Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.
Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock legends Sting, Meat Loaf and Robbie Robertson, musicians Josh Groban, Shania Twain and superstar jazz pianist Diana Krall, You Tube superstar Gigi Gorgeous, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actors Danny DeVito and Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay, Gail Simmons and Nigella Lawson, and many more.
The story begins as we get to know the Wild Boars, hours before their group decision to take a detour to explore a cave before heading off to a teammate’s birthday. Alarm bells are triggered when only one boy shows up to the party. It’s soon discovered the team is trapped deep inside a treacherous network of caves. As early monsoon rains approach it becomes a race against time to rescue the stranded soccer players before the caves fill with water.
When a rescue attempt by the Royal Thai Navy SEALs fails, local cave diver Vernon Unsworth (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) appeals to English splunkers, John Volanthen (Colin Farrell) and Rick Stanton (Viggo Mortensen), for help. After an arduous dive of more than seven hours, they find the boys alive, but how do they get them out through the winding maze of quickly flooding caves?
As water engineer Thanet Natisri (Nophand Boonyai) devises ways of diverting the water from the caves, anesthetist Dr. Richard Harris (Joel Edgerton) and cavers Chris Jewell (Tom Bateman) and Jason Mallinson (Paul Gleeson) who develop an audacious plan to administer a sedative to the boys, ensuring they did not panic during the watery, claustrophobic swim to safety.
“Thirteen Lives” is first and foremost a tribute to the courage of, not only the rescuers, but also of the people trapped in their subterranean prison. In the showdown of man vs. nature, it took bravery and brains to succeed, not just brawn. Howard takes his time, carefully doling out the details of the rescue plan, creating great tension in a story with a well-known ending. But knowing the outcome doesn’t take away from the effectiveness of the tale. The drama here is in the details, the careful planning and its bold execution.
Howard emphasizes action over character in many of the scenes, never allowing Harris, Jewell or Mallinson to overtly hero-it-up and pull focus from the mission at hand. The low-key performances dodge the white savior aspect of the story, while emphasizing the key factors of communication, camaraderie and cooperation between the rescuers. It may be slightly hokey, but when the actual cave diving begins—the narrow caves are almost impossibly tight and very claustrophobic—the all-business approach gives way to a kind of wonder as Howard terrifyingly recreates the cramped retrievals.
“Thirteen Lives” does away with many of the tropes of a big rescue movie. Big speeches and back slapping are kept to a minimum. Instead, the life-and-death stakes speak for themselves.
“Coming out of Toronto, you know, we knew anything we did was going to be groundbreaking,” says Wes Williams on his influential hit “Let Your Backbone Slide,” “within the parameters of Toronto and within the parameters of hip hop which was at our time was Toronto, New York City, New Jersey and then there was a guy named Ice-T on the west coast. That was it really, so we thought within our parameters we thought whoever comes out with a hit first is going to be the one. I remember the first day I heard my song played in the club. Oh my goodness. They mixed it in with Heavy D and The Boyz. Me my man Farley Flex, we just jumped around the club like like idiots because we finally reached the final destination. We were considered innovators and we were disrupting what was known at the time.”
Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.
Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock legends Sting, Meat Loaf and Robbie Robertson, musicians Josh Groban, Shania Twain and superstar jazz pianist Diana Krall, You Tube superstar Gigi Gorgeous, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actors Danny DeVito and Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay, Gail Simmons and Nigella Lawson, and many more.
This week on the season five opener of “Pop Life” legendary musician Robbie Robertson talks about his earliest musical inspirations, how he was booed by Bob Dylan’s audience and how he once almost turned to a life of crime when he couldn’t get gigs.
“It was a revelation to me,” Robertson says of visiting his relatives on the Six Nations Reserve, “because I grew up between Toronto and Six Nations, and when we would go to Six Nations it seemed to me as a young kid that everybody played an instrument or sang or danced. I thought, ‘I just have to join this club.'”
Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.
Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock legends Sting, Meat Loaf and Robbie Robertson, musicians Josh Groban, Shania Twain and superstar jazz pianist Diana Krall, You Tube superstar Gigi Gorgeous, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actors Danny DeVito and Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay, Gail Simmons and Nigella Lawson, and many more.
As the title suggests “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band” is a study of a brotherhood that changed the way music was made in the 1970s and 80s.
The documentary, inspired by Robertson’s 2016 memoir “Testimony,” produced by the powerhouse duo of Ron Howard and Brain Grazer and directed by Daniel Roher, details the guitarist’s early life as the son of Mohawk mother Dolly and “Hebrew gangster” father named Alexander Klegerman who died before he was born. An interest in music and storytelling came from visiting his relatives on the Six Nations Reserve, inspiring him to pick up a guitar and express himself.
His “personal big bang” came with the discovery of rock and roll. An even bigger bang came when the teenaged Robertson saw Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins, a flamboyant, ex-pat Southern American rock-a-billy musician playing in Toronto. The music, a frenetic blend of rock and roll and hopped-up country music, expertly played by a band that included drummer Levon Helm, spoke to Robertson, revealing an aural passageway to a world he had only ever read about. Eventually, at age sixteen, he joined the band, a move that set on the path to helping to take Bob Dylan electric, and form a band that melded Hank Williams, Muddy Waters with roots music into something that had never been heard before. When they played together, talking head and fan Bruce Springsteen says, “something happened that couldn’t happen on their own. Something miraculous.”
The Band, Canadian multi-instrumentalists and singers Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and keyboardist Garth Hudson alongside Robbie Robertson and Helm, made classic albums like “Music from Big Pink,” “The Band” and “Stage Fright,” and formed a logical, if not biological, musical family. “I was an only child so this brotherhood was so powerful,” says Robertson. But like all families there were problems. Unbridled creativity and stardom led to drug abuse and in 1976, after sixteen years together and documenting their final star-studded concert in the Martin Scorsese-directed “The Last Waltz,” they went their separate ways. Robertson says the idea was, “to get back together and make music like never before… everyone just forgot to come back.”
This is Robertson’s documentary. Helm, Danko and Manuel are all gone, while Hudson appears only in archival clips so the film has the feeling of a requiem for a friendship and brotherhood lost. Other than a visit to Helm’s deathbed, Robertson hadn’t spoken to his old bandmate in years. The film chalks up the skism in their relationship to drugs, jealousy and fighting the way only people who love one another can.
With a deep, sonorous voice that makes you wish he would narrate every documentary made from now on, Robertson eloquently shares his story, sometimes funny—having a hypnotist on stage at the Fillmore West to help him overcome nerves—and sometimes heartfelt—”I still loved him but something was broken,” he says of his relationship with Helm. “It was like glass. Hard to put back together.”—in a way that doesn’t lay blame, simply present his side of a much-debated rock ‘n roll feud.
Adding colour to the story are testimonials from Springsteen, Eric Clapton, ex-wife Dominique Robertson and, best of all, Hawkins who livens things up with his reminisces. “There was enough flour and sugar in that to make us sneeze biscuits,” he says of the cocaine backstage at “The Last Waltz.”
The final word on The Band is, of course, the music they left behind. Their musical partnership may have ended amid acrimony but “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band” understands that the lasting legacy is in the songs. Music appears throughout but Roher bookends the film with remarkable performances. Early on we see the guys, crammed into a small room, so closely packed they’re almost sitting on top of one another, rip through a version of “Up on Cripple Creek” so transcendent it could only be played by musicians connecting on a spiritual level. Roher finishes things off with footage from “The Last Waltz” that showcases the band in all their ragged glory proving that in the end, it’s the music that matters.
Richard sat down with Paul Bettany, who plays intergalactic boogeyman Dryden Vos in “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” to discuss why the actor is feeling blessed for his role.
This weekend professor of religious iconology and symbology Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) returns to theatres in Inferno, the third movie in the Da Vinci Code franchise.
In 2006 the fictional Harvard prof made his big screen debut, uncovering the complicated personal life of Jesus Christ in The Da Vinci Code. Three years later he used his knowledge of symbology to unravel the mystery of a secret brotherhood called the Illuminati and thwart a terrorist act against the Vatican.
