RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY AUGUST 14, 2015.
Richard’s CP24 reviews for “Straight Outta Compton,” “The Man from UNCLE,” and “I Am Chris Farley” with Nneka Elliot.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Posts Tagged ‘Saturday Night Live’
RICHARD’S “CANADA AM” REVIEWS FOR AUGUST 14 WITH MARCI IEN.
Richard’s “Canada AM” reviews for “Straight Outta Compton,” “The Man from UNCLE,” and “I Am Chris Farley.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I AM CHRIS FARLEY: 3 STARS. “always looked like he was having the most fun.”
Lorne Michaels, creator and guiding light of “Saturday Night Live,” said he was, “infuriatingly talented.” David Letterman called him “the human thunderball” while Dan Aykroyd noted his, “automatic charisma.” The “he” is Matt “I live in a van by the river” Foley and “Tommy’s Boy’s” main character, Chris Farley, the heavy-set comedian and subject of a new documentary, “I Am Chris Farley.”
Executive produced by Farley’s brother Kevin, this loving tribute is an affectionate look at the guy who “always looked like he was having the most fun.” Michaels and Aykroyd are joined by Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, David Spade, Bob Odenkirk and a variety of childhood friends to paint a picture of a man who was ruled by his excesses.
After an all American upbringing in Madison, Wisconsin he joined a local improv group and later trained at Chicago’s fabled Second City, where he fine-tuned his wild, out-of-control style under the tutelage of improv king Del Close, who gave him the same advice he gave another of his famous students, “Attack the stage like a bull you have that power.”
And attack he did, quickly becoming a star on “Saturday Night Live” and in films like “Wayne’s World” and “Tommy Boy.” Offstage his behaviour was as frenetic as his onscreen persona. Spade and others say whatever Farley did he did wholeheartedly. If he liked you, he loved you. If he went for a laugh, he would do anything to get it. By the same token, when he let loose, he attacked the bottle, and later drugs, with the same gusto. He was, as one talking head says, “a sweet guy before midnight.”
It’s hard not to compare Farley to another doomed “Saturday Night Live” cast member. John Belushi was another similarly driver performer who left scorched earth behind, on stage and off. Both men died at age 33, the victim of their own overindulgences.
“I Am Chris Farley” doesn’t have the same gut-wrenching impact as “Amy,” the recent doc about the tragic life and death of singer Amy Winehouse. That film has less warmth, and is more an examination of how Winehouse’s world spun out of control. The Farley doc has a kinder, gentler tone and doesn’t dwell on his final moments. Perhaps it’s just as well. As the film makes clear, Farley lived to make people laugh. He wouldn’t want to leave behind a legacy of heartbreak and misfortune.
Canada AM: Comedian Amy Poehler says ‘Yes Please!’ in first book
Richard’s “Canada AM” interview with comedian, actress and now author of “Yes Please,” Amy Poehler.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Cineplex.com News: Monty Python as the Beatles of Comedy
Check out Richard’s cineplex.com article on Monty Python as the Beatles of Comedy.
“’I’ve got two legs from my hips to the ground, and when I move them, they walk around,’ isn’t a line with the elegance of, ‘Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away,’ but it is a lot funnier.
“Comparing the work of Monty Python and The Beatles might seem like equating apples to oranges, or guitars to crunchy frogs, but it really isn’t that much of a stretch. Eric (Idle), Graham (Chapman), Michael (Palin), John (Cleese) and a couple of Terrys (Gilliam and Jones) have a lot in common with John, Paul, George and Ringo.
“Monty Python has been called the most influential comedy troupe of all time. Their absurdist brand…” Read the whole thing HERE!
Kevin Nealon on the early days of his comedy career, and making it as an actor
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
People in the Niagara Falls area have two chances to see Kevin Nealon next week. He’ll be on the big screen co-starring with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore in Blended, or for a more up-close-and-personal look, they can check him out on stage at the Fallsview Casino Resort on May 24.
