Posts Tagged ‘Jim Gaffigan’

CFRA IN OTTAWA: THE BILL CARROLL MORNING SHOW MOVIE REVIEWS!

Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres, VOD and streaming services including the Pixar fantasy “Luca” (direct-to-streaming on Disney+), the action comedy “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” (in theatres) and the English pychological drama “Censor” (VOD).

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

THE SHOWGRAM WITH JIM RICHARDS: DOES RICHARD CROUSE LIKE THESE MOVIES?

Richard joins NewsTalk 1010’s Jim Richards coast-to-coast-to-coast late night “Showgram” to play the game “Did Richard Crouse like these movies?” This week we talk about “Luca,” the kid’s fantasy film from Pixar, the action adventure of “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” with Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson and Salma Hayek, and the English psychological drama “Censor.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

LUCA: 3 ½ STARS. “amiable look at finding a place to belong, above & below sea level.”   

Set on the Italian Riviera, “Luca,” the new film from animation giants Pixar and now streaming on Disney+, is a fantasy story about sea monsters with a beating, human heart.

Jacob Tremblay is 13-year-old Luca Paguro, a shy sea monster with a typical teenager’s curiosity. When he discovers items that have floated down from the surface he wonders what the world outside the sea has to offer. Despite the stories his parents, Daniela (Maya Rudolph) and Lorenzo (Jim Gaffigan), have told him of fisherman and the horrors of dry land, his free-spirited best friend Alberto Scorfano (Jack Dylan Grazer) has been above the water line and convinces the shy Luca to check out the terra firma,

On land, Luca and Alberto, who look like a cross between the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Sigmund Ooze of 1970s Saturday morning television fame, transform from underwater creatures to human form. Blending in, they explore the seaside town of Portorosso, discovering the pleasures of pasta, gelato and most of all, the Vespa. The town bully Ercole Visconti (Saverio Raimondo) sets his sights on them but a young girl, Giulia Marcovaldo (Emma Berman) befriends them and has an idea that may help them get their very own Vespa.

“Luca” is a fanciful coming of age story. The very specific story of sea monsters who aspire for more in their lives, has universal messages about find commonalities not differences, anti-bullying and never giving up. The morals are a bit on the nose—”Some people will never accept him, and never will, but he seems to be able to find the good ones.”—but they are kept afloat with imaginative animation and a simple story that zips along.

At its cold-blooded little heart though, “Luca” is about friendship. The kind of bond that happens between kids who are just figuring out the world and its possibilities. Director Enrico Casarosa, who directed Pixar’s 2011 Oscar nominated short “La Luna,” aided by fun voice work from Tremblay and Grazer, captures the youthful exuberance needed to make the story work.

“Luca” doesn’t have the emotional resonance of classic era Pixar—think “Up,” “WALL-E” and “Ratatouille”—but what it lacks in gut punch sentiment, it makes up for in imagination, action and the good-natured look at finding a place to belong, above and below sea level.

NEWSTALK 1010: FATHER’S DAY WITH AUTHORS STEVE PATTERSON + DAN ROBSON!

This week on the Richard Crouse Show Podcast we meet Deanna Marigliese, the Canadian character art director for Pixar Animation Studios. Today we’ll talk about “Luca,” a movie many families will enjoy together this weekend on Disney+.

Then, comedian, host of CBC Radio’s The Debaters he’s a Dad to Scarlett and Norah, Steve Patterson joins us to talk about his first book, “Dad Up!” It’s getting great reviews… Denise Donlan said it should come with ‘READ BEFORE PARENTING’ sticker and Brent Butt, creator of Corner Gas, called it a touching and very funny read.

Finally, Dan Robson is the author of numerous books about sports, like biographies of former Toronto Maple Leafs coach Pat Quinn and legendary player Johnny Bower but has now turned the focus on his own life, specifically his relationship with his late father Rick. “Measuring Up: A Memoir Of Fathers And Sons” is a tender memoir of fathers and sons, love and loss, and learning to fill boots a size too big.

Listen to the whole thing HERE! (Link coming soon!)

Here’s some info on The Richard Crouse Show!

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 Ethan Hawke, director Brad Bird, comedian Gilbert Gottfried, Eric Roberts, Brian Henson, Jonathan Goldsmith a.k.a. “The most interesting man in the world,” and best selling author Linwood Barclay.

Listen to the show live here:

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CTV NEWS AT 11:30: MORE MOVIES AND TV SHOWS TO STREAM THIS WEEKEND!

