Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel with host Jennifer Burke to have a look at the new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including Christopher Nolan mind bender “Tenet,” the Disney+ animated flick “Phineas And Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe” the return of William S. “Bill” Preston, Esq and Theodore “Ted” Logan in “Bill and Ted Face the Music.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with guest host Matt Harris to talk the new movies coming to theatres, VOD and streaming services including the Christopher Nolan mind bender “Tenet,” the Disney+ animated flick “Phineas And Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe,” the timely period piece “The Personal History of David Copperfield,” the wrestling doc “You Cannot Kill David Arquette,” the long awaited X-Men spin off “The New Mutants” and the return of William S. “Bill” Preston, Esq and Theodore “Ted” Logan in “Bill and Ted Face the Music.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Just because Bill and Ted, the time travelling slackers last seen on screen almost thirty years ago, got bigger and older doesn’t mean they grew up. Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves reunite as William S. “Bill” Preston, Esq and Theodore “Ted” Logan in “Bill and Ted Face the Music,” available now in theatres and on demand, to try, once again, to save the world through music.
The leaders of the Wyld Stallyns are now middle aged with kids of their own, played by Brigette Lundy-Paine and Samara Weaving. At their peak Bill and Ted’s band played at the Grand Canyon but are now reduced to performing at a lodge for a handful of people who were already there for taco night. Still, they persist in their quest to write the perfect song, a tune so powerful it will unite the world.
Not everyone is on board. “It’s been hard to watch you beat your heads against the wall for 25 years,” says Ted’s wife Princess Elizabeth Logan (Erinn Hayes). “Not sure how much more we can take.”
But when their old mentor Rufus (George Carlin in archival footage) send his daughter Kelly (Kristen Schaal) from the future with a mission, Bill and Ted accept. Given 77 minutes and 25 seconds to create a song that will “save reality,“ the duo go on an excellent, time travelling journey to the future to get the song from their future selves. “Let’s go say hello to ourselves and get that song,” says the ever-optimistic Bill.
Cue the famous inner-dimensional phone box.
The new adventure brings with it some grown-up issues, marital problems, matters of life and death, their manipulative future selves, a trip to hell and killer robots.
Meanwhile, as Bill and Ted race into the future with Kelly their daughters are on a mission of their own. Zipping through time they convince some of the greatest musicians the world has ever known—Jimi Hendrix (DazMann Still), Louis Armstrong (Jeremiah Craft), Mozart (Daniel Dorr), drummer Grom (Patty Anne Miller), flautist Ling Lun (Sharon Gee) and rapper Kid Cudi as himself—to bring Bill and Ted’s music to life.
A mix of quantum physics and silly humor, “Bill and Ted Face the Music” is more a blast in nostalgia than laugh out loud funny. The screenplay, by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, who also penned “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey,” haven’t played around with the formula. This isn’t a gritty reimagining of the franchise. Bill and Ted haven’t developed dark sides or become jaded. They are carbon copies of their former screen selves, albeit with a few more miles on their faces. The yuks are derived from Bill and Ted as wide-eyed, Valley-speaking saviors who look for and find the best in everyone they meet in the past, present and future.
Along the way there are some welcome returns, most notably William Sadler as the bass playing Grim Reaper, who can’t understand why Bill and Ted don’t appreciate his 40-minute-long bass solos, and it’s nice to see Carlin again, if only for a second. Lundy-Paine and Weaving, have fun, playing the daughters as two chips off the old blockheads, naively discovering the true secret of world unity.
“Bill and Ted Face the Music” is a blast from the past, a movie that would look great on VHS, that maintains the goofiness and the optimism of the originals.
Richard joins CP24 to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the dramedy “Brittany Runs a Marathon,” the gender equality doc “This Changes Everything” and the comedy “Road to the Lemon Grove.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel with news anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the weekend’s big releases including the life comedy “Brittany Runs a Marathon,” the gender equality doc “This Changes Everything” and the comedy “Road to the Lemon Grove.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard has a look at the new movies coming to theatres, including the hilariously inspirational “Brittany Runs a Marathon,” the gender equality doc “This Changes Everything” and the comedy “Road to the Lemon Grove” with CFRA morning show 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 and most interesting movies! This week Richard looks at Jillian Bell in “Brittany Runs a Marathon,” the gender equality doc “This Changes Everything” and the comedy “Road to the Lemon Grove.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
When we first meet twenty-eight-year-old Brittany (Jillian Bell) she’s at a low point in her life. Broke and unhappy, she drinks away her morning hangovers and is so unreliable an animal kill shelter rejects her adoption request because they don’t feel she can give the dog the future it deserves.
When her doctor (Patch Darragh) tells her she has a high BMI, placing her firmly in the obese category, she wisecracks, “I feel you completely missed the point of those Dove commercials,” but the news has an effect.
Feeling crappy, an influenced by her upstairs neighbour Catherine (Michaela Watkins) she decides to make some dramatic life changes. “I’m starting to feel like everyone’s life is going somewhere and mine isn’t,” she says.
Step one is exercise. She tries to sign up at a local gym but can’t afford the monthly fee. “I see under your fitness goals you have drawn a frowny face,” says her recruiter (Mikey Day). Instead she takes tentative steps that turn into a run through the streets around her walk-up apartment. With the help of new running friends Catherine, who is changing her life post-divorce and Seth, and Seth (Micah Stock) a novice athlete who wants to run the 26.2-mile New York Marathon to prove to his son it can be done. Together they train with the mantra, “We don’t have to win,” they say, “we just have to finish.”
She’s taking back her life, one block at a time but weeks before the big run Brittany is sidelined, forcing her to examine the deeper reasons she needed to change her life and begin to focus on the things she can control.
There’s a quick shot of Rocky Balboa, another great underdog who transformed through sheer will, in the film’s Philadelphia section. The comparison is apt. Both movies are underdog tales that transcend the sports on display. On the surface “Rocky” is about boxing, just as “Brittany Runs a Marathon” is about running but both have larger themes that examine dissatisfaction, respect, ambition and family. These universal themes, coupled with winning performances from the cast, particularly Bell and Utkarsh Ambudkar as Brittany’s sorta-kinda boyfriend Jern, and big laughs make “Brittany Runs a Marathon” more than an inspirational sports film. It digs deep and the story packs an unexpected emotional punch as it uplifts.
Richard and CP24 anchor George Lagogianes have a look at the weekend’s new movies, “Cars 3,” “Rough Night” and “All Eyez on Me.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
