I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Akshay Tandon to talk about David Fincher’s thriller “The Killer,” the mascot mayhem of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” and Emily Blunt in “Pain Hustlers.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I joined CP24 to have a look at new movies and television shows coming to theatres and streaming services. Today we talk about David Fincher’s thriller “The Killer,” the mascot mayhem of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” and, just in time for Halloween, the Amazon Prime slasher “Totally Killer.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with CKTB morning show host Tim Denis to have a look at David Fincher’s thriller “The Killer,” the mascot mayhem of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” and the John Cena action flick “Freelance.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show to talk the new movies coming to theatres including David Fincher’s thriller “The Killer,” the mascot mayhem of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” and the John Cena action flick “Freelance.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“Five Nights at Freddy’s,” is a new horror film starring Josh Hutcherson now playing in theatres, but it may feel familiar to some movie goers.
Referred to as “FNaF” by fans, it began life in 2014 as a popular video game that has since spawned a number of sequels, including “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted.”
With the game’s creator Scott Cawthon signed on as co-writer and producer, the new film version offers up recognizable visual and audio call-backs to the video game series.
Then, there is the strange case of “Willy’s Wonderland,” a 2021 Nic Cage cult film that fills its lungs with much of the same fetid air as “FNaF.” It’s like “Freddy’s” brother from another mother.
So, with so much history, is the new movie fresh enough to get a fresh rating?
On the big screen Hutcherson plays Mike Schmidt, a down-on-his luck guy desperate to make some cash and look after his withdrawn sister Abby (Piper Rubio). How desperate is he? Desperate enough to take a nighttime gig as a security guard at a family entertainment center called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. “I’ll take anything,” he tells job counselor Steve (Matthew Lillard).
The run-down and shut-down facility was a once-popular hot spot but now sits empty save for four animatronic mascots, Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy.
Turns out, these mascots are anything but good luck charms. They used to entertain the kids who once flocked to the restaurant, but these days they’re possessed by the spirits of the children who disappeared during Fazbear’s glory days.
“The police searched Freddy’s top to bottom,” says enigmatic local police officer Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail). “They never found them. That’s why the place shut down.”
What Vanessa doesn’t know, but Mike is about to find out, at night the mascots come alive, and have set their eyes on a new victim, little, innocent Abby.
Fans of the video game may get an extra charge out of the film’s Easter eggs. Director Emma Tammi provides fan service while the screenplay by Cawthon, Seth Cuddeback and Emma Tammi go hard on the psychological drama.
Determined to figure out who abducted his kid brother Garrett years before, Mike uses his dreams to relive the experience and find new clues. It his attempt to fix the sins of the past, but the drawn-out sequences drag the movie down. Ditto a subplot involving Mike and Abby’s nasty Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson). Both take valuable screen time away from the main attraction, and that is Abby—Rubio is especially effective as the open-hearted youngster—and her relationship with the creepy mascots. Abby has a connection with them, and also, perhaps, a connection to the abduction of Garrett. That’s where the action is, not in the dreary flashback dream sequences.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s” is being billed as a horror film, but other than a few jump scares, there isn’t much here to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Instead, it’s generically atmospheric with little-to-no actual fear factor.
THE GOOD (in alphabetical order)
Baby Driver: Although it contains more music than most tuneful of movies “Baby Driver,” the new film from director Edgar Wright, isn’t a musical in the “West Side Story,” “Sound of Music” sense. Wallpapered with 35 rock ‘n roll songs on the soundtrack it’s a hard driving heist flick that can best be called an action musical.
The Big Sick: Even when “The Big Sick” is making jokes about terrorism and the “X-Files” it is all heart, a crowd-pleaser that still feels personal and intimate.
Call Me By Your Name: This is a movie of small details that speak to larger truths. Director Luca Guadagnino keeps the story simple relying on the minutiae to add depth and beauty to the story. The idyllic countryside, the quaint town, the music of the Psychedelic Furs and the languid pace of a long Italian summer combine to create the sensual backdrop against which the romance between the two blossoms. Guadagnino’s camera captures it all, avoiding the pitfalls of melodrama to present a story that is pure emotion. It feels real and raw, haunted by the ghosts of loves gone by.
