Posts Tagged ‘John Cusack’

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 4, 2015.

Screen Shot 2015-09-05 at 7.18.11 AMRichard’s CP24 reviews for “Dragon Blade,” “A Walk in the Woods” and ‘Transporter Refuelled.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S “CANADA AM” REVIEWS FOR SEPTEMBER 4 WITH MARCI IEN.

Screen Shot 2015-09-04 at 9.15.57 AMRichard’s “Canada AM” reviews for “Dragon Blade,” “A Walk in the Woods” and ‘Transporter Refuelled.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

DRAGON BLADE: 3 STARS. “epic with virtually no regard for the history books.”

Screen Shot 2015-09-03 at 7.56.58 AMEast meets West in “Dragon Blade,” an epic new film starring Jackie Chan, John Cusack and Adrien Brody. The story of a showdown between Roman armies and the tribes of Western China is the most expensive film ever produced in China and after a successful run overseas the $65 million movie is now opening in North America as one of the top grossing Asian films of all time.

Very loosely based on the true story of a legion of Roman soldiers who went missing along China’s Silk Road, the action takes place in a flashback to 48 BC after Roman ruins are found in China. The convoluted story boils down to this: After a corruption charge Chinese captain Huo An (Jackie Chan) is banished to reconstruct Goose Gate, a ruined fortress. When a Roman legion, led by general Lucius (Cusack), shows up in need of supplies Huo An makes a truce, teaming with the general in advance of the approach of the vicious Roman leader Tiberius (Brody) and his army of 100,000 men. The murderous Tiberius plans on taking control of the Silk Road, the country’s main artery for trade and culture.

“Dragon Blade” has the grand feel of “Gladiator” and “300’s” respect for the past, which is to say it is a large scale humanistic epic with virtually no regard for the history books. It’s a sword and sandal spectacle with hundreds of extras, big battle scenes, pure hearted good guys and an over-the-top villain. Add in a culture clash, some bizarro casting—Lloyd Dobler as a Roman general? Really?—and you’re left with a loud-and-proud movie that puts the ‘O Man!’ in Roman. It occasionally sags under the weight of the story, but a charming performance from Chan and Brody’s pantomime villain keep things interesting.

RICHARD’S “CANADA AM” REVIEWS FOR FEBRUARY 13 WITH DAN RISKIN.

Screen Shot 2015-02-22 at 8.10.49 PMRichard’s “Canada AM” reviews for “Hot Tub Time Machine 2,” “McFarland” and “The Duff.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE 2: 1 STAR. “a waste of time—past and present.”

10394035_10155205032945293_4813412840707264628_nThe first time around “Hot Tub Time Machine” stars John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson and Clark Duke, grappled with the mysteries of the Red Bull-fuelled space and time continuum as they tripped back in time to the Regan years.

Since we’ve seen them last they (minus Cusack, who is replaced by Adam Scott) have exploited “their knowledge of the future for personal gain.” What they did in the past changed their futures and Nick (Robinson) is now a popular songwriter—he “wrote” “MMMBop” and “Feelin’ Like Teen Spirit”—while Lou became the “father of the internet,” and the creator of the search engine Lougle. Adam’s (Cusack) absence is explained away with a passing reference to an “experiential journey.”

They are rich beyond belief—“That hot tub really turned it all around.”—but soon discover the future isn’t exactly the way their remembered it—wrap your head around that—when Lou takes a bullet from an unknown assassin and Nick and Jacob fire up the hot tub to try and stop the shooting before it happens. They inadvertently end up in the future in a world they don’t quite understand. “Who is to say the past isn’t this present.”

“Hot Tub Time Machine 2” feels like it was written by a group of frat boys in the throws of a raging kegger at the Delta Tau Chi House after a “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” marathon. All the animal house trademarks are here—vomit gags, jokes about sex with animals, a drug trip, testicle terror and homophobic razzing. The only thing missing is Seth Rogen and boy, did he miss a bullet.

Working from a script that feels improvised, the usually funny guys Corddry, Robinson, Duke and Scott are at sea in a movie that abandons the story—the search for the shooter is side tracked for twenty or more minutes while the guys flit through time—in favour of raunchy jokes and random situations. As the cast tries in vain to find the funny you hope that the next trip in the Hot Tub Time Machine will be their last.

“Hot Tub Time Machine 2” is a waste of time—past and present.

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY OCTOBER 31, 2014.

Screen Shot 2014-10-31 at 2.18.07 PMCP24 film critic Richard Crouse reviews the weekend’s big releases, “Maps to the Stars,” “Nightcrawler,” “Before I Go to Sleep” and “Horns.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S REVIEWS FOR OCT 31, 2014 W “CANADA AM” HOST BEVERLY THOMSON.

Screen Shot 2014-10-31 at 10.13.14 AM“Canada AM” film critic Richard Crouse reviews “Maps to the Stars,” “Nightcrawler” and “Before I Go To Sleep.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

Metro: David Cronenberg continues dark meditations in Maps to the Stars

David_CronenbergBy Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus

Hollywood loves pointing the camera on itself but not since The Player has the selfie provided such a wonderfully sadistic portrait of Tinsel Town. At the centre of David Cronenberg’s film is a Hollywood family — played by John Cusack, Olivia Williams and Evan Bird. Orbiting them are a former big name actress (Julianne Moore) and a burn victim (Mia Wasikowska), whose presence threatens to expose closely guarded secrets. The terrific performances and decidedly un-Hollywood feel of this, the most Hollywood of Cronenberg’s films, make Maps a compelling psychological thriller.

