Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the controversial crime drama “Richard Jewell” and another trip into the videogame in “Jumanji: The Next Level.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
For a short time Richard Jewell was a household name, first for being a hero, then a villain, then a curiosity, a man who was railroaded by the press and the very people he revered, law enforcement. “Richard Jewell,” a new film from director Clint Eastwood looks at the man behind the headlines.
Based on the 1997 Vanity Fair article “American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell” by Marie Brenner the film stars Paul Walter Hauser as Jewell, a law and order man, who believes in rules and dreams of being a police officer. When he isn’t studying the penal code in the bedroom of the house he shares with his mother (Kathy Bates) he works security gigs, like patrolling the grounds at Centennial Park in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics.
When he spots a suspicious package the on-duty cops say, “It’s probably someone who run off drunk,” but Jewell insists they investigate. What happens next few minutes came to define his life.
The abandoned backpack contains three pipe bombs. “The biggest I’ve ever seen,” says a bomb expert.
Jewell’s suspicious nature saves lives and at first he is treated like a hero. Book deals are offered and he’s on every news broadcast in the country. “Tom Brokaw was even talking about you,” says his mother. But soon the story changes. His socially awkward nature and law enforcement aspirations make him the target of an FBI investigation. They wonder if he manufactured the crisis so he could be a hero.
After a loose-lipped FBI agent (Jon Hamm) spills the story to seductive reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) Jewell becomes front page news as a false hero with only lawyer Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) to help navigate the firestorm of controversy that follows.
Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray paint in rather broad strokes. The villains of the piece—the FBI agents who think Jewell is “guilty as hell.” and Wilde’s reporter, not the real-life bomber who is barely mentioned—twirl their metaphorical moustaches as they work in tandem to prove Jewell’s guilt, both offering up a cartoonish but entertaining take on their characters.
The heart of the film is closer to the Jewell home. Bates brings some real emotion to the role of a loving mother whose life is turned upside down but, by the time the end credits roll, this show belongs to Hauser and Rockwell. The chemistry, obvious affection and occasional exasperation between the two is winning and authentic. Rockwell brings his usual offbeat charm to the role of the dogged attorney but it is Hauser who leaves the lasting impression. In what should be his breakout film, the actor, best known for a supporting role in “I, Tonya,” gives an indelible performance. Jewell is an underdog, a Paul Blart with a heart of gold nearly crushed under the weight of powers far more powerful than him. His growing sense of frustration at his treatment by the FBI comes to a crescendo in a scene that allows him to win back some of the dignity that has been stripped away from him. In Hauser’s hands a character that could have been played as a bewildered screw-up becomes a likeable man with both pride and a sense of purpose.
“Richard Jewell” is the best film of 2019 to include a Macarena dance scene. It’s also a timely and searing indictment of the abuse of trial by media; of how an everyman’s life was almost ruined at the hands of people who traded on misinformation. Eastwood gives Jewell his due, humanizing a man who was treated like a story and not a person. Unfortunately, Eastwood also takes liberties in the way he portrays the reporter Scruggs, who died in 2001. Playing fast and loose with the unproven accusation that she traded sex for information, he does exactly what the media did to Jewell, point a jaundiced finger at someone who did nothing wrong.
Richard joins CP24 anchor Cristina Tenaglia to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including Christian Bale as former vice president Dick Cheney in “Vice,” the James Baldwin adaptation “If Beale Street Could Talk” and Felicity Jones as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg in “On the Basis of Sex.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Angie Seth to have a look at the weekend’s big releases including Christian Bale as Dick Cheney in “Vice,” the James Baldwin adaptation “If Beale Street Could Talk” and Felicity Jones as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg in “On the Basis of Sex.”
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 Dick Cheney biopic “Vice,” the James Baldwin adaptation “If Beale Street Could Talk,” and Felicity Jones as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg in “On the Basis of Sex.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
In 1956 when Ruth Bader Ginsburg entered Harvard Law School she was one of just nine women in her class. A new film, “On the Basis of Sex” starring Felicity Jones as the second female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, details her formative years from law school through to her ground breaking cases in the area of women’s rights.
We first see Ginsburg in a bright blue overcoat, sensible pumps and stockings with a perfectly straight line up the calf walking to class on her first day. She stands out in the mostly button down male pupils walking in Harvard’s hallowed halls. In class the keen student is met with stares of disbelief and asked to consider what it means to be a “Harvard man.” Worse, her dean, Erwin Griswold (Sam Waterston), bluntly asks, “Why are you occupying a place at Harvard that could have gone to a man?”
Cut to 1959. Her tax lawyer husband Marty (Armie Hammer) and daughter Jane (Cailee Spaeny) are living in New York. Despite graduating top of her class Ginsburg can’t find a job in the biggest city in the world’s most litigious country simply because she is a woman. “We’re a tight knit firm,” one prospective employer tells her. “Almost like family. The wives would get jealous.”
Shut out of practicing law she accepts a position as a professor at Columbia Law School. The story jumps ahead a decade to 1970. Her class in women’s rights is ninety percent female but attitudes haven’t changed much since she graduated. “Some colleagues say I should be teaching the rights of gnomes and fairies,” she says.