In between those two movies I received dozens of outraged emails, long tracts regarding Dan Brown’s books, the up-coming movie, The Illuminati and the veracity of the stories.
In response to the anxious folks who contacted me, concerned the film, which had not been released yet, would be a dangerous piece of anti-Catholic propaganda, I wrote a forward to my Angels and Demons review, pointing letter writers toward the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. They described Angels and Demons as “harmless entertainment which hardly affects the genius and mystery of Christianity.” Their review noted it is filled with historical inaccuracies but went on to suggest that one could make a game of pointing out all of the film’s historical mistakes.
In other words, don’t take it seriously and you’ll have a good time. Despite the Vatican newspaper’s warm embrace, the film still ignited a firestorm of criticism from people upset about the story’s alleged anti-Catholic sentiments, “malicious myths” and churches being associated with scenes of murder.
Inferno sidesteps religious controversy with a tale of a deadly virus that threatens all of humanity, but cinema and religion have often made for uncomfortable pairings.
In 1999 the Catholic League denounced Dogma’s tale of two fallen angels (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) trying to get back into heaven as “blasphemy.” More recently uproar erupted over Darren Aronofsky’s unorthodox take on the story of Noah. Jerry Johnson, president of the National Religious Broadcasters, loudly objected to the film’s “insertion of the extremist environmental agenda.”
Perhaps the most controversial religious film ever was The Devils, based on Aldous Huxley’s nonfiction book The Devils of Loudun. Years before Ken Russell made the movie, a filmmaker approached Huxley wanting to turn the story of a radical 17th century French Catholic priest accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake, into a film. Huxley said, ‘Don’t do it. Don’t make a movie out of this.’ He thought there was no way the story could be presented in an entertaining way without short-circuiting people’s minds. Turns out maybe he was right.
Forty-five years after its release Russell’s film is little seen but much talked about. Banned, censored and still unavailable in its complete form on Blu-Ray, the movie’s graphic church orgy offended many—and was cut to pieces and removed by censors—but it’s more than shock and titillation. It’s a film that makes a serious statement about the struggle between church and state but does so in an entertaining and provocative way.
Lots of movies contain violence or sex or religion, but Russell mixed all three together in one toxic cocktail. If released today The Devils may not inspire riots in the streets, as it did in 1971, but if presented in its complete form the following indignation would make the Angels and Demons protests seem tame.
A better title for “Inferno,” the latest big screen exploits of symbology professor Robert Langdon, might have been “The Da Vinci Code: This Time it’s Personal.” Not only must Langdon, once again in the form of Tom Hanks, confront an old love but he also must dig deep into his shattered memory to piece together the clues of his greatest mystery ever.
Or something like that.
The convoluted story begins with bioengineer and billionaire Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster) spewing his extreme theories on the planet’s problems. “Every ill on earth can be traced back to overpopulation,” he says. In the space of just twenty four hours Zobrist drops out of the picture, and Langdon is found disoriented and put under the care of Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones). “What am I doing in Florence?” he asks. Suffering from retrograde amnesia and terrifying visions of a hellish nature, people with heads twisted back to front, seas of fire, pools of blood and serpents, he struggles to remember the events of the last forty-eight hours.
With the help of Brooks he goes on the run from a determined assassin (Ana Ularu) and the World Health Organization until he can gather the clues that will lead him to the Inferno Virus, a plague planted by Zobrist to cull the world’s population by half. “Humanity is the disease,” he cackles, “Inferno is the cure.”
Add in close calls, narrow escapes and clues hidden in Italian antiquities and you have “Inferno,” the thriller with no clue how to be thrilling. Instead it’s two hours of exposition, a lesson in Botticelli and Dante. Whatever thrills there were to be mined from David Koepp’s script are blunted by director Ron Howard’s habit of showing and telling clues and info over and over, not trusting the viewer to be able to follow along. With convoluted clues and lots of Italian names and places to keep track of “Inferno” repeats information ad nauseam.
