Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at ”Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” the no-bull kid’s tale “Ferdinand” and the coming-of-age romance “Call Me By Your Name.”
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 “Darkest Hour, “The Shape of Water” and “Wonder Wheel.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies including “Darkest Hour, “The Shape of Water” and “Wonder Wheel.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the Winston Churchill biopic “Darkest Hour, “The Shape of Water,” a movie Richard says “is the kind of movie that made me fall in love with movies in the first place,” and the not-so-wondrous “Wonder Wheel.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Personal details run deep in Woody Allen’s films. His life has been fodder for his stories. Sometimes overt, occasionally self-indulgently, most always accompanied by some sort of neurosis his writing reveals much about who he is. “Wonder Wall,” however, may top everything that came before with its story of a man who carries on with both mother and stepdaughter.
Set on Coney Island in the 1950s, “Wonder Wheel” stars Jim Belushi as Humpty, a carousel operator with Kate Winslet as Ginny, his actress-turned-waitress wife. They live in a dowdy apartment with budding pyromaniac Richie (Jack Gore), her son from a previous marriage. It’s a miserable existence. He’s an unhappy recovering alcoholic who prefers fishing to his wife’s company. Approaching forty, she’s unhappily working at a local clam house, battling migraines caused by the endless din from the surrounding amusement parks. “I am not a waitress in a clam bar,” she says. “There’s more to me than that. I’m playing the part of a waitress in a clam bar.”
Ginny’s only consolation is lifeguard and wannabe playwright Mickey (Justin Timberlake). He’s “poetic by nature with hopes of one day writing a classic,” and
she eats it up until Carolina (Juno Temple), Humpty’s estranged daughter shows up, on the run from some nasty mobsters (Steve Schirripa and Tony Sirico).
Woody Allen has made almost fifty films ranging from lush romantic comedies and introspective dramas to art house explorations and musicals. “Wonder Wheel” feels like a combination of all of the above, and yet less because it feels as though its been cobbled together from fragments of his other, better movies. Nostalgia, over-romanticized sense of place, dangerous relationships, psychiatry and highbrow set decoration like references to “Hamlet and Oedipus” abound but it is all been-there-done-that.
Once upon a time Allen’s films clocked in at a svelte 90 minutes but in recent years have grown flabby. “Wonder Wheel” times out at 101 minutes but feels much longer. The stagey, heightened acting style recalls amateur hour Tennessee Williams and seems not only stuck in time, but actually have the ability to stop time. As Humpty Belushi only reminds us how good a role this might have been for John Goodman. Winslet seems to be channelling a heroine from a more interesting movie and Timberlake, as the movie’s in-demand love interest and Greek Chorus, shows none of the ease and grace so amply on display in his singing and dancing. Only Temple fights her way through the muck to emerge as a compelling character.
At the beginning of the film Mickey warns us that what we are about to see will be filtered through his playwright’s point of view. Keeping that promise, Allen uses every amount of artifice at his disposal—including cinematographer Vittorio Storaro’s admittedly sumptuous photography—to create a film that is not only unreal but also unpleasant. “Oh God,” Ginny cries out at one point. “Spare me the bad drama.” Amen to that.
A new feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at “Blade Runner 2049,” the survival flick “The Mountain Between Us” and the J.D. Salinger biopic “Rebel in the Rye.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the much anticipated “Blade Runner 2049,” the survival flick “The Mountain Between Us” and the J.D. Salinger biopic “Rebel in the Rye.”
Watch the whole tying HERE!
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
Mountain survival movies usually end with someone eating someone else to stay alive. The Mountain Between Us features the usual mountain survival tropes — there’s a plane crash, a showdown with a cougar and broken bones — but luckily for fans of stars Idris Elba and Kate Winslet cannibalism is not on the menu.
“The combination between survival and romance is why I wanted to do this movie,” says director Hany Abu-Assad. “It is very original. I could make a different survival movie which is on the surface is about survival but deep in its heart it is about love and the spirit of human beings. On the other hand it is an opportunity to make an entertaining movie. It is an entertaining but also sophisticated movie that tells the meaning of life.”
Elba and Winslet play strangers who must bond after a devastating plane crash leaves them badly injured and stranded. They are onscreen for 99 per cent of the film so the casting of the two leads was the first major hurtle for director Abu-Assad.
