On this edition of the Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet Noah Pink, screenwriter of a new movie called “Tetris,” starring Taron Egerton, and now playing on Apple TV+, that tells the story of how Dutch video game designer Henk Rogers fit the differently shaped pieces of international intrigue and video game creation together to secure the intellectual property rights to popular game. It’s a story of international intrigue, the Cold War and of the deep friendship that grew between entrepreneur Henk Rogers and the game’s Russian creator Alexey Pajitnov.
Then, Gregory Sestero, star of the found footage film “Infrared.” In the film he plays the creepy caretaker of an abandoned schoolhouse. If Greg’s name rings a bell, it’s likely because you’ve attended one of the midnight madness screenings of “The Room,” a movie so deliciously awful, it has become a cult favorite since its release in 2003. Gregory turned the experience of making the so-bad-it’s-a-hoot movie into a book, which eventually went on to become the Oscar nominated movie “The Disaster Artist,” starring James Franco and Seth Rogen. We talk about “Infrared” and whether or not, twenty years on, if “The Room” is an embarrassment or a source of pride.
Finally, we go to the vault to hear a vintage interview I did with Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman. We don’t talk superheroes, instead, the actor gets personal, talking about the projects that worked, the ones that didn’t and what drives him.
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!
Listen to the show live here:
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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 Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
Listen to the show live here:
C-FAX 1070 in Victoria
SAT 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM
SUN 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
CJAD in Montreal
SAT 8 PM to 9:00 PM
CFRA in Ottawa
SAT 8 PM to 9:00 PM
NEWSTALK 610 CKTB in St. Catharines
Sat 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM
NEWSTALK 1010 in Toronto
SAT 8 PM to 9:00 PM
NEWSTALK 1290 CJBK
SAT 8 PM to 9:00 PM
AM 1150 in Kelowna
SAT 11 PM to Midnight
BNN BLOOMBERG RADIO 1410
SAT 8 PM to 9:00 PM
Click HERE to catch up on shows you might have missed!
The addictive puzzle video game “Tetris,” created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov, couldn’t be simpler. Stack differently shaped pieces to form a whole and win points.
The story behind its success isn’t.
A new movie starring Taron Egerton and now playing on Apple TV+, tells the story of how Dutch video game designer Henk Rogers fit the differently shaped pieces of international intrigue and video game creation together to secure the intellectual property rights to popular game.
“The Soviet Union has worldwide rights,” says Rogers. “Nothing gets out easily.”
And how. In what is essentially a big business ticking clock story, Egerton is Rogers, an aggressive entrepreneur who discovers an early version of the simple game at the Consumer Electronics Show in the mid-1980s. An early adopter of video game technology, Rogers knows Tetris can be a hit.
“It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” he says. “I played for five minutes, and I still see falling blocks in my dreams. It is poetry. It is the perfect game.”
Developed by a Russian government software engineer Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) in 1984, the game was an underground hit in the USSR, and starting to attract attention from other big players. The underdog Rogers finds himself up against Nintendo, media mogul Robert Maxwell (Roger Allam) and the Russian government.
“You want to play with the big boys?” threatens Maxwell. “This is how the world works.”
“Tetris” is a convoluted tale of how Rogers navigates dubious agreements, business backstabbing and the very real threat of Russian prison, to secure the rights to the game and a future for his family. Unlike the game, the movie’s pieces don’t fit together easily. Part business story, part spy thriller, it piles a great deal of information into every scene, beginning with an unloading of exposition off the top that sets the scene, but may try the patience.
Once past the initial mound of info, screenwriter Noah Pink keeps up the pace, piling double-crosses on top of political scheming on top of jet setting skullduggery. It zips along at the speed of level 10 game play, and while it is sometimes hard to keep track of who is zooming who, Pink keeps it fairly linear, mostly focusing on how the various deals affect Rogers. Told from this point of view, the complicated story of contract law and how the negotiations for a video game became a Cold War concern, is marginally easier to follow.
At the center of it all is the elaborately mustachioed Egerton. As Rogers he brings an energizer bunny approach to the entrepreneur’s unrelenting belief in the game and himself. As the story gets bigger and bigger—Henk against the world—it is Egerton that provides the human element, particularly in his friendship with Pajitnov. The surrounding performances are rather broad, but Egerton keeps it real.
Although it does feature 8-bit animation, “Tetris” isn’t a video game movie. Instead, it is a John Le Carre Lite political thriller, which could have used some of the simplicity of the game whose story it tells.
For twenty-three years, between 1927 and 1950, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy worked non-stop. According to The Sons of the Desert, their official international fraternal organization, they appeared in 106 films together, including feature films, featurettes, short subjects and cameo appearances. This year we can add one more to the list, sort of. It’s not a recently uncovered long lost reel of film or a documentary. This time around the comedic duo get into “another nice mess” in “Stan & Ollie,” a new biopic starring Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly that lovingly looks back on the double act’s 1953 farewell tour.
The action begins with the pair’s best days behind them. Their heyday a memory, the ageing duo reteam after a betrayal that blew apart their friendship. “We’re getting to know one another again,” says Stan. “It’s complicated.” Booked on a variety hall tour of post-war Britain the pair trot out some of their best known routines to small audiences. “We’re getting older,” says Ollie, “but we’re not dead yet.”
A slow start gives way to bigger and bigger crowds as audiences rediscover the pair’s wit and charm. Behind the scenes, however, tensions arise. Stan felt betrayed when Ollie didn’t back him up in a power play with producer Hal Roach years before, effectively ending their professional relationship. “The only reason we were in this situation,” scolds Stan, “is because you didn’t have the guts to ask Hal Roach for the money we deserved.” In a stinging rebuke Ollie says, “You love Laurel and Hardy but you didn’t love me.”
Those frictions, a hectic schedule and Hardy’s failing health complicate things but with the help of their strong-willed wives, Lucille (Shirley Henderson) and Ida (Nina Arianda), the comedy legends rekindle their love of performing and one another.
Never before has Laurel and Hardy’s signature “Dance of the Cuckoos” been more poignant. The story is a show biz tale but at its heart it’s the story of two very different men, thrown together on a film set, who formed an unbreakable bond.
The film begins with a long tracking shot as the men walk from their dressing room to the set. It tells us everything we need to know about Stan and Ollie in one five-minute tour de force shot. Stan is the funny one, considered in his approach with a head for business. Ollie is impulsive, going broke and many times married. They are an odd couple with unmistakable chemistry. It’s a lovely way to familiarize the audience with these almost-forgotten characters and showcase the easy chemistry between the leads, Coogan and Reilly.
By the time the end credits roll it’s that chemistry and the just-as-entertaining double act of Henderson and Arianda that elevates this story of friendship and loyalty.
