Toronto Star: Warren Beatty remains precise and in control about all things
Richard is mentioned in the Toronto Star article “Warren Beatty remains precise and in control about all things, especially sex” by Peter Howell. Read the whole thing HERE!
Posts Tagged ‘Lily Collins’
CHECK IT OUT: RICHARD’S “HOUSE OF CROUSE” PODCAST EPISODE 75!
Welcome to the House of Crouse. It’s a magical day around here. Not only do the cast of the Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them drop by–including Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne–then we have a Warren Beatty sighting. As fans know Beatty sightings are as rare(and precious)as Bismuth Crystals. He and Rules Don’t Apply star Lily Collins swing by to talk about the movie and the film’s unusual production. Abracadabra! C’mon in and sit a spell… we’re pulling rabbits out of hats today!
Richard hosted “Rules Don’t Apply” Q&A with Warren Beatty and Lily Collins!
On Sunday October 23, 2016 Richard hosted a Q&A with Hollywood legend Warren Beatty and actress Lily Collins. Beatty wrote, co-produced, directed and stars in “Rules Don’t Apply,” co-starring Collins as a young, naive woman who comes to Hollywood in the late 1950s.
In the spirited question and answer session Beatty met his Toronto doppelgänger (another man named Warren Beatty) who said he frequently gets upgraded in hotels because of his name. When asked about politics and the current American election, Beatty said he has one reply he gives everyone who asks. “Don’t get me started!”
“Rules Don’t Apply” opens everywhere on November 23, 2016.
RICHARD’S “CANADA AM” REVIEWS FOR JANUARY 30 WITH MARCIA MACMILLAN.
Richard reviews “SpongeBob Squarepants: Sponge Out of Water,” Seventh Son,” and “Outcast” with “Canada AM” guest host Marcia MacMillan.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
LOVE, ROSIE: 2 ½ STARS. “an amiable, sit-com-turned-rom com.”
Or a movie about teen pregnancy, failed expectations and missed opportunities, “Love, Rosie” has a pretty cheery outlook. Based on the bestselling 2004 novel “Where Rainbows End” by Irish author Cecelia Ahern it stars Lily Collins as the title character, a young woman in love with her best friend.
From the age of five Rosie and Alex (Sam Claflin) were inseparable. Best of friends, their relationship flowered, bordering on romantic, until at age 17 he moves from Dublin to Boston to attend school. Her plans to move to the States to be with him are scuttled when she finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. Like star-crossed almost lovers, their paths are intertwined over the next twelve years, as Rosie plays single mom to her daughter while Alex’s seemingly perfect life has one major romantic deficit.
Imagine an Irish “When Harry Met Sally” rehash without the diner orgasm scene and you are on the way to understanding “Love, Rosie.” It builds on the question of male, female friendship—Is it possible or does sex always get in the way?—in the most predictable of ways, but is buoyed by its two lead female performances.
Lily Collins is undeniably charming as the fetching Rosie, a headstrong woman who knows exactly what she wants unless it has anything to do with love. She has gumption and Collins plays off her determination to amp up the humorous aspects of the story, although a sequence involving handcuffs, a bedframe and Rosie’s daughter’s morning routine seems airlifted in from another, sillier movie.
As Ruby, Rosie’s plucky best girlfriend, Jaime Winstone has more chemistry with Collins than lead actor Sam Claflin can muster. The central relationship in the story should be between Rosie and Alex, but Claflin is too bland a romantic lead to register or make us care about the brewing romance between the two. Love may be in the air, but it is not on the film.
In Canada “Love, Rosie” will be released day and date in theatres and on Video on Demand. The latter, small screen experience feels like the best way to see this amiable, sit com-turned-rom com.
THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES: 3 ½ STARS
“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones,” is a young adult action adventure that feels like a K-Tel version of some of the most popular movies of the last few years. The movie, based on the popular books by Cassandra Clare, Frankensteins the best of “Harry Potter”—Dumbledore’s son, Jared Harris, even makes an appearance—and “Twilight.” The only things missing are Harry’s cloak of invisibility and Bella’s ennui.
When typical teen Clary Fray (Lily Collins) witnesses a murder at a club called the Pan Demon Inn she is catapulted into a strange world where half human, half angel assassins called Shadowhunters stalk and kill demons. Meanwhile at home her mother Jocelyn (Lena Headey) has been attacked and abducted by deputies of Valentine (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), the power hungry demon slayer who believes she knows the location of the shadowhunters’ Holy Grail, the Mortal Cup.
Clary soon learns the man she saw murdered at the club was a demon, slain by wise cracking shadowhunter Jace (Jamie Campbell “cheekbones” Bower), and that she isn’t a “mundane,” (or, if you’re a Potterhead, a muggle), but a powerful shadowhunter who must not only rescue her mother but also keep the Mortal Cup from falling into the wrong hands.
“City of Bones,” the first in a proposed series, pinches the supernatural love triangle and benevolent werewolf characters from the “Twilight” series, the Hogwartian Shadowhunter Institute and much of the mythology from “Harry Potter,” but, despite the overall sense of déjà vu, it also provides a number of PG thrills and chills between the mushy scenes.
While it doesn’t have the immediate appeal of its sires, with its developed mythology–bring a notebook, there’s loads of new lingo–and sequel-ready ending, it looks to have to legs. Favoring the gothic over the gushy, its hard to know if it will strike the same chord as “Twilight,” but like a Hammer film for kids, it may have more appeal to boys than Stephenie Meyer’s supernatural romances.
“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” feels derivative, but like a K-Tel record it strings familiar elements together in an entertaining way.
MIRROR MIRROR: 1 STAR
Tarsem Singh Dhandwar may have a highly developed sense of humor. I say may because I don’t know. Judging strictly by his work, it’s hard to tell. His features, “The Cell,” “The Fall” and “Immortals” weren’t exactly laugh riots. His new movie, “Mirror Mirror,” a comedic retelling of the Snow White story, doesn’t shed any light on the matter either. It is as amusing as you might expect from the man who brought us REM’s po-faced Losing My Religion music video.
Julia Roberts plays the narcissistic evil step-queen to the young and beautiful Snow White (Lily Collins). After Snow’s father, the King (Sean Bean), mysteriously disappears, the Queen goes all Marie Antoinette, indulging her every whim, bringing the country to the verge of bankruptcy. In her quest to be the fairest in the land, she also locked Snow away from prying eyes, but when the young princess attracts the attention of a wealthy young prince (Armie Hammer) the Queen considered to be husband material, she orders her bungling servant Brighton (Nathan Lane) to kill Snow. I told you she was evil.
Brighton can’t bring himself to off the young girl, and sets her free in the forest where she is found by seven dwarfs who help her find her inner strength and recapture her birthright.
As with all of Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s films “Mirror Mirror” is beautiful to look at. He certainly has an eye for set decoration but in this case I wish they had spent the money on gag writers rather than lavish sets.
To be fair, “Mirror Mirror” is a family movie, but even five year olds deserve better than the old hat slapstick and word play on display here. Even the seven dwarfs on their spring-loaded stilts can’t put any bounce into this fractured fairy tale.
It’s cast well enough, Collins is picture perfect as Snow White—she bears an uncanny resemblance to the cartoon version—and Armie Hammer, should his career survive the dreadful dog impression he has to do here, has a future playing handsome princes. Julia Roberts is the headliner here and while her comedic timing is in place, the lines she has to say don’t connect.
“Mirror Mirror” is a misfire, ninety minutes that feels like seven years of bad luck. To quote a line from the movie, “Snow White? Snow Way.”
