I join NewsTalk 1010 host Jim Richards on the coast-to-coast-to-coast late night “NewsTalk Tonight” to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” This week we talk about the wick-ed action of “John Wick: Chapter 4,” the dramedy “The Lost King” with Sally Hawkins and the romantic drama “You Can Live Forever.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to talk about the wick-ed action of “John Wick: Chapter 4,” the addiction drama “A Good Person” with Morgan Freeman and Florence Pugh, the dramedy “The Lost King” with Sally Hawkins and the romantic drama “You Can Live Forever.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with CKTB morning show guest host Stephanie Vivier to have a look at the wick-ed action of “John Wick: Chapter 4,” the addiction drama “A Good Person” with Morgan Freeman and Florence Pugh, the dramedy “The Lost King” with Sally Hawkins and the romantic drama “You Can Live Forever.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with guest host Andrew Pinsent to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the wick-ed action of “John Wick: Chapter 4,” the addiction drama “A Good Person” with Morgan Freeman and Florence Pugh, the dramedy “The Lost King” with Sally Hawkins and the romantic drama “You Can Live Forever.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“You Can Live Forever,” a new queer romance set against the backdrop of a Jehovah’s Witness community, is a restrained, poignant look at teenage love.
Set in the early 1990s, the story focusses on transplanted Thunder Bay teenager Jaime (Anwen O’Driscoll). She’s a typical teen of the time, with a taste for getting high, movies, Siouxie and the Banshees T-shirts and playing video games. She’s also gay, but hasn’t told anyone in her family.
Following her father’s sudden heart attack and her distraught mother’s subsequent nervous breakdown, she’s sent to live with her Aunt Beth (Liane Balaban) and Uncle Jean-Francois (Antoine Yared) at a Jehovah’s Witness community in Quebec’s Saguenay region.
Suffering claustrophobia within the tightly-knit community, Jamie feels repressed, like an outsider at the Kingdom Hall meetings she is forced to attend—”What am I supposed to do?” she asks. “Nobody wants me here.”—until she meets Marike (June Laporte).
There are several paths the low-key, deliberately-paced “You Can Live Forever” could have walked, but it chooses warmth and empathy over everything else. Co-directors Sarah Watts—who grew up in a Jehovah’s Witness community—and Mark Slutsky, take pains to paint a portrait of life inside the religious community, but from a thoughtful, not judgemental point of view. Ditto the relationship at the center of the movie. Their bond is taken seriously, not simply a high school fling.
It is not a complicated story but it is a delicate one, handled respectfully by Watts and Slutsky, who also wrote the script. The community’s beliefs are recognised in a story that sees Jamie disagree with her family’s dogmas, but still empathize with them as people. It is a tricky balance, and the way Jamie accepts Marike’s religious background is a tangible sign of the deep affection she has for her.
“You Can Live Forever” pays careful attention to the characters to avoid falling into stereotypes or hitting inauthentic notes. It is a little too methodical in its approach, but the emotional impact of this story of star-crossed lovers is hard to deny.
Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to cast a spell! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the wick-ed action of “John Wick: Chapter 4,” the dramedy “The Lost King” with Sally Hawkins and the romantic drama “You Can Live Forever.”
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“A Wrinkle in Time,” “The Strangers: Prey At Night” and “Meditation Park.”
Watch the whole thing HERE !
Mina Shum’s “Meditation Park” takes place within a few blocks in East Vancouver but tells an emotional and universal story of the immigrant experience in Canada.
Cheng Pei Pei is Maria, the wife of workaholic Bing (Tzi Ma). A stay-at-home wife and mother, she doesn’t feel confident with her grasp of English and is dependent on Bing for almost everything. When she discovers he is having an affair with a much younger woman and is planning a trip to Japan she, along with the help of her family and neighbours, she asserts her independence and comes out from underneath her overbearing husband’s shadow. “First we obey our fathers,” her friend says. “Then our husbands. When they are gone we obey ourselves.”
“Meditation Park” sees Maria break free of the conservative constraints of her upbringing and family life to assimilate into the wider community. The story of her personal journey is told with a mix of comedy—occasionally bordering on slapstick— and heartfelt emotion but it is the performances, particularly from Cheng Pei Pei, that breathes life into the movie. Her broken heart is palpable but so is the joy on her face as she dances to music only she can hear at a block party.
Strong supporting work from Sandra Oh and Don McKellar highlights the strong support system that helps prop Maria up in her time of need but it is the personal story of awakening that lingers.
“We’ve been looking for a doctor eight years,” says the mayor of Tickle Head, Newfoundland in the new Don McKellar comedy “The Grand Seduction.”
“Well,” replies Murray (Brendan Gleeson), with perfect logic, “let’s stop looking and start finding.”
And that’s just what they do, using every underhanded and dirty trick in the book. These are decent people who try and do the right thing, but they also understand that sometimes you have to bend the rules to get what you want.
Tickle Head, “a small harbor with a big heart,” has had more of its share of hardship since the bottom fell out of the fishery. Unemployment is high and the only jobs are “in town” in St. John’s, a ferry ride away.
The town fathers have a bid on a petrochemical byproduct repurposing plant that makes… well, it doesn’t matter, as they say in the film, it makes jobs. That’s what’s important. One key element is missing, a doctor. The factory deal won’t go through unless there is a local doctor.
When Paul Lewis (Taylor Kitsch), a city slicker plastic surgeon, lands in the harbour for a month long residency, the entire place (population 121) bands together to convince him to stay… by any means necessary.
Not everyone in town is on board. Kathleen (Liane Balaban) doesn’t want an oil company to set up shop in her harbor and certainly doesn’t want to be used as bait to attract the new doctor.
A remake of the French-Canadian hit “La Grande Seduction” is a comedy with a poignant edge. The set-up is outrageous—they spy on Dr. Lewis, tap his phone and even stage a tournament of cricket, his favorite game—but this is a story of a town fighting for survival of their town and their way of life.
There are plenty of laughs along the way—Gordon Pinsent is particularly effective as the deadpan Simon, who has never left Tickle Head—but the heart and soul of the film is in its fondness for the people and their harbor.