This is the third time Hanks has played Langdon but in the fullness of time I don’t think we’ll look back on the symbologist as the actor’s most memorable character. He carries the movies, which have made hundreds of millions of dollars, but he’s less a character then he is an exposition machine, an explainer of obscure history, a purveyor of aha moments. Hanks is a charmer, but he’s done in trying to wade through the movie’s scripting mire.
Sharing the screen is Jones, soon to be seen in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” As Dr. Brooks she is Langdon’s intellectual match and one of the dual engines that keeps the story plodding along, but spends most of the film nodding in agreement to Langdon’s sudden, remarkable realisations.
As the villain Foster’s few appearances—he’s peppered throughout usually appearing in video clips, is further proof that Hollywood doesn’t know what to do with this talented actor.
More fun is Irrfan Khan as the calm, cool and collected head of a mysterious group that manages risks for high profile clients. He’s deadly, duplicitous and James Bond villain suave.
The obvious joke here is that “Inferno” is clueless. But it’s not, it’s overstuffed with clues, just not thrills.
In the Heart of the Sea features less of Chris Hemsworth than we’ve seen on screen before. He’s in virtually every scene, but for much of the film the usually bulked up Thor star is set adrift in a raft, starving and physically much less imposing than usual.
The movie is an old-fashioned whale of a tale. Literally.
Based on the true story said to have inspired Moby Dick, it’s about whalers battling not only repeated assaults from the one whale who fought back, but also malnourishment and dehydration.
At sea for three months in tiny whaleboats the men are pushed to the edge of sanity, taking drastic steps to survive.
To convincingly play a starving sailor Hemsworth trimmed 33 pounds off his already toned 6’2 3/4” frame.
“My crazy diet would make you pass out from exhaustion,” he said. At certain points he was eating just 500 or 600 calories — that’s less than a combo lunch meal at most fast-food places — in the form of a boiled egg, two crackers and a celery stick a day.
Hemsworth and his underfed cast mates passed away the time with conversations “about our favourite foods and what we would eat when we finished the film.”
The actor says losing that amount of weight isn’t something he’d like to do again, but adds, “by those final sequences when we were supposed to be exhausted and emotional. We were feeling that way off screen too, so it helped.”
Dramatic weight loss isn’t new — actors have been yo-yo dieting for roles for years — but doctors say rapid body mass reduction can lead to malnutrition, maladies like gallstones and worse. In other words, as Christian Bale who dumped 60 pounds for his role in The Machinist says, “It ain’t great for your health.”
Still, actors take on dramatic diets to aid in their dramatic work. Anne Hathaway dropped 25 pounds by food deprivation and exercise to make Les Miserables while Matthew McConaughey survived eating only Diet Coke, egg whites and a piece of chicken a day to play AIDS patient Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club. According to The Playlist he stopped dieting when “people stopped asking if he was all right and started suggesting he seek help.”
Just as common are actors who gain weight. Russell Crowe gained 63 pounds to play a CIA bigwig in Body of Lies, George Clooney gained 35 pounds for Syriana and Renee Zellweger gained 30 pounds for Bridget Jones’s Diary, lost it, only to regain it for the sequel.
Jared Leto who lost 40 pounds to play Rayon in Dallas Buyer’s Club, gained 67 pounds for the film Chapter 27 by drinking melted pints of chocolate Haagen Dazs ice cream mixed with olive oil and soy sauce “to get me bloated even more.”
Why do actors alter their bodies? Some call it dedication while cynics suggest it’s an easy Oscar. Physical transformations (plus acting talent) brought Robert DeNiro, Charlize Theron and McConaughey to the winner’s circle.
But some actors have sworn off manipulating their weight. Jim Carrey turned down a role in the Three Stooges biopic that would have required him to gain 40 to 50 pounds and Tom Hanks blames gaining and losing weight for roles with him developing Type 2 diabetes.
“I’ve talked to a number of actors who have gained weight for roles and — just out of the sheer physical toll on one’s knees and shoulders — no-one wants to do it again,” he told the BBC.