Pan’s Labyrinth « Richard Crouse

Posts Tagged ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’

Digital film fest brings favourite blockbusters back to big screen

Friday, January 30th, 2015

Another is a pre-show in which Crouse goes behind the scenes to explore the history of selected films, including a recorded conversation with Guillermo Del Toro before the Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) screening.

“The word masterpiece is thrown around rather casually these days, but in the case of Pan’s Labyrinth, I think it applies,” Crouse says.

“It’s a dark adult fairy tale set against the backdrop of the Second World War, creating a contemporary fable that is emotionally complex and as satisfying as the age-old fairy tales that inspired it…” READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!

Otaku no Culture: The Great (Geeky) Digital Film Festival Begins Jan 30th!

Thursday, January 29th, 2015

By Ed Sum

Cineplex Entertainment’s Great Digital Film Festival is no doubt going to delight geeks, nerds and cinema buffs starting January 30th all across Canada. This year has a lot of comic book properties being played out and that shows where the direction of pop culture cinema is headed. With movies ranging from Dick Tracy to the X-Men, the latter is going to be a mega-marathon that will start from the latest film, Days of Future Past, and go backwards to the original — all happening on Saturday. For Dick Tracy, this year marks its 25th anniversary!

“The best way to see any movie, no matter what hands-down, is to see it in the theatre,” said Canada AM film journalist, Reel to Real co-host and author Richard Crouse. “I like seeing movies on the big screen — the way the director intended it…” READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!

Big screen do-over: Ancaster Cineplex brings back the classics

Thursday, January 29th, 2015

By Saira Peesker – Hamilton Spectator

Film buffs who missed “Blade Runner,” “Alien” and the “Rocketeer” in theatres the first time around are getting a long-delayed chance for a do-over. Cineplex is bringing its national Great Digital Film Festival to Ancaster’s SilverCity from Jan. 30 to Feb. 5, showing 16 popular films released between 1979 and last year, at a ticket price of $6.99.

The festival’s roster hones in on action, sci-fi and cult favourites, most of them shot on celluloid film, before the industry began its ongoing transition to digital cinematography.

Festival programmer and film critic Richard Crouse says the trouble with showing older movies in theatres is that the film itself breaks down with time and use. By selecting older films that have since been released digitally, viewers get to see a picture that is as sharp as when it was first released.

“Often it’s difficult to find really crisp prints,” Crouse told The Spec on Thursday. “These films have been remastered. You’ll see them as they were meant to be seen…” READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!

Cineplex screens classic films: Digital film festival comes to London

Wednesday, January 28th, 2015

By Brent Holmes – The Gazette

“The focus is to show great movies that haven’t been seen on the big screen for a long time — kind of in the way that they are best seen,” Richard Crouse, a film critic responsible for choosing the films screening at the festival, said. “The best way to see movies is to see them in the theatre with the picture and the sound that the director wanted you to see, and be surrounded by strangers who are laughing and crying and gasping and doing whatever it is that they do.”

The festival will bring a wide-selection of movies back into cinemas, including the entire X-Men series, Blade Runner, Alien and Aliens, Kill Bill and Pan’s Labyrinth… READ THE WHOLE THIKNG HERE!

from The Muse.ca: Great Digital Film Festival hits St. John’s

Wednesday, January 28th, 2015

By Rory Campbell

This year, St. John’s will be participating in Cineplex’s annual Great Digital Film Festival. 2015 marks the sixth year of the festival, in which certain Cineplex theatres all over Canada screen a set of films spanning a variety of genres and years. This year’s lineup, playing from January 30 to February 5, includes selections from Alien all the way to X-Men: Days of Future Past. Behind the selections are Matt DeVuono and well-known film critic Richard Crouse, who spoke with the Muse before the festival.

Award season is a busy time for Crouse. When it comes to perhaps the most popular award show, the Oscars, Crouse believed there were certain notable snubs. In terms of the best picture nominees, he felt that The Lego Movie was overlooked. Crouse also noticed an underrepresentation of female directors… READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!

Cineplex’s Great Digital Film Festival gives films a second chance on the big screen

Tuesday, January 27th, 2015

By Eric Volmers – Calgary Herald

Like most movie critics, Richard Crouse has strong and fairly predictable views of how to best watch films.

