I joined CP24 Breakfast to have a look at new movies coming to theatres, including Ben Affleck in “The Accountant 2,” David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds,” the documentary “Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie” and the family fantasy “The Legend of Ochi.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including Ben Affleck in “The Accountant 2,” David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds,” the documentary “Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie” and the family fantasy “The Legend of Ochi.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to roll a joint! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds,” the documentary “Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie” and the family fantasy “The Legend of Ochi.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “The Shrouds,” a new film from David Cronenberg, and now playing in theatres, a grieving businessman is drawn into a world of jealousy and conspiracy when he markets a new, high-tech kind of interment designed to console those left behind.
CAST: Diane Kruger, Vincent Cassel, Guy Pearce, and Sandrine Holt. Written and directed by David Cronenberg.
REVIEW: Technology has invaded every aspect of our lives, and now, in the new David Cronenberg film “The Shrouds,” it invades death as well.
Vincent Cassel plays Karsh, a wealthy businessman still reeling from the death of his wife Becca. “When they lowered my wife into the coffin,” Karsh says, “I had an intense urge to get in the box with her.” In response he invents GraveTech, essentially a service that allows grieving loved ones see inside the graves of their dearly departed family members as they decompose in their shrouds.
Located next to a theme restaurant called The Shrouds, the cemetery features the latest in boneyard tech. Controlled by an app, the graves come complete with a monitor on the headstone. “It’s basically kind of a camera in her grave,” says Karsh. “It comforts me.”
As Karsh makes plans to expand his business to Iceland and Budapest, a group of activists desecrate nine of the high-tech graves, including Becca’s final resting spot. That attack becomes the catalyst for the film’s action, sending Karsh into a murky world of conspiracy, jealousy, hallucination and obsession.
“The Shrouds” may be the very definition of a movie that is not for everyone. “How dark are you willing to go?” Karsh asks at one point, and the answer is pitch black. A study in grief without a whiff of sentimentality, this is an uneasy, and occasionally queasy, representation of the pain of loss.
Cronenberg, who lost his wife Carolyn to cancer after 38 years of marriage, says he was inspired to write “The Shrouds” by his own experiences with grief. And while the movie bears his trademarked fusion of psychological and physical elements, of technology and flesh, and his clinical approach to the material, the movie still pulsates with vulnerability. The setting is surreal, but the story’s underlying motivation is personal, motivated by the thorny act of grieving.
“The Shrouds” is Cronenberg’s most personal film and is as complicated, and occasionally confounding, as the act of grief itself.
On the Saturday April 19, 2025 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we meet Dr. Janet McMordie. She is a sports medicine physician who blends her medical expertise with a passion for the arts. During the pandemic, she embarked on a simultaneous journey into storytelling, discovering a revitalized connection to her creativity. She shifted from a tunnel-visioned medical career to explore improv, acting, and producing.
We talk about medicine, acting, her award-winning Second Act Actors podcast and much more.
Then, David Cronenberg. The Village Voice called him “the most audacious and challenging narrative director in the English-speaking world.”
He has directed horror films, dramas, psychological thrillers and gangster films, like “Shivers,” “Scanners,” “Videodrome,” “The Fly,” “A History of Violence,” “Eastern Promises” and “The Dead Zone” among many others.
Seven of his films were selected to compete for the Palme d’Or, the most recent being “The Shrouds,” which was screened at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
Starring Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger and Guy Pearce, “The Shrouds” explores the future of death. Casserl plays a “an innovative businessman and grieving widower, who builds a novel device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud. This burial tool installed at his own state-of-the-art though controversial cemetery allows him and his clients to watch their specific departed loved one decompose in real time.”
It’s an unsettling idea for a film, but it is a powerful and ultimately therapeutic look at grief in its many forms.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Here’s some info on The Richard Crouse Show!
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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