On this week’s Richard Crouse Show we meet Matt Cahill. He has a private practice and is a member of the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario and is a writer whose debut novel, “The Society of Experience,” was picked as a must-read by Harper’s Bazaar magazine. His short stories have been widely published and his essay “On Madness Within Imagination” was selected for Best Canadian Essays 2017. His new book, “Radioland,” is a mesmerizing literary thriller, where music, fame and magic wind together in an eerie mystery.
Then, Robert Harris, bestselling author of “Fatherland,” “The Ghostwriter,” “Munich” and “Conclave.” His new novel, “Act of Oblivion,” is an historical novel that brilliantly imagines one of the greatest manhunts in history: the search for two Englishmen involved in the killing of King Charles I and the relentless foe on their trail.
Then, word legend gets kicked around a lot, but in this case it really fits. Stan Lee made an indelible mark on popular culture by co-creating some of the most popular characters in comic books. Without him there’d be no superheroes like Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Black Panther and the list goes on and on. He is a legend and I got the chance to speak with him on the phone a couple of years before he passed away in 2018. He was in fine form, it’s a really fun interview and I wanted to share it with you again.
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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We all know Batman has the Batmobile but what about the superheroes who don’t have regular drives? Richard asked five superhero fans to weigh in.
“To the Batmobile!” is one of the most famous lines from the “Batman” TV show. It was a clarion call that meant the Caped Crusader was off to fight crime. He doesn’t tool around Gotham doing errands or taking leisurely drives in the country in his armoured car. His Batmobile is all business. But what about when superheroes are not battling their supervillain foes? What vehicles would they use to get from Point A to Point B or to drop off their kids at daycare? We asked some comic book fans to give their opinion…” Read the whole thing HERE!
Richard joins CTV NewsChannel and anchor Angie Seth to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including the latest from your friendly neighbourhood crimefighter in “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the dark carnival of “Nightmare Alley” and the ex-porn star drama “Red Rocket.”
At the beginning of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the new two-and-a-half-hour-long superhero movie now playing in theatres, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) learns it’s hard to be a masked crime fighter when everybody knows who you are under your red and black suit.
Exposed by supervillain Mysterio at the end of “Spider-Man: Far from Home,” Parker’s life has been turned upside down. And not in a fun way as in 2002’s “Spider-Man” when Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst shared an upside-down smooch in the rain.
That was harmless good fun.
These days, the friendly neighborhood web-slinger’s newfound notoriety makes it impossible for him to balance his personal life and relationships with girlfriend MJ (Zendaya), best pal Ned (Jacob Batalon) and Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) with his role as a world saving crime fighter.
“People looked up to this boy and called him a hero,” squawks J. Jonah Jameson (J. K. Simmons), the conspiratorial host of TheDailyBugle.net. “Well, I’ll tell you what I call him, Public Enemy Number One!”
Some think he’s a hero, others regard him as a vigilante. As his identities become blurred, Parker turns to becaped neurosurgeon and Master of the Mystic Arts, Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), for help.
“When Mysterio revealed my identity, my entire life got screwed up,” Parker says to Strange. “I was wondering if you could make it so it never did.”
Parker wants Dr. Strange to conjure up a spell to brainwash the world and make people forget he is Spider-Man.
It’s a big ask. “Be careful what you wish for,” Strange says, warning Parker that casting such a spell will tamper with the stability of space and time.
Sure enough, the spell blows a hole in the multiverse, the collection of parallel universes with alternate realities, and unleashes “universal trespassers,” the most terrifying foes Spider-Man has ever faced in this or any other realm.
There’s more. Lots more. Big emotional moments, lotsa jokes, nostalgia and fan service, an orgy of CGI and Villains! Villains! Villains! The multiverse offers up a multitude of surprises but there will be no spoilers here. Your eyeballs will dance and, depending on your level of fandom, maybe even well up from time to time.
