On the Saturday October 19, 2024 episode of The Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet director Ali Abbasi. His film “The Apprentice,” which is now playing in theatres, is a controversial coming-of-age look at Donald Trump’s early years under the mentorship of lawyer Roy Cohn. It paints a picture of the future president of the United States as an ambitious, if slightly awkward guy, who came to believe that there are only two kinds of people in the world, “killers and losers.” Ali Abbasi joined me on the phone to discuss his six year journey to getting this film made and released and much more.
Then, Elijah Wood stops by. He began his career as a child actor, appearing in everything from “Back to the Future II” to “Internal Affairs” opposite Richard Gere. He became an international star after playing Frodo Baggins in the acclaimed “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. His extensive filmography now includes “Bookworm,” an intriguing film about a 12-year-old named Mildred whose life is turned upside down when her mother lands in hospital and estranged, American magician father, Strawn Wise, played by Elijah Wood, comes to look after her. Hoping to entertain the bookish tween, Strawn takes Mildred camping in the notoriously rugged New Zealand wilderness, and the pair embark on the ultimate test of family bonding — a quest to find the mythological beast known as the Canterbury Panther. It’s a lovely film and it was lovely to speak with Elijah Wood about it and his secret regarding “Lord of the Rings.”
Finally, we’ll meet Jenny Heijun Wills. She was born in Seoul, South Korea, raised in Southern Ontario, and currently lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is the author of Older Sister. “Not Necessarily Related.: A Memoir.” As a self-described transnational and transracial adoptee, she has spent her life navigating the space between ethnicity and belonging, a subject she tackles in her new book “Everything and Nothing at All.”
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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I sit in with hosts Jim Richards and Deb Hutton on NewsTalk 1010 to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” This week we talk about the Pharrell Williams Lego music doc “Piece by Piece,” the crime thriller “Woman of the Hour” and the origin story “The Apprentice.”
SYNOPSIS: “The Apprentice,” the controversial coming-of-age look at Donald Trump’s early years under the mentorship of lawyer Roy Cohn, now playing in theatres, paints a picture of the future president of the United States as an ambitious, if slightly awkward guy, who came to believe that there are only two kinds of people in the world, “killers and losers.”
CAST: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Gabriel Sherman. Directed by Ali Abbasi.
REVIEW: In 1972 photographer Robert Frank was given carte blanch to follo and film The Rolling Stones on their American tour. The result was “Cocksucker Blues,” a film deemed unleasable by the band, but not because of the overwhelming amount of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll on display. Rumor has it the band banned the film because Frank unblinkingly showed the tedium of life on the road and revealed the real lives of the band members.
It’s hardly the high glam life that would be expected from the “World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band,” although these are the scenes that humanize the group and put a pinprick in the bubble of fame that surrounded the Stones in their glory days.
Director Jim Jarmusch said, “It makes you think that being a rock star is one of the last things you’d ever want to do.”
I mention all this because I think there is a correlation between “Cocksucker Blues” and “The Apprentice.” The Trump campaign unsuccessfully worked to suppress this film, and I would guess—and that’s all this is—they wanted it shelved not because of the harder edged portrait of Trump in the film’s second half, which falls in line with the candidate’s strongman image, but because of the softer, more humanist tone of the first hour.
When we first meet Trump (Sebastian Stan) he’s a desperate man, going door-to-door in his father’s buildings to collect rents from tenants who clearly loathe him, a lawsuit looms that could potentially bankrupt the Trump family and his brother Freddy is a drunk who is slowly losing his battle with the bottle.
Enter Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), a lawyer Trump affectionately calls “evil incarnate.” The prosecutor in the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s investigations of suspected communists, he had a fearsome take-no-prisoners reputation. The closeted lawyer took Trump under his wing, greasing the wheels for him socially and professionally in 1970s New York City.
“You’re the client,” says Cohn, “but you work for me. You do what I say, when I say.”
The ambitious Trump begins as a lump of clay but is soon molded into an effigy of Roy Cohn, merciless in business and in life.
“The Apprentice” is several things. It’s the making of a monster. It’s a story of unchecked ambition. It’s a cautionary tale. It’s a period piece of New York City in the go-go 1980s.
Mostly though, it’s an entertaining character study of one of the world’s most famous people that comes with the good, the bad and the ugly.
The good? Stan, who (mostly) avoids doing an “SNL” style Trump caricature. In the last hour, when he has absorbed Cohn’s lessons and the student has surpassed the master, he’s recognizably Trump.
