Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres, VOD and streaming services including Edgar Wright’s time-trippy “Last Night in Soho,” the based-on-true-fact drama “Snakehead,” “The French Dispatch,” the latest from Wes Anderson and the Netflix heist flick “Army of Thieves.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard joins NewsTalk 1010 host Jim Richards on the coast-to-coast-to-coast late night “Showgram” to play the game “Did Richard Crouse like these movies?” This week we talk about the Edgar Wright Halloween special “Last Night in Soho,” the true life drama “Snakehead” and “The French Dispatch,” the latest from Wes Anderson.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“The French Dispatch,” now in theatres, is the most Wes Anderson-y film in the Wes Anderson playbook. If you forced a bot to watch 1000 hours of Anderson’s films and then asked it to write a movie on its own, “The French Dispatch” would be the result.
Broken into three stories, this is the story of three writers and their work for The French Dispatch, an American owned newspaper supplement edited by Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray) from their offices in Ennui-sur-Blasé, France.
On the occasion of Howitzer’s passing the staff assemble to put together a special edition of the paper to honor him. After a quick intro to the paper and the town by Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson), the movie introduces its first tale, an outlandish take on the birth of abstract expressionism.
Benicio Del Toro stars as Moses Rosenthaler, a temperamental artist incarcerated for double murder. His muse is Simone (Léa Seydoux), the guard of his cell block. When his work is discovered by art dealer Cadazio (Adrien Brody), who happens to be doing time for financial improprieties, Moses reluctantly becomes a worldwide sensation.
Next is “Revisions to a Manifesto,” Anderson’s take on the French May 1968 student uprising. French Dispatch reporter Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) covers the story of wild-haired Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet), the revolutionary Juliette (Lyna Khoudri) and the manifesto they want to present to the world.
The final story involves food critic Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright). He recounts how a food prepared by brilliant police chef Nescaffier (Stephen Park) foiled the kidnapping of a police commissioner’s son.
Fans of Anderson’s work know what to expect. Perfectly composed shots, Bill Murray and fussy, idiosyncratic situations and dialogue. Aficionados will not be disappointed by “The French Dispatch.” It offers up Anderson’s trademarks in droves. But for me, a longtime Anderson fan, the preciousness of the storytelling verges on parody. There are some beautiful, even poetic moments in what amounts to an examination of the creative life, but the arch style that typifies Anderson’s work is in overdrive here and overwhelms the message.
Richard joins Ryan Doyle of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show The Rush for Booze and Reviews! Today he talks about the return of James Bond in “No Time to Die,” and the OTHER drinks, not shaken or stirred, that Bond enjoyed in the books and the movies.
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Richard joins CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including “No Time to Die,” the return of James Bond to the big screen, the dystopian “Night Raiders” and the Netflix slasher film “There’s Someone Inside Your House.”
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Richard and CTV NewsChannel morning show host Lois Lee chat up the weekend’s big releases including “No Time to Die,” the return of James Bond to the big screen, the dystopian “Night Raiders” and the Netflix slasher film “There’s Someone Inside Your House.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres, VOD and streaming services including “No Time to Die,” the much anticipated return of James Bond to the big screen, the “Sopranos” prequel “The Many Saints of Newark,” the dystopian “Night Raiders” and the Netflix slasher film “There’s Someone Inside Your House.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Will James Bond (Daniel Craig) ever be happy? The dour superspy looks great in a tux, has saved the planet a dozen or more times and piloted invisible planes but despite his list of achievements, true happiness always seems to have eluded him.
In “No Time to Die,” however, it looks like Bond may have found a sweet spot in his life with his pretty love interest, Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux). But Craig’s fifth and final time as 007 isn’t all sunshine and roses as much as it is a requiem for a character who was shaped by trauma.
“No Time to Die,” now only playing in theatres, kicks off with a cold open unlike any other Bond beginning. Two decades ago, against a remote, icy Norwegian backdrop, the young daughter of a Spectre agent is orphaned when a masked murderer invades her home. “Your father killed my entire family,” he says between bullets. She survives, and twenty or so years later grows up to be Dr. Swann, psychotherapist and the only woman who can make James Bond smile.
On holiday in Materna, Italy, she encourages him to visit the grave of heartbreaker Vesper Lynd, and put her memory to rest. He does, and soon the idyll with his new girlfriend ends, literally blowing up in his face.
Convinced Swann has betrayed him, the superspy cuts her loose, vowing to never lay eyes on her again.
Cut to five years later. Bond is retired from MI6, but lured back into the game of international espionage when his friend and CIA field officer Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) and associate Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen) ask him to help locate Valdo Obruche (David Dencik), a missing scientist working on a deadly DNA Nanobots weapon.
