Richard joins NewsTalk 1010’s Jim Richards on the coast-to-coast-to-coast late night “Showgram” to play a new game: Can Richard Crouse name the cheesy movie with a formerly A-List star?
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Chances are good if you are interested enough to buy a ticket to the new Alex Gibney documentary “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” you already know most of the information contained within.
Based on Lawrence Wright’s 2013 book of the same name, the movie doesn’t cover any unreported revelations. Instead, it does what film does best—show me, don’t tell me. Oscar winner Gibney is a master at layering images for maximum effect, visualizing the alleged tales of abuse within the church in a way that is much more visceral than a simple talking head doc.
For the uninitiated the accusations are quite shocking. Harassment crusades against ex-members and critics are detailed, as is corporal punishment for those who break the rules but choose to stay within the church. Billion year contracts, Tom Cruise’s extreme commitment to the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard—here’s a drinking game idea: take a shot each time someone really famous salutes a photo of L.R.H.—and the church’s war against the IRS are brought to vivid life.
It goes without saying that the Church of Scientology isn’t happy with “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.” The church’s head honchos have declared a media blackout and declined Gibney’s requests for interviews so the film appears somewhat one-sided. It’s a compelling take down of the religion but would have felt more balanced if current members of the church were included.
I saw Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” on its opening day in Toronto. I sat through it once, transfixed and while everyone else stayed glued to their seats for the credits, discussing the movie and picking up their jaws from the floor, I rushed out and bought another ticket for the next screening and sat through it once more. Not sure how many times I’ve seen it since then, but I was reminded of that first screening when I looked at “Pulp Fiction: The Complete Story of Quentin Tarantino’s Masterpiece,” Jason Bailey’s book on the making of the film.
From amazon.ca: ”
Last year French cinematographer-turned-director Pierre Morel brought us “Taken” a violent little Euro-centric thriller about a father who would do anything—and I mean anything—to retrieve his daughter from some very bad men. It was a down-and-dirty little flick, classed up somewhat by the presence of Liam Neeson in the lead role, and it became an unexpected lightening-in-a-bottle hit. Morel is back behind the camera with a new actioner called “From Paris With Love.” Unfortunately lightening has not struck twice.
Like “Taken” the story is simple and leaves the action to be the real selling point. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is James Reece an aide to the US Ambassador in Paris who moonlights on the side for the FBI. He is given the biggest assignment of his secret agent career when he is partnered with Charlie Wax (John Travolta), the typical unorthodox but effective undercover movie spy. Together they go on a rampage across the streets and embassies of Paris to put a stop to a terrorist attack. Carnage ensues.
“Taken” worked not just because the action sequences were out of control, but because audiences had some empathy for Liam Neeson’s character as he was kicking butt across Europe. It was a personal mission; he was trying to get his daughter back. Here, however, Meyers and Travolta are a shadowy part of the war on terror and seem to enjoy the bloodshed a little too much. This time it’s not personal, it’s psychotic and even the inclusion of a couple of “Royale with Cheese” “Pulp Fiction” call backs won’t make us identify with these two.
“From Paris with Love” has some cool action scenes—a killing spree in a stairwell is tense and exciting—but the paper thin story, cardboard characters and silly red herrings suck much of the fun from the movie.
John Travolta is bordering on Nicolas Cage territory here. He seems to be trying his hand at Cage’s extreme acting style, working some over-the-top theatrics into his performance, but overall he’s simply not that convincing as a devil-may-care secret agent. He can do menacing. We saw it in “Pulp Fiction”, “Blowout” and more recently in “The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3” but here he seems to be trying a too hard.
But at least he’s trying, which is more than can be said for Jonathan Rhys Meyers who hands in one of the more wooden performances seen on film so far this year. My advice to him: Beware of woodpeckers.
This is only Morel’s third film as a director and already he has established a set of trademarks, for better and for worse. On the plus side, he knows how to stage an action sequence and has clearly watched more than a few John Woo movies. He also has an eye for shooting in urban spaces, but compared to “Taken” with its beauty shots of Paris, “From Paris with Love” looks like it could have been made almost anywhere. With the exception of the odd Eiffel Tower shot, location wise it’s rather generic, which it shouldn’t be when you are shooting in one of the most beautiful and interesting cities in the world.