“This is a very risky movie because it depends on just two characters and if the actors are not good, you’re f—ed,” he laughs. “The process was very long and thoughtful. At the end we came up with Idris and Kate after we saw them at the BAFTAs together. They were presenting. We were throwing all kinds of names around. I don’t want to say who but we wanted to be sure you would want to look at them for an hour and a half and still not get enough. The moment I saw Idris and Kate together on the stage, immediately I thought, this is the movie I want to see. There is fire between these two that made us realize these were the actors we wanted.”
Shot in Western Canada, the vistas of ice and snow — imagine Lawrence of Arabia with snow instead of sand — were real and brought a sense of authenticity to the production.
“All the snow is real, pristine but this comes with a price,” Abu-Assad says. “For example you can’t shoot long days, just six hours a day. Otherwise you will be beaten up from the cold. People from Chicago or Montreal tell me they’re used to the cold. They are used to going 10 minutes from the house to the car or for a five-minute walk in the cold but six hours? That takes a toll. The equipment won’t work so we had to leave the cameras on 24 hours. The moment we stopped them it took hours to warm them up again. Some equipment froze in a way that we couldn’t even move it or touch it.”
Abu-Assad says the elements challenged the cast, crew and him during the shoot, but that it was worth it.
“It makes you hyper-vigilant,” he says, “because you can’t afford to make a mistake. Some scenes are just one take because it is a pristine snow and you can’t go back. It’s very tiring but not frustrating because your adrenaline is pumping. It was beautiful to watch. Things happened in a way that felt so genuine. It was like an orgasm to watch these shots being made.”
Mountain survival movies usually end up with someone eating someone else to stay alive. “The Mountain Between Us” features the usual mountain survival tropes—there’s a plane crash, a showdown with a cougar and broken bones—but luckily for fans of stars Idris Elba and Kate Winslet cannibalism is not on the menu.
The melodramatic tale begins at the Idaho airport on December 29. A storm is brewing and all flights are cancelled, grounding Dr. Ben Bass (Idris Elba) and photojournalist Alex Martin (Kate Winslet). He’s scheduled to perform surgery the next day in Denver, she’s getting married to Mark (Dermot Mulroney) on the 30th. Desperate to make their obligations, professional and personal, the two strangers pay former Vietnam pilot Walter (Beau Bridges) $800 to fly them to Denver in his twin prop plane. The jovial Walt doesn’t bother to file a flight plan because it’s daylight and he’s confident he can beat the storm.
All is going well until Walter suffers a stroke and the plane falls from the sky, crash landing at the top of a remote mountain. The situation? “Your phone is smashed,” says Ben. “Mine has no bars and we’re pretty high up in the mountains.” They’re also banged up. She has a broken leg, he has lacerations on his side. Walt isn’t so lucky, but his dog, who came along for the ride, is unharmed.
Around them is a winter wonderland: cougars, and miles of ice and snow as far as the eye can see. Tucked away in the broken airplane fuselage they wait for rescue. Ben, a man of logic and science, is convinced the airplane’s beacon will alert the authorities. Alex wants to move but is hampered by her injury. They bicker. He calls her reckless; she says he’s afraid to take risks. He’s a neurosurgeon, all logic. “What about the heart?” She asks. “The heart is nothing but a muscle, “he snorts.
Days pass and then weeks pass and soon they begin their trek to safety. “Where are we going?” she asks. “We’re alive,” he says. “That’s where were going.” There will be no spoilers here but I will say the crash and story of survival changes them in ways that couldn’t imagine… but ways the audience will see coming 100 miles away.
The crash sequence in “The Mountain Between Us” is vivid and exciting but the rest of it, including the inevitable plunge-through-the-ice-into-the-icy-depths sequence doesn’t have enough juice to get the pulse racing. Oscar nominated director Hany Abu-Assad is content, for the most part, to keep things light. It’s a grim situation and yet they make cocktail party conversation. “Do you have kids?” “I hope I get to meet your wife,” rather than discussing more pressing matters. The gravity of the circumstances seems to be of secondary importance as she says to the dog, “Don’t look at me like that.” They flip-flop between cozy moments and bickering and their corny reactions don’t ever feel like life-and-death reactions.
It’s all a bit silly—three weeks in and unwashed they still are a fetching couple—but at least there’s no cannibalism and no, they don’t eat the dog.
