A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at Melissa McCarthy’s literary drama “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” the family drama “What They Had” and the highfalutin hostage story “Bel Canto.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Tough and tender, “What They Had” is a story of Alzheimer’s and dysfunction but never dips into the easy sentimentality of many other family dramas.
Writer-director Elizabeth Chomko begins the story with Ruth (Blythe Danner), in a dementia daze, dressed in a nightgown, getting out of bed and walking off into a blizzard. The disappearance is short-lived but serious enough for Ruth’s daughter Bridget (Hilary Swank) and granddaughter Emma (Taissa Farmiga) to fly to Chicago from California to come to her side.
Son Nick (Michael Shannon) thinks it is time to put Ruth in a home where she can be looked after but Burt (Robert Forster), her husband of decades, wants her to stay home where he can look after her. Caught between Nick and Burt, Bridget believes her mother should be put in a memory care facility called Reminisce Neighbourhood but is torn in the best way to make it happen.
The synopsis does “What They Had” no favours. It sounds like a downer, an earnest movie of the week style story of bickering siblings up against a stubborn patriarch. But it is more than that. There is pain, anger and heartbreak but there is also humour. Shannon’s outbursts, born of frustration and a certain amount of realism, are often amusing and always hit exactly the right notes.
There are strong performances across the board—Swank, Forster and Farmiga all feel completely authentic—but the film’s beating heart is Danner, who plays Ruth as though she’s wearing a shroud of sadness at her fleeting memory.
“What They Said” occasionally feels cluttered, as though the focus is spread to widely over all the characters, but its unflinching eye for detail is a strength not a minus.
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk about Melissa McCarthy’s literary drama “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” the “Hunt for Red October” wannabe “Hunter Killer,” the highfalutin hostage story “Bel Canto,” the comedic cautionary tale “Room for Rent” and the Alzheimer’s dramedy “What They Had.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard joins CP24 anchor Nathan Downer to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the unholy horror of “The Nun” and the slash and dash of “Peppermint.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at the continuing bad habits of “The Nun” and the momvenge of “Peppermint.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard has a look at the low budget, low wattage scares of “The Nun” and the mom-venge of “Peppermint” with the CFRA Morning Rush host Bill Carroll.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“The Nun,” the fifth instalment of the never-say-die horror series “The Conjuring,” is rated R for terror, violence and disturbing/bloody images and YouTube recently deemed movie’s teaser trailer too shocking for their website. And remember, YouTube specializes in weird ‘Dancing-Men-Wearing-Horse-Mask’ videos. But don’t believe the hype. “The Nun” is all soulless flimflam.
Set in In 1952 Romania, “The Nun” begins with a death at a cloistered abbey. “This place is…” says a local, “what’s the opposite of a miracle?” To investigate the suicide by hanging of the young nun at the Cârța Monastery the Vatican dispatches Catholic priest, Father Burke (Demián Bichir) and novitiate Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga). “I have orders from the Vatican to determine if the grounds are still holy,” he says.
Burke routinely examines “unusual matters” for the church but is troubled by an exorcism gone wrong while Irene, as a child, was plagued by visions of a mysterious nun. To uncover the abbey’s secret the holy rollers will have to risk not only their physical beings but metaphysical ones as well.
“The Nun” starts off slow and atmospheric. It begins to get less interesting about half-an-hour in when the jump scares start. From then on it is a pastiche of the kind of stuff you might expect from a place where Gregorian Chants echo down the hallways. The low budget, low wattage scares include a nightmarish scenario of open graves, folks burping up serpents, ghostly shadows, rolling rosary beads and, of course, the obligatory portal to hell.
Sound eerie? It isn’t.
Director Corin Hardy must have saved money on the lighting because everything is under lit by swinging oil lamps or shrouded in mist. It doesn’t matter much because there’s nothing interesting to look at anyway. The creep factor does get dialled up in the last half hour but it’s mainly a series of jump scares and surreal images, many of which look like outtakes from a Floria Sigismondi video. Add in a few intentional laughs and some not-so-intentional giggles and you have a film destined for the Midnight Madness circuit.
Here’s the thing. If there’s a door in your abbey that reads ‘God Ends Here’ it’s best to leave it closed. Burke and Co. could have done everyone, especially the audience, a favour by leaving well enough alone.
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk about the low budget, low wattage scares of “The Nun” and the mom revenge of “Peppermint.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
