As you may or may not know, when I’m not here talking to you on my show, I can be seen on the CTVNewsChannel and loads of other places talking about movies. I saw almost three hundred movies this year, wrote reviews for two hundred of those and there were high highs and the very lowest of lows.
I rate my movies on a scale of 10 to 5 stars. I never a full 5 stars because nothing is perfect, but this year there were several 4 ½ star movies. The lowest rating I have ever given was “Minus Infinity x 10” for a movie whose name I will never mention again.
Most movies fall into the 3 to 3 ½ star category, but there is a fairly wide range. Ten percent of the movies I see every year are terrible, ten percent are great but 80 percent fall into that mushy middle. Good to almost great.
I don’t care about the box office. I love it when a movie makes a lot of money because it means the industry is healthy and people are supporting theatres, and that’s a good thing, but just because a movie makes bank doesn’t mean it is a good movie.
Every now and again, though, there are movies that, for whatever reason, are great, but don’t connect with audiences. There have been a few of those this year, and for every movie that took a well-deserved dive, like “Joker: Folie a Deux” or “Borderlands” there were others that should have found an audience. On this show I’ll tell you about those movies!
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!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
On the Saturday August 31, 2024 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet Amanda Marshall.
You know the name, but could be forgiven if you wondered what happened to her. After hits like her 1996 single, “Birmingham”, which reached number 3 in Canada and charted on the US, and diamond and certified 3× platinum albums, she disappeared from the charts and the music scene for more than 20 years.
She says the legal battle with her former manager that kept her away from the spotlight for two decades “turned out to be the very best thing that ever happened to me.” We’ll find out why in this interview.
Then, we’ll meet three-time Academy Award nominee for Best Actor Viggo Mortensen. From his film debut in 1985’s “Witness” to the “Lord of the Rings” movies that made him a superstar to his more recent work, like the Oscar winning “Green Book,” he has been a constant, welcome presence on screens for 40 years. Joins me today as the writer, director, star, and composer of “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” a great new Western now available on all major platforms for Digital Purchase and Digital Rental.
Then, we meet Salah Bachir, author of a new memoir, “First to the Leave the Party: My Life with Ordinary People Who Happen to Be Famous,” available now wherever fine books are sold.
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!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
On the Saturday July 27, 2024 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we meet Natalie Shaw who stars as Cady Heron in the touring, musical production of the show that touches down in Toronto at The Royal Alexandra Theatre from July 30 – August 25, 2024.
You remember the story… Cady Heron may have grown up on an African savanna, but nothing prepared her for the vicious ways of her strange new home: suburban Illinois. Soon, this naïve newbie falls prey to a trio of lionized frenemies led by the charming but ruthless Regina George. But when Cady devises a plan to end Regina’s reign, she learns the hard way that you can’t cross a Queen Bee without getting stung.
Then, we’ll meet three-time Academy Award nominee for Best Actor Viggo Mortensen. From his film debut in 1985’s “Witness” to the “Lord of the Rings” movies that made him a superstar to his more recent work, like the Oscar winning “Green Book,” he has been a constant, welcome presence on screens for 40 years. Joins me today as the writer, director, star, and composer of “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” a great new Western now available on all major platforms for Digital Purchase and Digital Rental.
Then, we’ll meet Willie Poll. She is the director of education for the Moose Hide Campaign, an organization focused on ending violence against women and children. But today we’re here to talk about her new book for children, “My Little Ogichidaa: An Indigenous Lullaby.”
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!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
SYNOPSIS: Set on the western U.S. frontier in the 1860s, this story of star-crossed lovers sees the fiercely independent French-Canadian florist Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps) begins a relationship with Danish immigrant and ex-soldier Holger Olsen (Viggo Mortensen). When their lives are up-ended by the Civil War, Vivienne must fend for herself in a rough-n-tumble Nevada town run by the corrupt Mayor Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston) and his ruthless business partner Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt).
CAST: Viggo Mortensen, Vicky Krieps, Solly McLeod, Garret Dillahunt, Colin Morgan, Ray McKinnon, Luke Reilly, Atlas Green, Danny Huston. Written, directed, and produced by Viggo Mortensen.
REVIEW: “The Dead Don’t Hurt” is an old-fashioned Western with a modern twist. Told on a broken timeline, this story of frontier life looks very much like a classic horse opera, but places its focus on the immigrant experience and Vivienne’s rebellious streak, rather than on the cliches of the genre. There are shootouts, a saloon that could have been left over from the set of “Bonanza” and a “pig sticker” plays a climatic role, but Mortensen’s second feature as director has a different perspective on a traditional genre.
Mortensen is in fine form, but yields the bulk of camera time to Krieps’s luminescent performance. With Vivienne she up-ends the typical portrayal of women in Westerns. She shares a loving, playful relationship with Olsen, but her independent streak is the what drives the movie. The romance is at the heart of the film, but it is the unconventional portrayal of a woman in the wild west that makes the movie unique.
As a director Mortensen creates vivid, compelling moments that would not be out of place in a more tradition Western, but there are enough flourishes—medieval knight fantasy sequences, for example—and a somewhat ungainly time shifting structure of storytelling, that set the film apart from the John Ford standard.
“The Dead Don’t Hurt” is a reinvention, a reimagination, that is both nostalgic and innovative.
