As you may or may not know, when I’m not here talking to you on my show, I can be seen on the CTVNewsChannel and loads of other places talking about movies. I saw almost three hundred movies this year, wrote reviews for two hundred of those and there were high highs and the very lowest of lows.
I rate my movies on a scale of 10 to 5 stars. I never a full 5 stars because nothing is perfect, but this year there were several 4 ½ star movies. The lowest rating I have ever given was “Minus Infinity x 10” for a movie whose name I will never mention again.
Most movies fall into the 3 to 3 ½ star category, but there is a fairly wide range. Ten percent of the movies I see every year are terrible, ten percent are great but 80 percent fall into that mushy middle. Good to almost great.
I don’t care about the box office. I love it when a movie makes a lot of money because it means the industry is healthy and people are supporting theatres, and that’s a good thing, but just because a movie makes bank doesn’t mean it is a good movie.
Every now and again, though, there are movies that, for whatever reason, are great, but don’t connect with audiences. There have been a few of those this year, and for every movie that took a well-deserved dive, like “Joker: Folie a Deux” or “Borderlands” there were others that should have found an audience. On this show I’ll tell you about those movies!
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
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Fifteen years after “Jennifer’s Body,” writer Diablo Cody returns to the horror genre with a teen riff on Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece. “Lisa Frankenstein,” now playing in theatres, breathes life into a reanimated corpse and the misunderstood teenager who loves him.
Set in 1989, the phantasmagorical romantic comedy stars Kathryn Newton as Lisa Swallows, a gloomy Goth who feels out of step with the world. “Lisa looks good,” says her step sister Taffy (Liza Soberano). “She could even do pageants if she had congeniality.”
Lisa, the survivor of a horrific axe attack that took the life of her mother, writes dark poetry, watches silent movies and hangs around the Bachelor Grove Cemetery, a rundown burial ground near her high school. She makes wax rubbings of the gravestones, and is particularly drawn to the marker of a handsome young Victorian era man whose bust sits atop his grave.
“I just don’t think anyone should be forgotten,” she says.
At school, she has a crush on Michael (Henry Eikenberry), the hipster editor of the school literary magazine, but her withdrawn nature prevents her from making the first move. “I can always count on Lisa to work Saturdays,” says her boss at the dry cleaner where she is a seamstress, “because she can’t get a date.”
At home, her father (Joe Chrest) is the mild-mannered counterpart to her evil stepmother (Carla Gugino), a psychiatric nurse who would love nothing more than to ship Lisa off to a residential psyche ward.
When a freak lightning storm strikes the crucifix necklace Lisa draped over her favorite grave, the young man (“Riverdale’s” Cole Sprouse) is reanimated and makes his way to Lisa’s home. After a meet-not-so-cute, they form an emotional connection.
They complete one another, except that he’s not quite complete. He’s almost perfect, save for some culture shock and a few missing bits and pieces, which they attempt to replace and rebuild with the help of a few unwilling victims and the electric charge of a faulty tanning bed.
“Lisa Frankenstein” isn’t just a gender swapped “Weird Science,” or a riff on the scientific hubris of “Frankenstein.” It’s a high school outsider story about loss and love with a hint of mayhem thrown in for good measure. Cody’s screenplay is often more strange than actually funny, but the underlying theme of forming connections—even if it is with a guy who “speaks” in grunts—is heartfelt and even touching. Sure, it’s still a slasher movie, but one more interested in what makes the heart beat, not what stops the heart from beating.
Newton, who visually channels “Who’s That Girl” era Madonna, is eccentric yet charming, building empathy for Lisa, even though she’s aiding and abetting some pretty heinous acts in the name of love.
As the zombie heartthrob, Sprouse radiates heavy Edward Scissorhands vibes in a role Johnny Depp would likely have played if this movie was made in the early 1990s.
Gugino goes all in as a mommy dearest type but it is Soberano who steals scenes as Taffy, Lisa’s superficial but big-hearted step-sister.
In “Lisa Frankenstein” director Zelda Williams, daughter of the late, great Robin Williams, creates a stylistic homage to both John Hughes and Tim Burton. It’s a sweet and strange zombie love story that understands teenage angst and how the heart wants what it wants, even if that heart no longer beats.
As you may or may not know, when I’m not here talking to you on my show, I can be seen on the CTVNewsChannel and loads of other places talking about movies. I saw almost three hundred movies this year, wrote reviews for two hundred of those and there were high highs and the very lowest of lows.