The trippiness of the story’s inter dimensional leaps, while entertaining, are secondary to the movie’s strongest feature, Spider-Man’s empathy. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is a movie about second chances. Peter Parker doesn’t want to simply vanquish his enemies, he wants to understand them, to know why they behave as they do. By the time the end credits roll, the baddies may not be able to wreak havoc anymore, but not for the reasons you might imagine.
In real life the world is divided by ideology and opinion. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” asks us to examine those differences, look for their roots and try and heal them. It does so with plenty of trademarked Marvel action and overstuffed bombast, but the core message of empathy and understanding for others is the engine that keeps the movie chugging forward.
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” is a mix of exhilaration and exhaustion. It is inconsistent in its storytelling, overblown at times and the finale is a drawn-out CGI fest but when it focusses on the characters, empathy and the chemistry between the actors, it soars, like Spider-Man slinging webs and effortlessly zooming between skyscrapers.
“Spider-Man: Far From Home,” the twenty-third installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is so expansive it’s not only a sequel to “Spider-Man: Homecoming” but to the year’s biggest blockbuster “Avengers: Endgame.”
Set shortly after the events of “Endgame” the new movie sees Peter Parker aka Spider-Man (Tom Holland) on a school trip to Europe with his classmates. Still keenly feeling the loss of his mentor Tony Stark he is recruited by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., to assist Quentin Beck, also known as Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), in a war against a global threat called the Elementals. They are creatures formed from the primary elements, air, water, fire and earth, myths turned real and deadly. Mysterio is an expert on the extradimensional humanoids but can Peter really trust his new cohort? “Mr. Fury this all seems like big time, huge superhero kind of stuff,” says Peter, “and I’m just the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, sir.” “Bitch please,” Fury snarls, “you’ve been to space.” And so the adventure to (once again) save the world begins.
“Spider-Man: Far From Home” has the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am moments we expect from bigtime superhero action films but it is at its best when it zeroes in on the small stuff, an awkward glance between Peter and his crush MJ (Zendaya), or the comic rapport of Peter and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), or assistant Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) watching wistfully as Spider-Man steps into Tony Stark’s shoes. These moments come amid the cataclysmic fireworks, grounding the movie in some much-needed humanity. Peter Parker may have gone to outer space but he’s still a gawky teen who says things like, “It’s really nice to have someone to talk to about superhero stuff,” to Mysterio. If this movie had been made in 1957 it might have been called, “I Was a Teenage Superhero.”
It’s these interactions, the character drama, that make the “Spider-Man” movies the most likable of the superhero genre; they feel authentic even though they’re set in an unreal world where the name Mysterio isn’t just reserved for nightclub magicians.
(VERY MILD SPOILER) But this isn’t a high school drama, it’s a superhero flick so it plays around with ideas of perception in very flamboyant ways. “People want to believe,” says Mysterio, “and nowadays they’ll believe anything.” It fits in nicely with the on-going Avengers storyline but also feels like a sly and timely commentary on manipulation of the masses.
Add to that an eye-popping, up-close-and-personal look at Mysterio’s surreal powers, big dollops of humor and Gyllenhaal having fun hamming it up and you’re left with a movie that feels like part of the bigger Marvel universe but, somehow, retains its own character.
Can’t get enough Spider-Man? Check out “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse,” a mega-origin story that features not one, not two but at least seven iterations of the web slinging superhero.
Before a radioactive spider bit Miles Morales (voice of Shameik Moore) he was a half-Puerto Rican and half-African-American, Brooklyn born student with loving parents. Post bite, his world goes topsy-turvy. Unable to control his brand-new powers—he sticks to everyone and everything like glue—he needs help. Enter the real Spider-Man (Jake Johnson) who asks the younger Spider-Man to combat crime lord Kingpin (Liev Schreiber).