Best known for his nine-year stint as part of the ensemble cast of Saturday Night Live where he introduced audiences to characters like Subliminal Message Man, the muscle-bound Austrian jock Franz and Mr. No Depth Perception, he was encouraged to make people laugh at an early age by watching comics on television.
“I loved stand-up growing up,” he says. “I used to follow all the stand-ups on TV. I’d highlight when they were going to be on in the TV Guide. Ultimately I decided that would be a great job because I liked telling jokes and I felt kind of an ease with it.”
While honing his craft at legendary Los Angeles comedy club The Improvisation — “I pretty much lived there,” he says — he was encouraged to try acting.
“One of the co-owners said to me, ‘You ought to take acting lessons because one day a casting agent will come into the back of the room, see you and want you to read for their show.’ I had (considered acting) but was embarrassed to say so. I didn’t have any training or anything, so I took acting classes.”
These days he’s a SAG Award ensemble nominee for his work on Weeds, and can be heard doing voice-work shows like American Dad, but his early performances weren’t always so high-profile.
“There was a commercial I did that didn’t require a lot of acting. It was for Nabisco Country Crackers with (country singer) Lynn Anderson. I just had to play the banjo next to her while she fed me crackers. I remember Jay Leno saying, ‘Yeah, saw your commercial. Good for you.’
Then a week later they found copper dust particles in the crackers and had to recall them all so they took the commercial off the air.”
The family comedy Blended is his latest outing with Adam Sandler, whom he has previously appeared with in Little Nicky, Anger Management and You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, among others.
“Usually you’re on board if he’s doing something,” Nealon says of his frequent collaborator. “There was one movie I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to be a part of. It was called Grandma’s Boy. It was so lowball and crass. I thought it might be a little embarrassing to be in that one. So
I told Sandler I’d probably pass on it and he called me and said, ‘I really hope you do this because if you don’t do it and it’s a big hit I’ll feel bad, but if you do it and it’s not a big hit, no one is going to see it anyway.’ So I said, ‘All right, I’ll do it.’”
MIKE MYERS, “Canada is the essence of not being” By Richard Crouse
From a gig as a dance show host (billed as “Funky Mike Myers”) to a stint on Saturday Night Live to hit films like Wayne’s World and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Michael John Myers has followed the path of Canadian trailblazers like the SCTV folks who found fame making Americans laugh. The Scarborough, Ontario born comedian says he was able to break into the American comedy market “because other Canadians helped me.”
Citing early boosters like Dave Thomas, Martin Short and Lorne Michaels (who the young Myers idolized, even doing an eighth grade project on the producer) Myers found his feet as a comedian with Second City, (on stages in Toronto and Chicago), and then in 1989 he, like Dan Aykroyd and Phil Hartman before him, found fame as part of Saturday Night Live.
Since then he’s had time to reflect on why Canadians have been so successful in America. To explain he quotes one of his early advocates.
“Martin Short said something that was kind of interesting which is when Americans watch TV they’re watching TV but when Canadians watch TV they’re watching American TV. There is sort of a separation. We can look at American culture as foreigners except that we’re not all that different. ‘Wow, we are like two cultures separated by a common language,’ to quote Winston Churchill.”
Canadians, he suggests, are the great observers, carefully studying and digesting American movies, television and music before putting their own spin on them. Having both objectivity and perspective allows comics like Myers to analyze pop culture, and then create a unique style that adds to the culture while cleverly (and quietly) dissecting it.
“Canada is the essence of not being,” he says. “Not English, not American, it is the mathematic of not being. And a subtle flavor. We’re more like celery as a flavor.”
HOT ROD: 3 ½ STARS
It’s been a while since a Saturday Night Live movie has been something to get excited about. Ladies Man and Stuart Saves His Family weren’t exactly laugh riots but a new film, Hot Rod, starring Andy Samberg may bring back the funny to the sagging SNL brand.