Richard speaks to “CTV News at 11:30” anchor Andria Case about movies on VOD and in theatres to watch this weekend including “Misbehaviour” starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Kiera Knightley, Ethan Hawke as the legendary inventor in “Tesla” and the activist doc “We Are Many.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

TESLA: 3 ½ STARS. “as idiosyncratic as the man it portrays.”

Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) was a man with an eye to the future. He’s best known for best known for his innovations in the transmission and application of electric power but his restless mind was always engaged, burning hot with new ideas.

If we are to believe “Tesla,” a fanciful postmodern biopic starring Ethan Hawke, now on VOD, he had the ability to project himself into the future, predicting what was to come, including x-rays and even the Tears for Fears hit “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”

A knowing mix of fact and fiction, “Tesla” is narrated by Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson), daughter of financier and banker J.P. Morgan, who says after one flight of fancy, while scrolling through her MacBook Pro, “This is pretty surely not how it happened.” It’s a self-aware story, filled with authenticity but also anachronisms to paint a portrait of a man out of time.

Detailing the period in Tesla’s life from his early work with Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan) at the Edison Machine Works on New York’s Lower East Side through to his encounters with the leading lights of the era, J.P. Morgan (Donnie Keshawarz), renowned French actress Sarah Bernhardt (Rebecca Dayan) and entrepreneur George Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan). It’s a heady time that sees Tesla dream big and fail bigger, ultimately reduced to begging Morgan for money before dying penniless and alone at the age of 86 in Room 3327 of the Hotel New Yorker.

“Tesla” is not a tale for history buffs. Edison is seen with an iPhone and a gaggle of heiresses listen to electro-pop but these anachronisms aren’t for effect, like spotting the wristwatch on Matthew Broderick’s arm in the 1800s set “Glory” or the iPod Touch in “The Hurt Locker,” three years before the mobile devices were in stores, they’re meant to add to the poetry of the telling, as metaphors for the forward-thinking inventor. “Maybe the world is a dream,” says Anne Morgan, “that Tesla dreamed first.”

Tesla, the man, aimed high, hoping his inventions would set people free to enjoy pursuits of the mind. “That motor will do the work of the world,” he says in the film. “It will set men free.” Similarly, the movie aims high, and while it takes chances—see the above mentioned “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” scene—it is as idiosyncratic as the man it portrays.

 

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FOR JULY 17!

Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel with host Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the new movies coming to VOD and streaming services including feel-good “From the Vine,” the based-on-true-events thriller “Target Number One,” the hybrid barumentary “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” and the forlorn romance “Dirt Music.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

CFRA IN OTTAWA: THE BILL CARROLL MORNING SHOW MOVIE REVIEWS!

Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to VOD and streaming services including the tonic for the soul travelogue “From the Vine,” the quirky comedy “The Sunlit Night,” the journalism thriller “Target Number One” and the hybrid documentary “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

TARGET NUMBER ONE: 3 ½ STARS. “short on action but long on intrigue.”

“Target Number One” is a Canadian true crime story, but no, it’s not a retelling of Bill Miner’s railway robbery or the great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist of 2012. It’s a gritty look at investigative reporter Victor Malarek’s fight to uncover the truth behind a heroin bust orchestrated the Canadian Security Intelligence Service put an innocent man in jail.

A the-names-have-been-changed-to-protect-the-innocent retelling of the case of Alain Olivier, called Daniel Léger (Antoine Olivier Pilon) in the film, the movie stars Josh Hartnett as Malarek, a Globe and Mail reporter whose dogged determination reveals how the CSIS framed Léger, sending him to a Thai jail for eight years. “I’d be very careful before you print anything about this case,” a high-level cop tells Malarek.

Telling the tale on a broken timeline, director Daniel Roby skip through the details, building both sides of the story simultaneously until the two threads meld, but “Target Number One” isn’t an action movie. There is tension as Léger‘s situation worsens but the compelling part is Malarek’s search for the truth. It’s a procedural the takes its time putting the puzzle pieces in place.

Hartnett does a good impression of the driven reporter and Steven McHattie turns in another of his trademark edgy roles as Frank Cooper, a crooked RCMP officer, but it’s the work of Jim Gaffigan and Pilon that are memorable.

Gaffigan ditches his affable stand-up comic persona to create a medicine portrayal of Glen Picker, a drug dealer and police confidant.

As Léger, Pilon as an arc. From lowlife criminal, whose big score is ripping off a gas station for a full tank, to someone who can navigate survival in a squalid Thai prison, he’s simultaneously vulnerable and edgy and that makes him the film’s most memorable character.

“Target Number One” is a low-key thriller, short on action but long on intrigue.

In theatres now:

 

Now playing in Vancouver, Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick