Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel with host Jennifer Burke to have a look at the new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including a pair of kid’s flicks “The War with Grandpa” and “100% Wolf,” the touching dramas “Percy” and “Yellow Rose” and the hilarious “The Forty-Year-Old Version.”
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 kid’s flicks “The War with Grandpa” and “100% Wolf,” the touching dramas “Percy” and “Yellow Rose” and the hilarious “The Forty-Year-Old Version.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“Percy,” a new based-on-real-life drama from director Clark Johnson now playing in select theatres, is a David and Goliath story with a universal message of standing up for what you believe in. Christopher Walken plays septuagenarian Percy Schmeiser, a small-town farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan, who refuses to be bullied by a giant agrochemical corporation.
Schmeiser and his family have been canola farmers for generations. His cash crop is planted the old-fashioned way, with “the most virile seeds” saved from previous harvests. That’s why it is a shock to be accused by agrochemical Goliath Monsanto Canada of illegally growing their patented canola seed without a license.
“There’s got to be a mistake,” Schmeiser says. “I got my own seeds.”
Determined to prove his innocence, Schmeiser hires a lawyer he can’t afford, Jackson Weaver (Zach Braff), and vows to fight back. When Monsanto legally outguns Weaver, threatening to bury the lawyer under piles of motions, along comes agricultural activist Rebecca Salcau (Christina Ricci) with a way forward. “what you are doing is heroic,” she tells him. “You should be recognized.”
“Percy” is the story of not bowing down to corporate greed. A restrained Walken leaves behind his trademarked vocal tics to bring the principled Percy to life, and Johnson keeps the focus on him. There are courtroom scenes and some legalese but this isn’t “A Few Good Men on a Farm.” It’s about a man struggling to maintain his family farm in the face of an agricultural revolution, a very real and hot button topic across North America and the world. As Percy reluctantly becomes a spokesman for the cause screenwriters Garfield Lindsay Miller and Hilary Pryor find authentic and humanistic ways to illustrate the plight of farmers like the title character. “Farmers know the land. They know their plants,” Percy says. “Monsanto knows winning and losing and profits.”
It is a classic underdog story, one designed to make your blood boil at the disregard corporations have for the little guy.
“Percy” isn’t a flashy movie, although the landscape shots of Saskatchewan’s open skies and fields are often breathtaking. Instead it’s a low-key story of the fight to maintain the integrity of the food we put in our mouths.
Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel with host Andrea Bain to have a look at the new movies coming to VOD and streaming services including the award-worthy war film, “The Outpost,” the social drama “White Lie,” the ho-hum heist film “A Perfect Plan” and the documentary “Helmut Newton: The Bad and The Beautiful.”
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 VOD and streaming services including the immersive war film, “The Outpost,” the social drama “White Lie,” the ho-hum heist film “A Perfect Plan” and the documentary “Helmut Newton: The Bad and The Beautiful.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“White Lie,” a new drama now on VOD, is a study in the lengths a person will go to find attention, sympathy and yes, even money, on social media.
Set in Hamilton, Ontario, the story focusses on Katie (Kacey Rohl), a university student diagnosed with terminal melanoma skin cancer. Trouble is, she isn’t sick. To create the illusion, she shaves her head, pretends to go to chemo treatments and takes pills that make her look unwell.
Her make-believe condition has made her a semi-celebrity on campus and the recipient of funds raised by the #Fight4Katie campaign, money that she uses to pay a doctor to fake medical records. “Make something up,” she says. “Whatever you write is what I have.”
Her girlfriend Jennifer (Amber Anderson) is a staunch supporter who really thinks Katie is sick. But not everyone does. Her own father (Martin Donovan) doesn’t believe she’s ill, and fears she is repeating behavior from her youth. When her mother killed herself Katie faked an illness to excuse herself from school. Now, tired of her constant requests for money he goes public with his fears, exposing Katie as a fraud on the event page for her fundraiser. “She is faking cancer,” he writes. “The money she is raising is for herself and not for charity.”
Will she own up to her scam or will she continue to deceive everyone around her?
“White Lie” is a fascinating study in deception. While we never learn exactly what motivates Katie, writer-director duo Calvin Thomas and Yonah Lewis weave a convincing tale of the seduction of presenting a life on social media that fits a concocted narrative. In Katie’s case it’s an extreme manipulation of the truth, the cousin of the curated Instagram life style posts millions of people post every day.
The film’s most impressive feat is in its treatment of Katie. She is, by all standards, duplicitous and manipulative, and yet Rohl’s sensitive performance humanizes the Machiavellian character without ever cutting her any slack. When Katie’s fears and past trauma are laid bare it reveals the possibility that she is driven by a force that she doesn’t completely understand. It doesn’t excuse her behavior but it creates that psychological push and pull between disgust and empathy that keeps “White Lie” compelling.
Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the wild “Birds of Prey,” the #MeToo drama “The Assistant” and the giddily gory “Come to Daddy.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel to have a look at the weekend’s big releases including the boundary pushing “Birds of Prey,” the #MeToo drama “The Assistant” and the giddily gory “Come to Daddy.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
A weekly feature from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest and most interesting movies! This week Richard looks at the emancipation of Harley Quinn in “Birds of Prey,” the timely messages of “The Assistant” and the father complex(ities) of “Come to Daddy.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