Before that, he is more fully rounded as a character. There are flashes of compassion when he interacts with Freddy, frustration at being under his father’s thumb and vulnerability. When he becomes the blustery Trump we’re more familiar with, it becomes less interesting, but still avoids imitation.
As Cohn, Strong is serpentine, to the point of predatorially flicking his tongue. Eyelids at half mast, he exudes maximum confidence in his ability to control every situation. When the tide turns for him, Strong manages to create empathy for a character who never had any in real life. When he complains to Trump that “he’s lost the last trace of decency you ever had,” the words hit hard.
The bad? While Maria Bakalova, who plays Trump’s first wife Ivana, is credible in the role, it feels a bit cheeky to cast her, given her headlining encounter with Trump associate Rudy Giuliani in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.”
The ugly? The casual venality on display. It’s the kind that powerful people use to intimidate and control the people in their lives, and it is gruesome. It’s an ugly glimpse into the halls of power where cold-blooded mercenaries like Cohn will do anything to win.
There’s also a graphic and cruel scene of sexual assault, unflinchingly captured by director Ali Abbasi’s camera.
Donald Trump dismisses “The Apprentice” as “pure fiction” and for sure it isn’t the whole truth and nothing but the truth. An opening title card acknowledges that, announcing that “some events have been fictionalized for dramatic effect,” but it does capture the tenor of the times and the dynamic between Trump and Cohn. It’s an origin story, and while you may not learn anything new, it paints a potent picture of pure ambition run amok.
“Unfrosted,” a sweet new slice of Boomer porn now streaming on Netflix, is a one joke wonder about the corporate shenanigans behind the creation and marketing of Pop-Tarts®, the first successful shelf stable fruit jelly pastry product.
Writer/director Jerry Seinfeld stars as Bob Cabana, the product developer behind some of Kellogg’s greatest hits. When we join the story it’s 1963, in cereal’s ground zero, Battle Creek, Michigan, home to Kellogg’s and their largest rival Post.
Breakfast is defined by milk and cereal—”The magic of cereal is that you’re eating and drinking at the same time,” Cabana says.—but change is in the air. “It’s the 60s, “ says Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer) head of rival Post, “things are moving fast. There’s always a surprise in the box.”
When Cabana discovers two kids dumpster diving for discarded Post “goo,” a syrupy sweet treat they are developing for their new product, the holy grail of breakfast foods, a handheld fruit pastry.
As a corporation, Kellogg’s owns breakfast in America. They outsell Post and regularly clean up at the Bowl and Spoon Awards where they dominate the competition, winning statues in categories like “Easiest to Open Wax Bag.”
Fearing Post will get the jump on the new market, that they have “broken the pastry barrier,” Cabana flies into action. He recruits Donna Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy) a NASA scientist-turned-breakfast-food-designer to create a new breakfast treat.
But getting it to market is a long, convoluted process that involves everyone from Nikita Krushchev (Dean Norris) and President John F. Kennedy (Bill Burr) to Chef Boyardee (Bobby Moynihan) and Tony the Tiger (Hugh Grant as mascot actor Thurl Ravenscroft).
“Unfrosted” is a silly ode to Pop-Tarts®. Slaphappy and over-the-top, it does not allow facts to sully the storytelling. Seinfeld pitches the performances and story at a very heightened level, like an “SNL” sketch stretched to feature length. He has nothing on his mind other than a scattergun approach of going for the jokes. The result is a hit and miss joke-to-laughs ratio, but Seinfeld has assembled an all-star comedic cast who know how to squeeze the laughs out of the material.
Gags about the Zapruder film and an unusually playful Walter Cronkite may fly over a younger audience’s collective heads, but should hit the mark with Boomers.
Ultimately, like the snack it is based on, “Unfrosted” is empty calories but may provide a sugar rush.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” the new sci fi action comedy from director James Gunn, brings the hip needle drops, off-kilter humor and mismatched, misfit superheroes you expect, but adds in unexpectedly heart tugging sentiments about family, second chances and personal growth.
The action begins on a downbeat note. Rocket (Bradley Cooper), the smart mouthed genetically engineered racoon, is feeling down, wallowing in the maudlin sounds of Radiohead’s “Creep.”