The job sees Bond square off with one of his greatest foes, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) and revenge-thirsty terrorist Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), a master in the art of asymmetric warfare.
“No Time to Die” shakes up the Bond formula while still offering most of what fans pay to see. There are exotic locations, some high-flying action and the odd 007 one-liner. They are embedded into the DNA of the franchise; character traits that have not been genetically edited out of the movie.
The womanizing, which was so much a part of the Bond folklore, is still there, but trimmed, and played for comic effect. In one instance Ana de Armas, whose appearance as CIA agent Paloma amounts to an extended cameo, charmingly closes the door on that aspect of the Bond legend. In a short but eventful scene, she almost steals the show, and leaves the audience wanting more.
What director Cary Joji Fukunaga, who co-wrote the script alongside Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Scott Z. Burns, has done is add in a ponderous reevaluation of Craig’s years as Bond. Call backs abound to “Casino Royale,” “Quantum of Solace,” “Skyfall,” and “Spectre” and loose ends are tied into bows in in the film’s many Easter eggs. Much of that material is fan service as the fifteen-year Craig reign comes to a close. A shot of M’s (Judi Dench) portrait nods to Bond’s connection to her and Fukunaga reaches back to “Casino Royale” for a tribute to Felix “Brother from Langley” Leiter (Jeffrey Wright). It feels like a nice, respectful way to usher out one era and bring in the next, in whatever form that may take.
But “No Time to Die” is not simply a tip of the hat to the past. With an eye to the future, Fukunaga and Craig have fundamentally changed what a Bond movie is. As the only Bond actor to have an arc for his character, Craig didn’t simply put on Pierce Brosnan’s tux and carry on as so many of the previous actors have done. He took Bond to places he’s never been before, amping up the emotionality of the character as a person born out of trauma. He talks about having everything taken from him as a child, “before I was even in the fight.” For the first time in Bond history, 007 is feeling the ticking of the clock, and not the timer on a bomb he’s trying to diffuse, but the metaphorical hands of time tightening around him.
This approach effectively changes “No Time to Die’s” dynamic, from action film to soul-searching character drama. The 163-minute running time allows the characters to explore why and how they landed where they did in life, but it also sucks much of the urgency from the storytelling. Add to that Malek’s Safin, a clichéd villain who really should make a larger impact, and the drama necessary to shake that martini is lessened.
There is #NoTimeForSpoilers in this review but suffice to say, “No Time to Die” is a Bond film unlike any other. Craig leaves the franchise having made the biggest impact on the character since Sean Connery set the rules more than half a century ago. His finale is drawn out and may rely too heavily on pop psychologically but it’s an important film in the Bond canon. It may even be the most important and exciting since “Dr. No.” Why? Because, as an on-screen card promises, “James Bond will return,” but the movie gives us no hint as to what that re-invented future will entail and that, after almost sixty years of a steady diet of 007isms, is “No Time to Die’s” most exciting achievement.
Visiting family can be trying. Memories can be stirred up and old wounds opened. But I will guess that no matter how surreal your stopovers with the clan may be, they likely aren’t as melodramatic as Louis (Gaspard Ulliel) visit home after a twelve year absence in Xavier Dolan’s “It’s Only the End of the World.”
Louis is successful and gay, a playwright travelling home to see his family, people he barely knows anymore. Terminally ill, he’s determined to visit on his own terms to prove he is, “until the very end the master of his life.” Instead of open arms he walks into a seething mass of hurt and anger from his relatives, manic mother Martine (Nathalie Baye), short-tempered brother Antoine (Vincent Cassel), frazzled sister-in-law Catherine (Marion Cotillard) and Suzanne (Léa Seydoux) a younger sister he barely knows.
Based on Jean-Luc Lagarce’s play of the same name, “It’s Only The End Of The World,” unfolds episodically, like a series of beautifully performed but melodramatic one act plays. An awkward conversation here, an argument there, punctuated by Dolan’s stylistic flourishes. Slow motion and close-up after close-up showcase the interesting and rather exquisite faces of the cast but lend a claustrophobic feel to the film. As the walls close in on Louis the constant up-close-and-personal bickering grates on the audience. Why doesn’t he just pack his bags and leave? Why don’t we? Either way, it would put an end to the on-screen caterwauling.
There are some touching moments in “It’s Only the End of the World,” but they occur mostly in flashback. In the present day the film portrays a clichéd view of family dysfunction that is neither as revealing nor profound enough to maintain interest. If it’s family trouble you want, go visit your own folks. At least you’ll get a home cooked meal out of the deal.