The evil genius doesn’t have superpowers but he does have a machine called a Collider with the power to tear the world apart. “It’s a hell of a freakin’ light show,” Kingpin cackles. “You’ll love this.” When Kingpin hits the Collider’s on switch the various portals between Spider-Verse open, sweeping alternate Spider-People including Peter B. Parker (Johnson again), a “junky, old, broke-down hobo Spider Man,” Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), an anthropomorphic animal parody of Spider-Man, Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), a Japanese-American middle school student, adopted by Aunt May and Uncle Ben and Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), a hard-bitten Raymond Chandler-esque type, into Miles’s world. The inter-dimensional Peter B. becomes a mentor of sorts to Miles—“Disinfect the mask,” he advises. “Use talcum powder. You don’t want chaffing.”—teaching his the tricks of the superhero trade. “You’re like the Spider-Man I don’t want to be,” Miles says to the frayed around the edges Peter. “I don’t think you have a choice kiddo,” Peter B. replies.
Before shutting off the Supercollider and saving the world Miles must sends the other Spider-types back to their realms or they will disintegrate.
“Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” is a cortex-boiling hit of boffo superhero theatrics. Visually it’s a pop art explosion, paying tribute, in its more restrained moments, to the work of original Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko. In the climatic multiverse showdown, however, it’s as if M.C. Escher and Roy Lichtenstein did acid and conceived a psychedelic freak-out that mixes and matches op art, anime and everything in between. It doesn’t look like any other superhero film you’ve ever seen. It’s wild and woolly, a pastiche of styles formed into one seamless whole.
It’s fresh and funny, and yes, there is a Stan Lee cameo, but despite the eye-catching animation and the flippant time of the script, there is substance; the film has a point. “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” is a coming-of-age story for Miles who must tap into his inner strength to succeed. Uncle Ben’s quote, “With great power comes great responsibility,” comes up in the film’s multiple origin stories but is amended to reflect that great power also comes with an awareness of self. “Anyone can wear the mask,” Miles says. “If you didn’t know that before I hope you know it now.” It’s a message about finding the greatness within whether you can shoot webs from your wrists or not. In a tweet the day Stan Lee died Seth Rogen wrote, “Thank you Stan Lee for making people who feel different realize they are special.” Lee didn’t write “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” but his powerful, personal message of self worth is alive and well here.
This weekend, Peter Parker swings back into theatres, but it’s not Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield behind the familiar red-and-black-webbed mask. Instead, for the third time in 15 years the web-slinging role has been recast. This time around, 21-year-old English actor and dancer Tom Holland wears the suit as the star of Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Holland’s extended Captain America: Civil War cameo in 2016 almost stole the show, displaying the character’s bright-eyed, boyish spark but this is his first outing as the title star. So far he’s getting rave reviews. After a recent critics screening the twitterverse lit up.
“Tom Holland is perfect,” wrote one poster, “He’s having the time of his life and it shows.” “I don’t want to spoil it,” wrote another, “but they found a way to make Spider-Man relatable like never before on screen, that’s where @TomHolland1996 shines.”
Spider-Man: Homecoming is poised to hit big at the theatres, breathing new life into a character we all know but it is also a shining example of the old adage, “The only constant is change.” Hollywood loves to reboot movies — we’ll soon see new versions of It, Flatliners and Blade Runner — but while the titles stay the same, the faces change.
Not everyone embraces the changes. When Garfield took over for Maguire in 2012 1234zoomer commented on The Amazing Spider-Man: “IS NOT GOING TO BE THE SAME WITHOUT TOBBY!!!,” (her uppercase and spelling, not mine), but Maguire was gracious, saying, “I am excited to see the next chapter unfold in this incredible story.”
Whether Holland acknowledges Maguire or Garfield is yet to be seen, but at least one replacement had the manners to recognize his precursor.
In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 007 No. 2 George Lazenby paid a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the original Bond, Sean Connery. After a wild battle to rescue Contessa Teresa (played by Diana Rigg) the new James Bond didn’t get the girl. “This never happened to the other fellow,” he says, looking dejectedly into the camera.
Connery went on to co-star in The Hunt for Red October with Alec Baldwin playing Jack Ryan, a character later portrayed by Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck.
