Here’s my pick: Misty Green: “Chris Rock was slapped in front of Hollywood. I’m interested to see how he slaps back in this Hollywood satire.”
Read the whole thing HERE!
FROM METRO CANADA SEPTEMBER 2014:
I’ve done this a long time, but on Friday as I sat next to Boo Radley, Lt. Col. William “Bill” Kilgore and Tom Hagan, all rolled up in the form of Robert Duvall, I don’t mind admitting I was star struck.
Even though he was one of the most quotable actors I had spoken to during the opening days of TIFF — for instance he said, “I call Billy Bob Thornton the hillbilly Orson Welles.” — while he was talking all I could hear were his lines from his famous movies rolling around in my head.
Getting an up close and personal look at the 83-year-old Oscar winner, brought back memories of him as Apocalypse Now’s warmongering Kilgore, shirtless kneeling down to tell his soldiers, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,“ and Don Corleone’s loyal adopted son Tom in The Godfather. “He never asks a second favor when he’s been refused a first.”
The actor was at TIFF to discuss the opening night film The Judge. He stars opposite Robert Downey Jr. as an erasable old judge, who, when accused of vehicular manslaughter must reluctantly rely on his estranged lawyer son for a defense in court. Luckily I pulled myself together long enough to take some notes.
When he’s asked what it’s like to play a mean character, he says, “Who’s mean? What’s mean about him? He’s a human being.”
He adds, “I almost didn’t take this but once I took it I had to jump in. There are so many negative things about the guy.”
But when asked if he’s afraid to immerse himself in negative characters, his answer turns into a master class on acting. “Why would I be afraid? Once I commit to do it, I’ll do it. I just wonder about it sometimes. Is it worth it to show those negative aspects of somebody?
“But Shakespeare said you hold a mirror up to nature. You try and approximate life as much as possible. Brando used to watch Candid Camera. You try and watch things as closely as you can. You learn from life and you try and represent life as accurately as possible. There’s no right or wrong, there’s just truthful and untruthful.”
He’s a living legend, a star whose career spans six decades, but he’s not nostalgic for the past.
“I think movies are better than ever now. The actors are better. There’s room for everybody now. If you go world wide, I think the actors are better than ever.”
As for his own career, he has more movies on tap, including one he’s directing, starring his wife Luciana Pedraza as a “lady Texas Ranger.” “I got a few more left in me before they wipe the drool,” he says.
I appear in a CTV National News report by Cristina Tenaglia on the highlights from the 49th annual Toronto International Film Festival.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Part screwball comedy, part fight for survival, “Anora” is a triumph of controlled chaos. As in his earlier films, “Tangerine,” “The Florida Project” and “Red Rocket,” director Sean Baker keenly observes his characters with empathy and emotion in stories that examine money, class, and power. Mikey Madison, best known to date as the oldest sibling on the sit com “Better Things” and being burned alive in both “Scream (5)” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” hands in a career re-defining performance as sex worker Anora a.k.a. Ani. An electric combination of tough-as-nails ferocity, self-assurance, desperation and poignant vulnerability, she is as compelling and charismatic a lead as we’ll see at the movies this year.
A story of sexual power, control and humiliation, “Babygirl” is risky and frisky with a fearless performance from Nicole Kidman.
“Better Man,” the biopic of Take That singer-turned-solo superstar Robbie Williams is a sex, drugs and British Pop story given an audacious treatment by “The Greatest Showman” director Michael Gracey. A surreal mix of “Behind the Music” and “Planet of the Apes,” it is a raw portrayal of the singer’s vulnerabilities and foibles in which he’s rendered throughout as a CGI monkey. No explanations are offered, and none are needed. Whether it’s a comment on the performing monkey nature of his work, or his ever-evolving emotional state, or whatever, it’s a startling and surprisingly effective gimmick in a wildly entertaining film.
“Conclave,” the story of the ritual to elect a new Pope, reflects a spiritual process marred by very human foibles. It’s a very timely study of the quest for power which seems even more relevant in a US election year. “The men who are dangerous are the men who want the power.”
Ron Howard’s “Eden” is a star-studded—Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Sydney Sweeney, Jude Law and Daniel Brühl— story of backstabbing, ego and survival set against the unforgiving landscape of a deserted Galápagos Island. Based on a true story, it’s a heart of darkness tale done on an operatic level.
Hugh Grant delivers a career redefining performance as the charming face of theological curiosity in “Heretic.” A two-hour doctrinal cat-and-mouse game with two Mormon missionaries (Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher), the movie digs deep, gets dark but never forgets to have fun.