Star-Lord, a.k.a. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is using booze to grapple with the change in his girlfriend Gamora (Zoe Saldaña). She was killed by Thanos, but, courtesy of an alternate timeline, a version of her returned, but different, with no memory of her adventures with the Guardians or her love affair with Quill. “I’ll tell you something,” he says. “I’m Star-Lord. I formed the Guardians. Met a girl, fell in love, and that girl died. But then she came back. Came back a total d**k.”
Their world is given a shake and bake by caped supervillain Adam Warlock (Will Poulter). He is a powerful cosmic entity, with a third eye jewel embedded in his forehead, working with the man responsible for creating Rocket’s unique genetic makeup, a Dr. Moreau type known as the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). The ultimate plan is to kidnap and study Rocket to use the chatty racoon as the basis to sidestep the evolutionary process and create more hybrid species. “My sacred mission is to create the perfect society,” he says.
During the invasion, Rocket is severely injured, revealing to his co-Guardians—Star-Lord, Nebula (Karen Gillen), Mantis (Pom Klementieff) Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (the voice of Vin Diesel) and Gamora—the extent of his genetic modifications.
As the racoon wavers between life and death, the film cleaves into two parts, Rocket’s origin story and the rescue mission to save his life. “Are you ready for one last ride?” asks Peter.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” succumbs to the usual superhero movie pitfalls. By the time the end credits roll, it has become a loud, slightly over-long orgy of CGI, but James Gunn brings something most other superhero movies don’t have.
Within the wham-bam action overload is a genuine sweetness that overrides the bombastic action. Under his watch the movies provide the expected wild ride while grounding the otherworldly action with poignant relationship drama. These movies are about logical, not necessarily biological, families, and that connection, above all else, is what makes these movies so effective.
If Gunn (and Bautista) can make a character named Drax the Destroyer loveable, then anything is possible.
Lot of movies were made during the pandemic lockdown, but few addressed what life was like on a quarantined movie set. “The Bubble,” the new Judd Apatow comedy now streaming on Netflix, is a Hollywood satire that mixes-and-matches spoiled stars on a film set with COVID protocols like social distancing, daily antigen tests and a no hooking up with your co-stars rule.
Set during the height of the pandemic, “The Bubble” brings the cast of the dinosaur action pic “Cliff Beasts 6” to a luxury hotel in England for two weeks of quarantining before shooting. Under the watchful eye of a beleaguered producer (Peter Serafinowicz) and inept health official Josh (Chris Witaske), the cast, including franchise star Dustin Mulray (David Duchovny), his on-again-off-again love interest Lauren Van Chance (Leslie Mann), action star Sean Knox (Keegan-Michael Key), actress on the verge of a comeback Carol Cobb (Karen Gillan), character actor Dieter Bravo (Pedro Pascal) and TikTok superstar Krystal Kris (Iris Apatow) arrive and are promptly locked away for two weeks.
For most of them the return to the franchise is simply a matter of a paycheck. For first time director Darren Eigan (Fred Armisen), however, it is a career making gig if only he can wrangle the stubborn actors into seeing his vision.
As the shooting drags on, the actors break rules, hook up and mutiny, all the while complaining that they are being mistreated. “You’re being ‘actor’ mistreated,” says an exasperated manager. “I’m being human being mistreated.”
Basing a comedy on the pandemic is a nervy move. Most of us lived it, locking down and playing by the rules, but part of the pleasure of “The Bubble” is watching these pampered and privileged people placed in a situation where their money and fame don’t matter. Early on, Carol, in isolation in a posh hotel room, devolves into a fugue state despite the splendor surrounding her. It’s an early indication that the pandemic is the great leveler and is fodder for several very funny scenes.
Also pointed is Apatow’s skewering of Hollywood. Ego runs rampant as the insecure actors jump from bed to bed, complain about the script—”It goes against dinosaur logic,” says an oh-so-serious Mulray—and attempt escape from the ever-watchful security. From starting new religions and delivering nasty drop-dead zingers—”I think all the critics around the world were wrong,” says Lauren to Carol in reference to the dreadful Rotten Tomatoes score of her flop “Jerusalem Rising.”—to well-cast and weird cameos from Benedict Cumberbatch and James McAvoy and on-set hi jinx, Apatow hits the nail on the head. Sometimes a little too squarely, but it is an entertaining ride.
The pandemic backdrop of “The Bubble” is a serious, all too recent memory, but luckily the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously. Apatow, whose streak of sticking with a story for just a bit too long is uninterrupted here, finds the right tone, and as the story and characters spin out of control, he finds the funny and doesn’t let go.