), now the chief of the dragon-friendly Viking Isle of Berk, and his fire-breathing friend Toothless are growing up. Romance is in the air. Hiccup may or may not propose to Astrid (America Ferrera) while Toothless falls for a Light Fury, a smaller dragon whose colouration allows her to hide in clouds.
All is well until Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham), a dragon hunter whose goal is to exterminate all dragons, disrupts Berk’s romantic idylls. As Grimmel’s dark threat hangs over Berk, Hiccup searches for a safe haven for both dragons and Vikings, the fabled Hidden World. “I don’t see a way of staying here any longer,” he says. “If we want to live in peace with our dragons we need to disappear off the map.”
The “How to Train Your Dragon” movies have always been cinematic. Director Dean DeBlois’s camera is in constant motion capturing the choreography of flocks of dragons as they soar through the air or Hiccup’s more outlandish adventures. “The Hidden World” is no different. Beautifully animated, it makes the most of its visuals, presenting gorgeous landscapes of Berk and the beautiful phosphorescent caves of the Hidden World that feel like they sprang from the pages of one of Cressida Cowell source novels.
The dragons come in all shapes, sizes and colours. From fierce to funny they each have distinct personalities. The mating dance between Toothless and the Light Fury is goofy, sweet fun, like something out of a NatGeo documentary on dragon rituals. DeBlois’s animators have found new and subtle ways to add expression to their scaly faces that helps bring them to vivid life.
There is less story in “The Hidden World” than the previous franchise entries. There are good messages about selflessness, the importance of love—the old chestnut about loving something enough to set it free is emphasized—topped off by more timely ideas about finding ways to co-exist.
The goofy humour that gave the other films much of their charm is intact but the emphasis is placed on large-scale action sequences and set pieces. The characters have grown up and so has the action. Dragons spew green acid and the swashbuckling is frenetic which may be too much for younger viewers.
“How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” feels like a film that has grown along with its core audience. Determined to supply a satisfying ending to the franchise DeBlois delivers a movie that pushes the boundaries of the series while still maintaining the soul that earned the fans in the first place.
Richard speaks to Jay Baruchel in the pages of the February issue of WestJet Magazine.
“For many, actor Jay Baruchel’s voice is instantly recognizable. Equal parts twang and child-like enthusiasm, it breathes vivid life into the animated character of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, the bold, young protagonist in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise…” Read the whole thing HERE!
Watch the full episode of “Pop Life” from Saturday November 10, 2018. This week with Jay Baruchel on where his love of the Habs came from. The Canadian “How to Train Your Dragon” actor and author speaks about this and more. Then, the “Pop Life” panel, “Girl Squads” author Sam Maggs, “United We Fan” director Michael Sparaga and “Jericho” superfan Jeff Knoll, break down the power of fandom and how it is allowing people to connect on and offline.
On the Saturday May 4 edition of the Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet novelist and writing coach Heidi Reimer. Her front-row seat to the theater world of her debut novel, “The Mother Act,” began two decades ago when she met and married an actor, and her immersion in motherhood began when she adopted a toddler and discovered she was pregnant on the same day.