As idiosyncratic movie as we’re likely to see this year, “Megalopolis” is a forty-years-in-the-making passion project from Francis Ford Coppola that brims with imagination, ambition and, unfortunately, self-indulgence. Equal parts hammy and hopeful, dense and dazzling, it’s the work of a filmmaker with nothing left to prove.
Told from the point of view of the ghost, the scares in “Presence” are muted and not particularly supernatural. The horror here is the carefully observed, callous behavior between several of the characters. It’s a stylish, visually interesting twist on a ghost story that entertains the eye but may not move the spirit.
An intense look at the chaotic ninety minutes before the first broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” on October 11, 1975, “Saturday Night” captures the anxiety, the humour and the sheer nerve it took to get the show off the ground. We know how it ends—“SNL” celebrates 50 seasons this year—but a great ensemble cast brings this love letter to show business, tenacity and Lorne Michaels to vivid life.
A revenge drama about legacy, genetic memory, social media and a cat named Potato, “Seeds” is a tense thriller that delivers its message with plenty of humor before the going gets gory. At a quick 85 minutes “Seeds” features great performances— Graham Greene, as the host of a television true crime show who speaks to Ziggy in her dreams and Goldtooth are standouts—and succeeds both as a revenge drama and an expression of Indigenous legacy and power.
“The Shrouds” revisits David Cronenberg’s go-to themes of body horror, invasive technology and paranoia in a film that promises to be a provocative and empathetic study of grief.
“The Substance” has a lot on its mind. Writer/director Coralie Fargeat infuses the story with her thoughts on youth, beauty, fame and Hollywood’s unrealistic beauty standards, and uses body horror coupled with the bonkers, Grand Guignol ending to make her points. It goes on a bit too long, but Fargeat’s gruesome vision, and the finale’s ankle-deep bloodbath, is a thing of terrible beauty.
Part rom com and part essay on what lingers after we’re gone, “We Live in Time” is a five-hankie tear-jerker fueled by the intimate and charismatic performances of its leads Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.
Based on Peter Brown’s award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller of the same name, the animated “The Wild Robot” will put you in the mind of “The Iron Giant,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and “WALL-E,” but carves out its own, unique, rewarding space. Brimming with compassion, humor and kindness, it has the makings of a classic.
A modern riff on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 18th-century novella “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” “Young Werther,” takes a love-at-first-sight premise, the stuff of rom coms, and uses that as a springboard to examine self-absorbed youth, unrequited love, rejection and the true nature of love.
I sit in with NewsTalk 1010’s Jim Richards to talk about attending a screening of “The Apprentice,” then controversial film based on the early life of Donald Trump.
Listen to the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 31:20)
I chose the Toronto International Film Festival movie I am most excited to see for Toronto Star film critic Peter Howell’s annual TIFF round-up.
“‘The Shrouds’ revisits David Cronenberg’s go-to themes of body horror, invasive technology and paranoia in a film that promises to be a provocative and empathetic study of grief.” WILD CARD: “The Last Showgirl”
Read the whole list HERE!
I appear on the “Toronto Legends Podcast” to talk TIFF, hosting press conferences and growing up in a theatre.
“Film critic/author/broadcaster Richard Crouse talks about his Donald Sutherland ice-breaker, Simon Le Bon’s love of Mr Greenjeans’ Buffalo Chips, kind words for Cameron Bailey’s leadership and agreement with his view that ‘moviewatching is best as a communal experience,’ Brad Pitt’s insouciance to a tidal wave of flashbulbs, why Hugh Jackman and Lady Gaga are ‘good people’, his upcoming book of Lessons Learned, why popcorn is like razorblades for your colon, how ‘review bombing’ is a bad trend, the ‘unspoken contract’ of interviewing celebrities, and setting the record straight on Madonna’s rumoured edict “not to look her directly in the eyes” [spoiler alert: FALSE]!”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard’s contribution to the Toronto Star’s 20th Annual Chasing the Buzz poll!
Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over (Dave Wooley, David Heilbroner)
From TRNTO.com: “For the second year in a row, TIFF, the world’s largest public film festival will be a little less public than it was pre-pandemic. The Toronto International Film Festival, which runs from Sept. 9 to 18, continues with the hybrid model — a mix of in-person and online screenings — adopted last year in response to COVID-19. This year’s slate includes more than 100 of the best features and documentaries the world has to offer…” Read the whole thing HERE!