Darkest Hour: This is a historical drama with all the trappings of “Masterpiece Theatre.” You can expect photography, costumes and period details are sumptuous. What you may not expect is the light-hearted tone of much of the goings on. While this isn’t “Carry On Churchill,” it has a lighter touch that might be expected. Gary Oldman, not an actor known for his comedic flourishes, embraces the sly humour. When Churchill becomes Prime Minister his wife, Clementine (Kristin Scott Thomas) makes an impassioned speech about the importance of the work he is about to take on. He raises a glass and, cutting through the emotion of the moment, says, “Here’s to not buggering it up!” It shows a side of Churchill not often revealed in wartime biopics.
The Disaster Artist: The key to pulling off “The Disaster Artist” is not recreating “The Room” beat for beat, although they do that, it’s actually about treating Wiseau as a person and not an object of fun. He’s an outrageous character and Franco commits to it 100%. From the marble-mouthed speech pattern that’s part Valley Girl and part Beaker from The Muppets to the wild clothes and stringy hair, he’s equal parts creepy and lovable but underneath his bravado are real human frailties. Depending on your point of view he’s either delusional or aspirational but in Franco’s hands he’s never also never less than memorable. It’s a broad, strange performance but it may also be one of the actor’s best.
Dunkirk: This is an intense movie but it is not an overly emotional one. The cumulative effect of the vivid images and sounds will stir the soul but despite great performances the movie doesn’t necessarily make you feel for one character or another. Instead its strength is in how it displays the overwhelming sense of scope of the Dunkirk mission. With 400,000 men on the ground with more in the air and at sea, the sheer scope of the operation overpowers individuality, turning the focus on the collective. Director Christopher Nolan’s sweeping camera takes it all in, epic and intimate moments alike.
The Florida Project: This is, hands down, one of the best films of the year. Low-budget and naturalistic, it packs more punch than any superhero. Director Sean Baker defies expectations. He’s made a film about kids for adults that finds joy in rocky places. What could have been a bleak experience or an earnest message movie is brought to vivid life by characters that feel real. It’s a story about poverty that neither celebrates or condemns its characters. Mooney’s exploits are entertaining and yet an air of jeopardy hangs heavy over every minute of the movie. Baker knows that Halley and Moonie’s well being hangs by a thread but he also understands they exist in the real world and never allows their story to fall into cliché.
Get Out: This is the weirdest and most original mainstream psychodrama to come along since “The Babadook.” The basic premise harkens back to the Sidney Poitier’s classic “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” In that film parents, played by Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, have their attitudes challenged when their daughter introduces them to her African American fiancé. The uncomfortable situation of meeting in-laws for the first time is universal. It’s the added layers of paranoia and skewered white liberalism that propels the main character’s (Daniel Kaluuya) situation into full-fledged horror. In this setting he is the other, the stranger and as his anxiety grows the social commentary regarding attitudes about race in America grows sharper and more focussed.
Lady Bird: Greta Gerwig’s skilful handling of the story of Lady Bird’s busy senior year works not just because it’s unvarnished and honest in its look at becoming an adult but also, in a large degree, to Saoirse Ronan’s performance. I have long called her ‘Lil Meryl. She’s an actor of unusual depth, a young person (born in 1994) with an old soul. Lady Bird is almost crushed by the weight of uncertainty that greets her with every turn—will her parents divorce, will there be money for school, will Kyle be the boy of her dreams, will she ever make enough cash to repay her parents for her upbringing?—but Ronan keeps her nimble, sidestepping teen ennui with a complicated mix of snappy one liners, hard earned wisdom and a well of emotion. It’s tremendous, Academy Award worthy work.
The Post: Steven Spielberg film is a fist-pump-in-the-air look at the integrity and importance of a free press. It’s a little heavy-handed but these are heavy-handed times. Director Spielberg and stars Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep are entertainers first and foremost, and they do entertain here, but they also shine a light on a historical era whose reverberations are being felt today stronger than ever.
