“September 5” director Tim Fehlbaum tell the story of the 1972 Munich Olympics terror attack through the lens of the ABC journalists who covered the event. We discuss if, by showing the hostage situation live on television where the terrorists could watch themselves and the police’s response, the journalists were fulfilling the public’s right to know or making the situation worse.
Watch the interview HERE!
On the Saturday November 30, 2024 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet multi-award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster Carol Off. For almost 16 years, she co-hosted CBC Radio’s flagship current affairs program, As It Happens. As a television journalist, writer and radio host it’s estimated she did 25,000 interviews with newsmakers and noticed that as politics became more polarized than ever before, words that used to define civil society were being put to work for completely different political agendas.
In her new book, “At a Loss for Words: Conversation in the Age of Rage,” she analyzes six terms—freedom, democracy, truth, woke, choice and taxes—and how their meanings have been twisted.
Then, we meet a guest who began his career as a child actor, appearing in everything from “Back tio 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. He’s Elijah Wood, and 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.
Finally, we meet director Tim Fehlbaum. He’s an award-winning Swiss filmmaker whose previous films, like “Tides” and “Hell,” focused on post-apocalyptic and science fiction stories. He returns to the real world with “September 5,” a new thriller starring Peter Sarsgaard and Ben Chaplin, and now playing in select theatres, an American sports broadcasting crew finds itself thrust into covering the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
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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 on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with guest host Andrew Pinsent to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the antihero story of “Kraven the Hunter,” the thriller “September 5,” and the epic “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to do a high five! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the thriller “September 5,” the epic “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” and Daniel Craig in “Queer.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “September 5,” a claustrophobic new thriller starring Peter Sarsgaard and Ben Chaplin, and now playing in theatres, broadcast executive Roone Arledge oversees the ABC coverage of the terrorist attack on Israeli Olympic team members at the 1972 summer games in Munich, West Germany.
CAST: Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, Leonie Benesch, Zinedine Soualem, Corey Johnson, Georgina Rich, Benjamin Walker, Rony Herman. Co-written and directed by Tim Fehlbaum.
REVIEW: Early on in “September 5” television producer Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) says this about his television coverage of the Olympics: “It’s not about politics, it’s about emotion.”
The same could be said about the film.
Of course, echoes of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine reverberate throughout, but this is more a frantically paced, behind the scenes look at high-stakes newsgathering and the ethics of how the stories are told.
It rewinds the clock to a time when society was more a monoculture, when the news was watched by, well, pretty much everyone. We’re told that more people watched the ABC coverage of this terrorist attack than watched Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon.
The eyes of the world were on them, and in a brisk 94 minutes, director Tim Fehlbaum tells the story of a complicated terrorism situation the ABC crew, by virtue of their proximity to the action, were in a unique position to cover and broadcast the first acts of terrorism ever shown on live TV.
It’s a closed room drama where 90% of the action takes place in a broadcast control room. Tensions fray, shots are called, and news is made, but what Fehlbaum doesn’t concentrate on is the act itself, the massacre by the group Black September.
Instead “September 5” asks if, by showing the hostage situation live on television where the terrorists could watch themselves and the police’s response, they were fulfilling the public’s right to know or making the situation worse. Screenwriters Moritz Binder, Alex David and Fehlbaum present this and other big ethical questions regarding the job and responsibility of journalism but leave the task of answering them up to the audience.
However you feel about the decisions made on that day, in our era of “fake news” and an eroded trust of mainstream newsgathering it’s thrilling to see the nuts and bolts of how breaking stories unfold and the quick decisions that form the news we see on television.
On the downside, “September 5” is more interested in whip fast editing and forward momentum than characters. The main cast effectively hold our attention, but don’t offer up much in terms of characterization. They are the blunt instruments Fehlbaum uses to create tension, and while it works, it would have been nice to have more of a sense of who these people are.
Perhaps “September 5’s” most interesting aspect, however, is in its ability to wring suspense and tension out of well-known historical events. We know how this story will end, and yet Fehlbaum and editor Hansjörg Weißbrich have us inching toward the edge of our seats as each minute of this tautly rendered story passes. They clearly took Arledge’s maxim, “It’s not about politics, it’s about emotion,” to heart.
“Memory,” a poignant new drama now playing in select theatres and starring Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard, is a difficult, delicate story about how the past impacts the present.
Chastain is Sylvia, a self-reliant social worker and overprotective single mother to Anna (Brooke Timber). Sober for a dozen years and counting, she wears her emotions on her sleeve, and when she isn’t working, she’s often at AA meetings, sometimes with Anna in tow.
The story kicks in when Sylvia reluctantly attends a high school reunion with sister Olivia (Merritt Wever). Sitting alone, she’s alarmed when a bearded stranger stares blankly at her, before sitting at her table. Unnerved, she bolts, with the man in pursuit. He follows her home to her rough Brooklyn neighborhood, parking himself outside while she hurriedly goes inside and bolts the door.
The next morning it’s revealed he is a middle-aged man with early onset dementia named Saul (Sarsgaard) who lives in a fancy townhouse with brother Isaac (Josh Charles) and niece Sara (Elsie Fisher). When Sylvia takes on the job of Saul’s caregiver, a relationship blossoms, as she confronts memories of her young life, while Saul strains to remember the day-to-day.