In Hot Rod Samberg, the slacker comic behind Lazy Sunday, one of SNL’s most talked about pieces of recent years—it was downloaded over one million times the day after it originally aired—plays amateur stuntman Rod Kimble. He’s a terrible stuntman, but is possessed of an inordinate amount of confidence, which keeps his dream of becoming the next Evel Knievel alive.
His biggest problem is his stepfather Frank (Deadwood’s Ian McShane). Frank is an ex-Navy Seal who treats Rod like a punching bag. In their weekly sparring sessions, scheduled to toughen Rod up, Frank mercilessly beats the youngster with his fists and weapons like Rhodesian fighting sticks. Rod willingly submits to the punishment hoping that his fighting skills will impress Frank and earn his respect. When Frank falls ills before Rod has a chance to beat him the dare devil hatches a plan to perform his most incredible stunt to date and raise money for Frank’s lifesaving operation. Once Frank is healthy and healed Rod plans to beat the crap out of him.
It’s a strange little story, one that ten years ago would have starred Adam Sandler as the revenge happy stuntman. This time out it’s Samberg and while the comparisons to Sandler are obvious, he makes the character of Rod his own. He’s more bizarre than Sandler has ever been on screen, (with the possible exception of Little Nicky), but he’s also quite sweet. Sandler made his bones playing characters who flew into rages, Samberg’s style is more gentle. I don’t know if he has any range, but he fits this role like a glove.
Hot Rod is a very silly comedy. It stretches the frat pack style of humor to the limit, milking every joke for everything it is worth. For instance, a scene where Rod falls down a mountain lasts forever. It’s funny at first, then not so funny, and then funny again just because of the sheer commitment the movie has to its gags. It’s not for everyone, but the audience I saw it with ate it up.
Hot Rod is a throwback to the SNL-inspired movies of yesteryear like Billy Madison. It’s childish and harebrained but it will make you laugh.
Tina Fey enjoys a decade of comic clout By Richard Crouse Metro Canada – In Focus March 20, 2013
Tina Fey regularly appears on the Forbes’ annual Celebrity 100 list of the most powerful celebrities. She’s made the Entertainment Weekly roll call of Entertainers of the Year and Time called her one of the most influential people in the world.
Did I mention she’s also really funny?
For nine years on Saturday Night Live she worked behind the scenes—as the show’s first female head writer—and on camera as the anchor of Weekend Update. “She might be the best Weekend Update anchor who ever did it,” said Dennis Miller. “She writes the funniest jokes”
Then came 30 Rock, the medium-rated but critically adored sit com, a best selling book and a celebrated impersonation of Sarah Palin that even got the thumbs up from the ex-Governor.
This weekend she’s on the big screen in Admission, a comedy co-starring Paul Rudd. She plays a Princeton admissions officer who thinks one of her new recruits is the son she gave up for adoption years ago.
Fey made her film debut a decade ago in the quirky comedy Martin & Orloff as part of an ensemble cast that included SNLers Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch.
That movie didn’t garner much attention, and her role of “Southern Woman” even less, but in 2004 she shortened the unwieldy title Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughters Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence to Mean Girls. The story of high school in-groups was a hit and launched the careers of Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried.
She co-starred in Mean Girls as math teacher Ms. Norbury and made on-screen appearances as “Front Desk Girl” in Beer League but got her name over the title in Baby Mama.
She played Kate, a single thirty-seven year old businesswoman so desperate to have a baby she hires Angie, an inappropriate South Philly wild child (Amy Poehler) to be her surrogate.
Next was the “stranded-in-big-bad-New-York-City” movie Date Night opposite Steve Carell. The movie wouldn’t be as enjoyable as it is without the two leads. Fey and Carell breathe life into a hackneyed situation, bringing not only likeability, but also great chemistry and a way with a line that really works.
In the animated Megamind she voiced intrepid girl reporter Roxanne Ritchi, kidnapped by the master of all villainy Megamind (voice of Will Ferrell) and next year she stars with Ricky Gervais in The Muppets… Again!