In 2014 Chris Pine (who also took over the part of Captain Kirk in Star Trek from William Shatner) played the super spy in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. He admits, “We didn’t totally get that right,” but still has hopes for the series. “It’s a great franchise, and if it’s not me, then I hope it gets a fifth life at this point. I hope it’s done again and with a great story.”
The Batman franchise also has had a revolving cast. Since 1943 eight actors have played the Caped Crusader, including Lewis G. Wilson, who at 23 remains the youngest actor to play the character, and George Clooney who admits he was “really bad” in Batman & Robin.
Most recently Ben Affleck, dubbed Bat-Fleck by fans, has played the Dark Knight but probably the most loved Bat-actor of all time is the late Adam West. West, who passed away last month at age 88, admits playing Batman typecast him but says, “I made up my mind a long time ago to enjoy it. Not many actors get the chance to create a signature character.”
The folks behind “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” the second reboot of the web slinging comic superhero following franchises lead by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, wisely decides not to rehash the Peter Parker’s origin story. We know he’s an orphan being raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben when a bite from a radioactive spider caused mutations in his body, granting him the superpowers of super strength and agility.
Been there, done that twice before.
Instead, it picks up the story a few months after “Captain America: Civil War’s” epic airport tarmac battle. After that taste of big league crime fighting with the Avengers, 15-year-old Parker (Tom Holland) returned to normal life as a high school student in Queens, New York, living in a small apartment with his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei).
Mentored by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) he’s slowly figuring out what it means to be a superhero at night while and Peter Parker, a scrawny science nerd by day. “I am a kid,” he says, “but a kid who can stop a bus with his bare hands.” When he ‘s not fighting crime he’s acting like a teen, building a 3803-piece Lego Death Star with his best friend or getting shy in the presence of his crush Liz (Laura Harrier). He likes Liz but Liz loves Spider-Man. What to do?
It’s just one of many problems Parker encounters as his ambition to become a full-fledged Avenger puts him on a crash course with Vulture (Michael Keaton), a villain with wings and a bad attitude.
“Spider-Man: Homecoming” is easily the best web tale since 2004s “Spider-Man 2.” Director Jon Watts channels John Hughes in the high school scenes, Sam Raimi in the action scenes. There’s comedy and a more light-hearted tone as Parker comes of age as a crime fighter and hormonal teen. Holland finds the right mix of the character’s vulnerability and arrogance, nerdiness and impulsiveness. Together they spin a new web that is the most diverse entry in the Marvel Universe to date and one of the most entertaining.
There are new Spidey toys—his suit now speaks to him à la Jarvis in “Iron Man” for instance—but while cool, the effects aren’t the things that give “Homecoming” a recommendation, it’s the movie’s sense of fun and humanity. It’s a fantastical story about real people. Parker is simply a teen coming to grips with the changes in his body and even the villain is essentially a working class guy who wants to provide for his family. He’s tired of being pushed around so he’s pushing back. By going back to basics Watts grounds the movie in the comic book lore that made the character popular in the first place. He’s not the tortured superhero we’ve come accustomed to seeing on the big screen, instead he’s a regular teen in extraordinary circumstances. How regular is he? Sometimes his crime-fighting escapades are spoiled by after school detention.
“Spider-Man: Homecoming” is over two hours long and, like all other superhero movies, features a CGI heavy climax, but somehow doesn’t feel bloated. It also features the best last line of any Avengers movie and, for once, an after credit scene that is worth waiting for.
On this week’s Richard Crouse Show we meet Matt Cahill. He has a private practice and is a member of the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario and is a writer whose debut novel, “The Society of Experience,” was picked as a must-read by Harper’s Bazaar magazine. His short stories have been widely published and his essay “On Madness Within Imagination” was selected for Best Canadian Essays 2017. His new book, “Radioland,” is a mesmerizing literary thriller, where music, fame and magic wind together in an eerie mystery.