“Memory” is a simply rendered, quiet movie with powerhouse performances from Chastain and Sarsgaard. Director Michel Franco is a fly-on-the-wall, keeping the camera at arm’s length, with no fancy cinematography to distract from the performances. Ditto the soundtrack. Or, should I say lack thereof. Franco doesn’t manipulate emotion with music, save for repeated spins of Saul’s favorite song, Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
The no-frills approach is in service to the characters and the story. With no distractions, the narrative, which details sexual abuse and trauma, unfolds in an unexpectedly warm way. That is thanks to Chastain, who plays Sylvia with emotional bluntness and Sarsgaard, who won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, who brings vulnerability to Saul, but never forgets his strength of character.
They share remarkable chemistry, and even when “Memory” drifts into implausibility, the story of two outsiders who find redemption in one another packs an emotional wallop.
Richard joins NewsTalk 1010’s “Moore in the Morning” host John Moore to talk about AMC theatres bumping up the price for “The Batman” tickets this weekend.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
On some level Batman has always been escapist entertainment. The comics, TV shows and movies have always tackled big topics like morality, vengeance and the razor’s edge between anarchy and order but between Adam West’s grin, Michael Keaton’s gadgets and Christian Bale’s colorful foes, escapism is always part of the mix.
“The Batman,” starring Robert Pattison as the Caped Crusader, and now playing in theatres, is three hours of entertaining Bataction but the real-world themes of distrust in elected officials, our constitutions and each other, provide anything but escapism.
The story begins on Halloween night, as costumed criminals swarm Gotham City. As chaos reigns on the streets, the Bat-Signal illuminates the sky. “When the light hits the sky it’s not just a beacon,” says Batman (Pattison), “it’s a warning… to them. Fear is a tool.”
It’s a tool Batman uses effectively. His masked presence, his fists of fury and habit of snarling, “I’m vengeance,” have made him a fearsome presence in Gotham City. The rank-and-file police don’t know what to make of the Caped Crusader, but Detective James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) sees him as an asset, particularly when high ranking city officials begin dying at the hands of The Riddler (Paul Dano), a psychopath whose costume suggests he is a fan of the Gimp from “Pulp Fiction.”
At each grisly murder the Riddler leaves behind a cutesy card for Batman, inscribed with a riddle, like “What does a liar do when he dies?” that could serve as a clue to solve the crime.
As the evidence, and the bodies, pile up, Batman’s investigation leads him to a wide-ranging conspiracy involving a local crime boss (John Turturro), his minion Oswald Cobblepot a.k.a. The Penguin (Colin Farrell doing a pretty good impression of James Gandolfini), a long-held Wayne family secret and nightclub worker and cat burglar Selina Kyle a.k.a. Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz).
“The Batman’s” almost three-hour running time may seem daunting, particularly in the wake of several overly long superhero movies that haven’t delivered the goods. I’m happy to report that director Matt Reeves has crafted a movie that flies by in the bat of an eye.
This is not an origin story, that tale has been told over and over. It is more of a coming-of-age tale. As played by Pattison, Bruce Wayne is a dour and sour hero who, when asked, “Are you hideously scarred?” replies “Yeah.” His scars, however, are all on the inside.
He is driven by a sense of vengeance to clean up the streets of the kind of people who killed his parents. That, he says, is his legacy, not the fabulously wealth of Wayne Enterprises. As the story progresses his mood doesn’t change—it’s as if Pattison’s perfect cheekbones would shatter if he ever cracks a smile—but his outlook does. Batman may be the face of vengeance, but by the time the end credits roll, he realizes hope trumps vengeance. “People need hope,” he says. “To know someone is out there for them. The city is angry. The city won’t change, but I have to try.”
After five “Twilight” movies Pattison understands how to brood on screen. He is comfortable with the stillness the character requires, which works well to emphasize the Batman’s loner status. The stillness of the character, when he isn’t running, jumping or jackhammering a bad guy, suggests a calm but that sense is betrayed by the simmering rage behind Pattison’s eyes. It is that anger that gives him an unspoken reason to exist.
This is a Batman who is still figuring things out, who is fueled by his single-minded need for revenge, but working to funnel his energies in a way that will benefit him, the people he loves and Gotham City. He doesn’t have superpowers, just a powerful drive and a handful of gadgets. He’s a one-man army, and Pattison does a good job of showing us, not telling us, the complexity of the character.
Director Reeves has stripped away much of the slickness of the Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder films in favor of a grittier vision. Think 1970s movies like “Chinatown,” “The French Connection” or “Taxi Driver.” Reeves has made a boiled down detective noir that scales back the theatrics of previous versions to concentrate on the personal stuff.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t action to spare. The new Batmobile, now a muscle car, makes its debut in a wild car chase and Pattison’s Batman doesn’t kill people, unlike Affleck’s take on the character, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t willing to pummel the heck out of his adversaries.
“The Batman” is an interesting new direction for the Caped Crusader movies. There have been better villains in other films and the sins of the father angle has been explored before, but this movie captures the zeitgeist in a very interesting way. It confronts hot button topics like the alt right, agents of chaos and lying politicians, issues ripped from the headlines, but is tempered with a message of hope, of rebuilding belief in the world around us.
I suppose every generation gets the Batman they deserve. Our hard knock world has delivered us a Batman with an edge; a troubled hero who almost succumbs to his worst tendencies, but, in the end, looks toward a horizon of hope. It’s a powerful message for our world gone mad, particularly when it comes from a guy in a mask.
Richard and CTV NewsChannel host Angie Seth have a look “The Tender Bar” (Amazon Prime), the Olivia Coleman drama “The Lost Daughter” (on Netflix) and the heartwarming “June Again” (VOD/Digital).
Watch the whole thing HERE!