Hollywood — self-obsessed child that it is — enjoys turning the camera on itself, but with Maps to the Stars, director David Cronenberg uses the city as a palette to paint a picture of the stupid, venal and stratospherically self-involved behaviour that goes on behind the scenes in Beverly Hills’s gated communities and back lots.

At the centre of the film are the Weisses, a Hollywood family (John Cusack, Olivia Williams and Evan Bird) with more secrets than TMZ’s too-hot-to-handle file, Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore), a former big name actress who is now as messed up as she is washed up and Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), a burn victim with schizophrenia whose presence threatens to expose closely guarded secrets.

This may be the most sun-dappled film Cronenberg has ever made, but don’t let the light fool you; it’s also one of his darkest. I say one of his darkest because the 71-year-old director has frequently visited what Victor Hugo called “night within us,” provoking Village Voice to call him, “the most audacious and challenging narrative director in the English-speaking world.”

Spider, a trip into the mind of a severely mentally disturbed man starring Ralph Fiennes, is a case in point. Called “Cronenberg’s most depressingly bleak film,” by critic Ken Hanke, the 2002 film sees Fiennes deliver a virtually dialogue-free performance as the title character. But it is Miranda Richardson as several characters — all the women in Spider’s life — who really steals the show. It’s a spooky, cerebral thriller.

The Brood is probably Cronenberg’s most traditional horror film. Featuring murderous psychoplasmic kids, experimental psychotherapist Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar as a fetus-licking mother, it is the very stuff that nightmares are made of. It’s lesser seen than The Fly or Dead Zone and way more down-and-dirty, but for sheer scares it’s hard to beat.

A Dangerous Mind, the tautly told story of two psychoanalysts you’ve heard of, Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), plus one you’ve probably never heard of, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), sees Cronenberg combine a love story and birth of modern analysis.

The almost total lack of physical action means the focus is on the words. Some will see a film rich with dialogue, others will see it as verbose. But that’s the kind of duality the movie explores.

Finally, in Cosmopolis, Cronenberg takes us along for an existential road trip through the breakdown of modern society. Based on a novel by Don DeLillo and starring Robert Pattinson as a controlling and self-destructive billionaire money manager, the movie covers the gamut of human experience, from haircuts, money and infidelity to asymmetrical prostates and mortality.

MAPS TO THE STARS: 4 STARS. “one of Cronenberg’s darkest films.”

Maps_to_the_Stars_posterDavid Cronenberg has spent his entire career working on the fringes of Hollywood. An auteur with a singular vision, his big hits and art house flicks all live outside the The Entertainment Capital of the World. With the release of “Maps to the Stars,” the first film he ever shot in Los Angeles, he almost ensures he’ll never do business in that town again.

Hollywood enjoys turning the camera on itself, but not since Robert Altman’s “The Player” has the selfie provided such a wonderfully sadistic portrait of Tinsel Town and its citizens. Cronenberg takes a bite out of Hollywood and finds a cookie full of arsenic.

At the center of Bruce Wagner’s script are the Weiss’s, a Hollywood family with more secrets than TMZ’s too-hot-to-handle file. Father Stafford (John Cusack) is a self-help guru who uses new age jargon— “If we name it, we can tame it.”— and massage to heal his wealthy clients. One of his regulars is Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore), a former big name actress who is now as messed up as she is washed up. Stafford’s wife Cristina (Olivia Williams) is the momager of Benjie (Evan Bird) a teen superstar fresh out of rehab. Into this toxic mix comes Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), a burn victim with schizophrenia whose presence threatens to expose closely guarded secrets.

This may be the most sun-dappled film Cronenberg has ever made, but don’t let the light fool you, it’s also one of his darkest. The glee Havana feels when she wins a coveted role in a movie because the original actress’s son has died is a nastier indictment of Hollywood than anything in “Sunset Boulevard.” Ditto Benjie’s disappointment when he learns that the young girl he visits in the hospital has non-Hodgkin lymphoma. “I mean non-Hodgkin’s, what’s that?” he says. “Either you are or you aren’t.”

Cronenberg uses the notion of Hollywood mythology as a palette to paint a picture of the stupid, venal and stratospherically self-involved behavior that goes on behind the scenes in Beverly Hills’s gated communities.

Moore presents Havana as a bundle of exposed ego and neurosis. Cusack is a career-minded Zen master, a cruel man whose world is starting to unwind while his son Benjie is a foul-mouthed child with a squeaky clean image. Rona Barrett would have had a heyday with this bunch.

Wasikowska is the outsider, the fly in the ointment that connects and tears apart each of the characters. She’s a strange, ghostly character, almost as ghostly as the poltergeists that haunt Benjie and Havana. In a world where flickering images are often more potent than the people who make them, the appearance of specters isn’t otherworldly, it’s an expected offshoot for a world that believes in the make-believe.

“Maps to the Stars” will divide people. Some will find its sadomasochistic glee in the travails of its characters unsettling; others will revel in the terrific performances and the decidedly un-Hollywood feel of this, the most Hollywood of Cronenberg’s films.