On the minus side he’s already becoming somewhat predictable. In his movies the dinner scene always seems to end poorly for the hostess.
Despite a huge body count and a screen littered with empty shell casings “From Paris with Love” isn’t as exciting or as interesting as “Taken.”
It might be the most famous summer romance in movie history.
Even though John Travolta was 24 and Olivia Newton John was 30 when they made Grease, they played Danny and Sandy, teenage sweethearts who meet on summer break. He’s a greaser, she a squeaky-clean exchange student from Australia. They have a fling, but when the falls comes, and they find themselves at the same school Danny thinks he’s too cool for the virtuous Sandy.
Grease is filled with all the icons of 1950s America—hot rods, leather jackets and malt shops—and some great songs, good light romantic comedy but it is the cast that makes the movie memorable. John Travolta channels a fleet-footed Elvis Presley, while Olivia Newton John is a composite of the best of sexy-but-sweet 50s stars like Annette Funicello and Sandra Dee.
The newly released DVD features loads of extras and comes wrapped in an authentic T-Birds black leather jacket.
In a summer when it seems that no one in Hollywood has an original thought and are simply banking on sequels to fatten their bank accounts, along comes Hairspray. It’s not really a sequel, nor is it a remake, but in a way it’s both. The new movie starring John Travolta (in drag), Christopher Walken, Queen Latifah and newcomer Nikki Blonsky is based on the Broadway smash hit musical, which in turn was based on a 1988 movie by John Waters. Drawing on the best bits from both its inspirations the new Hairspray is completely original and a happy antidote to the dire sequelitis that has infected the multi-plexes this season.
Shot in Toronto, but set in Baltimore in 1962 Hairspray is the story of the elaborately coiffed Tracy Turnblad. Tracey’s a dance-crazy teen who rushes home from school every day to watch The Corny Collins Show, a cut-rate riff on American Bandstand, which features a cast of milky white teens who strut their bland perfectly groomed selves for the television cameras. At the helm of the show is Velma Von Tussel (Michelle Pfeiffer) the vicious mother of Amber (Brittany Snow), who will do anything to ensure that her daughter is front and center.
When Tracy is sent to detention (for “inappropriate hair height”) she learns a new kind of dancing from the African-American kids who pass their after school penalty time dancing to rockin’ R&B. There Tracy learns a hip-shaking dance that gets her a berth on the Collins show, despite the fact that the evil Von Tussels think she is too heavy and not pretty enough to be on television. She becomes a local sensation, much to the delight of her mom Edna (John Travolta) and father Wilbur (Christopher Walken), whose Har Har Hut is the Taj Mahal of joke shops, and even gets a gig endorsing clothes from Mr. Pink’s Hefty Hideaway.
When Von Tussel cancels “Negro Day,” the once-a-month celebration of black music hosted by record shop owner Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah) Tracy hatches a plan to stage a protest in front of the television station. The movie takes on a more earnest tone as Tracy and her friends—both black and white—conspire to integrate The Corny Collins Show.
Hairspray is one of the more anticipated Broadway to screen adaptations of recent years, and it delivers. Director Adam Shankman is best known for making blandly formulaic family films like Cheaper by the Dozen and The Pacifier gives the proceedings a shimmering 1960s glow that is quite infectious. It’s colorful, noisy and so eager to please that it’s hard not to get sucked in.
The movie’s exuberant tone is maintained by the youthful cast, and while the older cast members try and keep up, they don’t always keep pace.
Tarvolta, in drag as Tracy’s overweight mother raises a laugh or two early on, but as the movie progresses the drag act becomes more an exercise in stunt casting—“Look John Travolta’s wearing a Muumuu!”—rather than a truly great comedic performance. Walken is reliably weird as the joke shop owning father, but the performance is strange rather than funny, which seems a bit at odds with the rest of the film. Pfeiffer, on the come back trail after a few years off, looks amazing and is suitably villainous as the racist, conniving station manager, but the part could have used a little less camp and a few more laughs. Queen Latifah brings her considerable charm to the movie but should have brought a bit more fire to the role of the rebel rousing Motormouth Maybelle.