The Shape of Water: A dreamy slice of pure cinema. Director Guillermo del Toro uses the stark Cold War as a canvas to draw warm and vivid portraits of his characters. It’s a beautiful creature feature ripe with romance, thrills and, above all, empathy for everyone. This is the kind of movie that reminds us of why we fell in love with movies in the first place.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: The story of a mother’s unconventional war with the world is simple enough, it’s the complexity of the characters that elevates the it to the level of great art.
Wonder Woman: Equal parts Amazon sword and sandal epic, mad scientist flick, war movie and rom com, it’s a crowd pleaser that places the popular character front and centre. As played by Gal Gadot, Diana is charismatic and kick ass, a superhero who is both truly super and heroic. Like Superman she is firmly on the side of good, not a tortured soul à la Batman. Naïve to the ways of the world, she runs headfirst into trouble. Whether she’s throwing a German tank across a battlefield, defying gravity to leap to the top of a bell tower, tolerating Trevor’s occasional mansplaining or deflecting bullets with her indestructible Bracelets of Submission, she proves in scene after scene to be both a formidable warrior and a genuine, profoundly empathic character.
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at “The Disaster Artist,” the neo-noir “Sweet Virginia” and the buddy flick “Suck It Up.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at “The Disaster Artist,” the neo-noir “Sweet Virginia” and the buddy flick “Suck It Up.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
The Disaster Artist details a filmmaker whose artistic ambitions outweigh his talent. Tommy Wiseau, the writer, director, producer and star of The Room, is the title character, a man who miraculously and unwittingly turns disaster into triumph.
The key to telling the story of the making of the worst film ever is not recreating The Room beat for beat — it’s actually about treating Wiseau as a person and not an object of fun. He’s an outrageous character and James Franco commits to it 100 per cent. From the marble-mouthed speech pattern that’s part Valley Girl and part Beaker from The Muppets, to the wild clothes and stringy hair, he’s equal parts creepy and lovable. But underneath his bravado are real human frailties. Depending on your point of view, he’s either delusional or aspirational, but in Franco’s hands he’s also never less than memorable.
Wiseau is undeniably a terrible filmmaker and actor. The Room is an incomprehensible mess, a movie so misguided it starts off bad, gets worse and keeps going, through sheer force of will to become enjoyable. It’s a film so awful audiences can’t take their eyes off it, like a car crash.
In that sense Wiseau reminds me of Ed D. Wood Jr., another filmmaker whose name has been synonymous with failure and ridicule. The 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards singled out Wood’s movie Plan 9 from Outer Space in the Worst Movie Ever Made category while also hanging the title of Worst Director around his neck.
To be sure Mr. Wood was no Cecil B. DeMille, but he doesn’t deserve the critical sneers levelled at his work. Certainly movies like Glen or Glenda and Jail Bait were restricted by their über-low budgets and appear hopelessly amateurish, littered by ridiculous special effects and melodramatic acting, but they are entertaining and isn’t that what it’s all about? Many directors have spent a lot more money and not come close to delivering the same kind of giddy fun that The Sinister Urge pulsates with.
Take Michael Bay for instance. His movies make loads of money at the box office, but never fail to put me to sleep. Visually his films are spectacular feasts for the eyes. The former commercial director has a knack for making everything look shiny but having great taste doesn’t make a great film director any more than great taste makes a Snickers bar a gourmet meal.
To my mind the difference between awful auteurs Wiseau and Wood and Hollywood hit-maker Bay is simple. Wiseau and Wood’s films are inexpertly but lovingly made by someone desperate to share their vision. Bay’s big glitzy movies feel like cynical money grabs more concerned with the bottom line than personal expression. I’m quite sure that if Bay had to undergo the trials and tribulations Wood had to suffer to get his movies made he would run to the hills, or maybe just back to his big house in the Hollywood Hills.
The Disaster Artist is a love letter to the movies and how they are the stuff dreams are made of. As for the success of Wiseau’s dream? It’s like what Adam Scott says about The Room in one of the film’s celebrity testimonials, “Who watches the best picture from a decade ago? But people are still watching The Room.”