“The best way to see a movie is in a big dark room surrounded by strangers, watching it as big and loud as possible, they way that the director intended you to see it and hear it,” says Crouse, in an interview from Toronto. “I love sitting in a crowd of strangers, hearing them laugh or hearing them scream at something that scares them. Whatever the reaction might be, I really like being part of the community of all that.”‘

Which is a guiding principle for Cineplex’s Great Digital Film Fest, which will start on Friday at Scotiabank Theatre Chinook.

Crouse, an author and film critic who appears on CTV’s Canada AM and CP24, co-programmed the sixth annual festival with a focus on films that beg to be seen on a giant screen… READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!

Great Digital Film Festival brings fan-favourite flicks back to the big screen

Sunday, January 25th, 2015

By Jodi Lundmark, tbnewswatch.com

THUNDER BAY — Movies are meant to be seen on the big screen.

“For me the best way to see a movie is to see it on the big screen surrounded by strangers so you can listen as they laugh all at the same time or as they gasp in horror or whatever reaction they have,” said film expert Richard Crouse.

Crouse, who is Canada AM’s regular film critic, is participating in Cineplex’s sixth annual Great Digital Film Festival from Jan. 30 to Feb. 5 by interacting with fans on Twitter, answering questions and engaging in conversation on the classic and fan-favourite films chosen for this year’s lineup.

Thunder Bay’s SilverCity is one of the theatres that will be hosting the festival.

As a reviewer, Crouse has every closet and cupboard in his house filled with DVDs and Blu-rays, but he finds he doesn’t watch them that often.

“Given the choice, I’d always rather see something on the big screen,” he said, adding this festival is a way for him to see some of these films the way they were meant to be seen…” READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!

Richard at The Great Digital Film Festival January 30 – February 5, 2015.

Monday, January 5th, 2015

Front Row Centre Events presents the Great Digital Film Festival for one week only, January 30 – February 5, 2015. Showcasing favourites in digital on the big screen. For select screenings Richard introduces the films on the big screen (that’s Richard shooting the intros at left) and you don’t want to miss the exclusive chat with Guillermo Del Toro on “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

The Great Digital Film Festival 2015 will take place on January 30 – February 5, 2015. Learn more HERE!

Metro Canada: Filmmakers have been using mazes to amaze audiences for years

Wednesday, September 17th, 2014

Giant labyrinthine puzzles are almost as old as mankind: Prehistoric mazes were built as traps for malevolent spirits, while in medieval times the labyrinth represented a path to God. But recently, the idea of people struggling through a complicated network of paths has made for some striking visuals in movies.

This weekend, The Maze Runner sets much of its action inside a gigantic maze where frightening mechanical monsters called Grievers wander, tormenting Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) as he navigates the maze to pick up clues that help him piece together memories of his past. The sci-fi story is just the latest to feature a maze as a major plot point, but just as Labyrinth’s Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) is warned, “nothing is as it seems” in these movie puzzles.

Remember Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? Like Thomas in The Maze Runner, the boy wizard has to make it through a maze (in this instance to find the Triwizard Cup), but instead of fighting magical creatures, this hedge maze is magical; shape shifting to make the journey extra difficult. The 1972 horror film Tales from the Crypt contained an even more sinister maze.

Made up of five stories, the film culminated with the tale of a labyrinth told with razor-sharp wit. Set in a home for the blind, the patients get even with the institute’s cruel director by placing him in the centre of a maze of narrow corridors lined with razor blades. It’s a cutting edge story, that, according to besthorrormovies.com “rivals the ‘death traps’ of Saw and ‘tortures’ of Hostel while only showing a single small cut of the flesh.”

In The Shining, the axe-wielding father Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) chases his son Danny (Danny Lloyd) through the Overlook Hotel’s hedge maze. The quick-thinking boy escapes by retracing his steps, confusing his maniacal dad. The documentary Room 237 offers up a number of interpretations of what the maze and Danny’s escape represents. One theory suggests it reflects Greek hero Theseus’ slaying of the Minotaur and escape from the labyrinth, while another speculates it’s a metaphor for conquering repression. Whatever the subtext, it remains one of director Stanley Kubrick’s most tense scenes.

And finally, Francis Ford Coppola’s version of Dracula sees Lucy (Sadie Frost) sleepwalking through a garden maze, chased by Dracula (Gary Oldman) in wolfman form while Pan’s Labyrinth features a maze as a place of safety for Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) to evade her attacker.