Nikki Blonsky, however, the former ice cream scooper plucked from obscurity to play the lead role shines. Her beaming smile, strong singing voice and enthusiasm go a long way toward building good will for her character. She holds her own in her scenes opposite more experienced actors like Travolta and Walken. In a cast top heavy with vets, Blonsky and the young cast members—Amanda Bynes, Zac Efron and Elijah Kelley—really are the stars of this show.
Hairspray starts off strong, wanes a bit early and soft peddles the social commentary of the John Waters movie, but makes up for its shortcomings through sheer strength of the cast’s high-spirited will to entertain.
“Old Dogs,” the new comedy starring John Travolta and Robin Willliams as two middle aged men who discover the importance of family, clearly knows what its demographic is. With a boomer soundtrack heavy on hits from the 60s and 70s and a gaggle of incontinence jokes and prostate jokes it’s aimed directly at the crowd who can remember what they were doing when Kennedy was shot.
Williams and Travolta play Dan and Charlie, lifelong friends and business partners on the verge of their biggest deal ever. Dan is a business minded divorcee, who is “allergic to anything under four feet.” In other words no kids—doesn’t have them, doesn’t want them. Just as well, he doesn’t really need children when Charlie is around. He’s still a big kid with an ultramodern apartment full of toys and a habit of flirting with every woman he meets. Their carefully manicured lives are turned upside down when Vicki (Kelly Preston) re-enters Dan’s life. With her are her two kids, the result of a one night stand Dan had with Vicki in Miami seven years before. When Daddy Dan and Uncle Charlie take the kids for two weeks while Vicki serves a jail sentence for environmental activism (how au currant!) they learn that business doesn’t always come first.
“Old Dogs” is the broadest played comedy since “The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze.” It’s filled-to-bursting with funny faces, slapstick humor and not one, but two crotch shots. It’s mostly by-the-numbers—except for a strange “body puppet” sequence featuring the late Bernie Mac—that relies on Williams and Travolta to bring a little something extra to a script that may have been a laugh-free-zone in lesser hands. Williams wrings whatever laughs there are to be found in a spray tan catastrophe scene and Travolta finds the funny as an over medicated man at a bereavement pot luck. Also packing a few laughs are Luis Guzmán as the hungry childproofing expert and Matt Dillon as the hard line camp leader.
“Old Dogs” works best when it is going for laughs, unfortunately the slapstick is interspersed with mushy moments that seem to come out of nowhere. One moment Dan has lost all depth perception and is playing the wildest game of golf since Adam Sandler and Bob Barker threw it down on the links in “Happy Gilmour,” the next Williams is using his earnest “Patch Adams” eyes, staring at the camera, fretting that he’s not cutting it as a dad. The sudden shifts are a bit jarring, but for every sentimental scene there are four sciatica jokes, or a grand-pa gag.
“Old Dogs” is a sequel in spirit to Travolta’s “Wild Hogs.” Call it boomer porn if you like—it showcases older successful men, their beautiful younger wives and interesting lives—but at its heart it’s just an old fashioned family comedy.
As if riding the New York subway wasn’t nerve racking enough, with its express trains that don’t stop until Rockaway Beach, rats the size of Chihuahuas and mystery smells, along comes The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 about a domestic terrorist holding a subway train full of people hostage. This remake of the 1974 Walter Matthau urban terror movie from visual stylist Tony Scott—simply calling him a director doesn’t do justice to his frenetic technique—is a tense subterranean thriller that makes Manhattan’s legendarily hectic above ground traffic seem safe and secure by comparison.
In this update a band of bad guys lead by John Travolta, in full blown psycho mode with a goatee and a bad attitude, launches an elaborate hijacking of the Pelham 1 2 3 train (so named because it leaves Pelham Station at 1:23 pm). Following the train’s capture Ryder (Travolta) makes contact with dispatcher Denzel Washington, a veteran MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) employee who knows the system inside and out. Ryder demands 10 million dollars in exchange for the lives of the 19 people aboard the train. If the money doesn’t arrive in one hour, he promises hostages will suffer.