The brilliant law professor feels stymied because while she is teaching the next group of lawyers to change the world she would rather be changing it herself.
When her husband presents her with the case of Charles Moritz (Christian Mulkey), a man denied a caregiver tax deduction because of his gender, she sees a way to make change. She leaps at the chance to take on a sex discrimination case that could have far reaching implications not only for Moritz but for women as well.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an exceptional person. So exceptional in fact that her life has been documented several times on film, including the recent documentary “RBG.” That movie presents her as a multifaceted person. An opera loving law prodigy with a wicked sense of humour and a sense of justice that has influenced every aspect of her life. Gloria Steinem calls her “the closest thing to a superhero I know.”
“On the Basis of Sex,” written by Ginsburg’s late husband’s nephew, Daniel Stiepleman, takes this pioneering woman’s spirit and shapes it around a formulaic narrative. It’s efficient, playing like a greatest hits collection of the heads she butted and the doors she kicked in. Gone is the quirky, layered personality displayed in “RBG,” replaced with Jones’s earnest portrayal. If, as Steinem says, she is a superhero, “RBG” portrays her as Wonder Woman. In “On the Basis of Sex” she’s more like Elektra, still remarkable but not quite as interesting.
“On the Basis of Sex” is a feel good history lesson, a movie that provides a look at Ginsburg’s determination, intelligence and humanity but one that goes too heavy on the hagiography.
The last time Susan Sarandon went on a cinematic road trip she was teamed with Geena Davis in a film that reinvented the buddy picture and earned praise from critics who called it a “neo-feminist road movie.”
This time out the Sarandon shares the front seat with Melissa McCarthy. Where “Thelma & Louise” learned about loyalty and sisterhood, Tammy and Pearl only pick up tips about drinking and driving, how to rob restaurants and how to destroy a jet ski.
Tammy (McCarthy) is down on her luck. She hit a deer with her car—“Oh man,” she says, “not another one.”—got fired from Topper Jack’s, and discovered her husband (Nat Faxon) is having an affair with the neighbor (Toni Collette). And it’s not even dinnertime.
Like so many before her, Tammy decides to hit the road to clear her head. Trouble is, she doesn’t have a car or any money. Luckily Grandma Pearl (Sarandon) has both and is keen on taking a trip. “You’re not getting the car unless I go,” she says. “At this point you’re the best chance I have to get out of this house.”
The pair head off for Niagara Falls (going the wrong way naturally), stopping along the way just long enough to cause trouble as Pearl picks up a man in a bar (Gary Cole) before hiding out with Pearl’s cousin Lenore (Kathy Bates) and her girlfriend Suzanne (Sandra Oh). After a blow out with grandma at Lenore’s July fourth party Tammy finally has a close, hard look at her life.
Road movies are episodic by nature. Their stories move from place to place, from character to character, all bound by a theme. Unfortunately “Tammy” simply moves slowly from scene to scene, content to rely on McCarthy’s comedic appeal at the sacrifice of anything more than pratfalls and awkward humor.
In other words “Tammy” earns a laugh or two when McCarthy falls down, less so when she is standing upright, which is most of the movie.
McCarthy is a charming performer, but it’s beginning to feel like she doesn’t do anything than play the obnoxious loser with a heart of gold buried beneath a thick shell of one liners and non sequiturs. What worked so well in “Bridesmaids” now feels been-there-done-that.
She isn’t aided by the supporting cast, because despite the cumulative comedy cred of actors like Allison Janney, Dan Aykroyd and Toni Collette are all saddled with thankless roles that give them very little to do. Kathy Bates is more of a live wire, but shame on director Ben Falcone (who is also McCarthy’s husband and the film’s co-writer) for not giving her costar Sandra Oh more to do. She is essentially set dressing, a flesh prop with a nice wardrobe.
By the end of the credits “Tammy” doesn’t feel like a comedy—although there are several giggles sprinkled throughout—as much as it does a waste of talent. Sarandon isn’t a gifted comedian but McCarthy is, but neither is working to their strengths.
Some things are better left alone. I recently read that the Jack Kerouac classic On the Road is being turned into a movie. I can’t imagine that this is a good idea as the filmmakers could never possibly translate this book, which is revered by generations of people, into a film that would be better than the book. Another, more tangible example is out on DVD this week. Charlotte’s Web is a beloved children’s book about Wilbur a little runt pig who is concerned that he is going to end up as dinner unless he takes action. With the help of a quick-witted spider named Charlotte he hatches a plan to avoid turning into Sunday dinner.
This big budget adaptation features an all-star voice cast, including Julia Roberts as the know-it-all spider and Robert Redford, Oprah Winfrey, Cedric the Entertainer, John Cleese, Reba McEntire and Kathy Bates with Dakota Fanning heading up the live action cast.
There’s an old saying, “You can’t put lipstick on a pig,” which seems appropriate here. Charlotte’s Web isn’t as charming as that other talking pig movie Babe, or the book for that matter, but it is sweet and maybe will encourage a few kids to turn off the TV and pick up the book.