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is the talkiest action movie of the year. More words than bullets fly, but Scott keeps things moving at a clip with his trademarked feverish visual and sound design. In creating the look of Pelham Scott seems to have pushed his Final Cut Pro program to the max. Images blur, jump and freeze elegantly, backed by a soundtrack heavy on industrial sounds used as punctuation. It’s an interesting palate that could easily have overwhelmed the film—as it has in past Scott works like the wild Domino—but luckily Scott has cast two charismatic and interesting actors in the lead roles.
It’s been years since Travolta played such an all out foul-mouthed baddie. He relishes the role, bringing a fun unpredictability to the psychopathic Ryder. He’s nuts and dangerous, but Travolta doesn’t play him as a slobbering madman, but an unhinged sociopath who is playing an elaborate game with people’s lives—including his own. Lately Travolta has been dressing in drag (Hairspray) and playing up to the kids (Bolt) but Pelham proves he hasn’t forgotten how to access the dark side.
On the other end of the scale is Denzel Washington who hands in a natural, modulated performance, full of charm and wit. It’s not as showy a role as Travolta’s and it is ground he has tread before—think Inside Man—but he is so comfortable a presence on screen that he is the focus of every scene he’s in.
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is more psychological drama than action movie and doesn’t necessarily improve on its source material but its intense visual style and the acting chops of Travolta and Washington (along with supporting cast members Luis Guzmán, John Turturro and James Gandolfini) make it a good summer diversion.
Wild Hogs boasts an all-star cast of old pros with a collective career span of 94 years. This is relevant because Wild Hogs is a movie about middle age and the kind of life lessons people pick up as the clock ticks on. The film’s leads, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, Tim Allen and William H. Macy, are all in the throws of middle age and should have learned by now to avoid stinkers like this. With almost 100 years of experience between them they are old enough to know better.
In this baby boomer fable four weekend warriors try desperately to cling to their youth. During the week they are average citizens plucked straight from central casting—a henpecked husband, a computer nerd, a dentist who craves the gravitas that comes along with the title doctor and an investor who looks like he’s on top of the world, when in reality he’s broke and about to be served with divorce papers by his model wife—but on the weekends they are The Wild Hogs, a bike gang complete with porcine insignias embroidered on their leather jackets by their wives. A better name might be The Mild Hogs.
Eager to shed the shackles of middle age the Hogs decide to hit the open road, leave Cincinnati, drive across America and dip their toes into the Pacific Ocean. Their Easy Rider dream soon becomes a nightmare when they happen across an honest-to-God biker bar. Stripped of their dignity by the down and dirty Del Fuegos, Woody (Travolta) seeks revenge and accidentally blows up the biker bar. On the run from the bikers they seek refuge in a small tourist town where there is the inevitable show down between the hooligans and the heroes.
There is the occasional laugh in Wild Hogs, but considering Brian Copeland, the pen behind My Name Is Earl and Arrested Development, wrote the script this should be sharper, funnier and less clichéd than it is. You can squeeze a titter out of an audience by showing an inappropriately naked middle-aged bum or by telling weak bladder jokes, but we’ve seen and heard all this before. The jokes are too easy, and rarely rise above the level of slapstick. Many movies have tread this same path, but only Albert Brook’s Lost in America manages to balance the humor with the pathos of middle age.
More disturbing than the shallow treatment given the main characters is the film’s blatant homophobia. In one running joke Travolta’s character repeatedly shudders at Macy’s familiar touch, even though they have been friends since childhood. Other scenes involving a gay motorcycle cop and an effete karaoke singer at a country fair qualify as gay bashing.
The cast tries valiantly to make the best of the material, managing the snappy dialogue like the pros they are, but aren’t convincing as long-time friends. The lack of chemistry sucks some of the fun from their scenes together. Ray Liotta hands in a nice turn as a sadistic biker, showing off his rarely used comedic skills.
Wild Hogs is a predictable story of middle age that is far less than the sum of its parts.
