On the Richard Crouse Show for August 9, 2020 we meet Jay Baruchel. He’s been acting since the age of twelve and has appeared in everything from “Knocked Up” and “Tropic Thunder” to “The Trotsky” and “She’s Out of My League” to the action-fantasy “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “This Is the End.” He’s probably best known as the voice of Hiccup in the wildly successful “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise but he says, despite all the success in front of the camera, what he really wants to do is direct.
Two years ago he wrote and directed the sports comedy “Goon: Last of the Enforcers.” Now he appears both in front of and behind the camera in “Random Acts of Violence,” a genre film that asks serious questions about how we relate to violence in art.
Based on a 2008 Image Comic, “Random Acts of Violence” begins with comic book writer Todd (Jesse Williams) suffering a case of writer’s block. His series, a grisly and successful adaptation of a real-life serial killer dubbed Slasherman, is coming to an end and he doesn’t know how to wind it down.
On a press tour from Toronto to New York to promote the final issue, Jesse and friends, visit the scene of the Slasherman’s crimes. As the group fall victim to a series of heinous copycat crimes the film asks, “What are the real consequences when life (and death) begin to imitate art?”
I talk about that with Jay in this interview but we started by reminiscing about the “beforetime” when we could go to the movies. I asked him what movie memories stand out for him when he thinks back to the theatre experience.
Then, we meet Mike Scott, the founding member, lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of The Waterboys. He is a restless creative spirit, known for radical changes in music style throughout what he refers to as his “allegedly unorthodox” career. The music on his solo albums and with The Waterboys explores a number of different styles, including folk, Celtic and rock and roll, fusing them together to create a sound that is not only catchy but unique.
The press release for his newest record “Good Luck, Seeker,” says the songs are populated by unrepentant freaks, soul legends, outlaw film stars and 20th Century mystics, drawing inspiration from the Stones, Kate Bush, Sly and Kendrick as well as Mike Scott’s very own musical past.
It’s a genre busting effort with epic songs like the dramatic, spoken word tune “My Wanderings In The Weary Land” to the earworm of the extremely catchy single “The Soul Singer.”
In this interview we talk about the construct of time, the power of the Clash and why he liked a record by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich enough to spend 8 and sixpence, or about 50 cents on it…
I began the interview by asking Mike Scott why he’s never made the same record twice.
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 Ethan Hawke, director Brad Bird, comedian Gilbert Gottfried, Eric Roberts, Brian Henson, Jonathan Goldsmith a.k.a. “The most interesting man in the world,” and best selling author Linwood Barclay.
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Check out episode twenty-six of Richard’s web series, “In Isolation With…” It’s the talk show where we make a connection without actually making contact! Today, broadcasting directly from Isolation Studios (a.k.a. my home office) we meet Jay Baruchel. He’s been acting since the age of twelve and has appeared in everything from “Knocked Up” and “Tropic Thunder” to “The Trotsky” and “She’s Out of My League” to the action-fantasy “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “This Is the End.” He’s probably best known as the voice of Hiccup in the wildly successful “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise but he says, despite all the success in front of the camera, what he really wants to do is direct.
“I was really lucky in that my parents would give me a kind of film or music 101,” he says in the interview. “Whenever they would tell me something they would explain why it matters. Why they care about it. What the landscape that it came out in was like and then, of course ,then they would get into sort of inside jokes. They also showed me “Monty Python the Holy Grail” and pause after every punch line and be like, ‘Do you understand why that’s funny?’ This is called dry humor. Literally. Verbatim. This is called dry humour. Then dad bought me “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” on VHS for my ninth birthday. And that started my collection that I’m still crippled by because I still buy physical media. But I’ve never stopped. Somewhere in there I realized that as much as I adore writing stories, I realized that movies were the thing.”
Two years ago he wrote and directed the sports comedy “Goon: Last of the Enforcers.” Now he appears both in front of and behind the camera in “Random Acts of Violence,” a genre film that asks serious questions about how we relate to violence in art.
Based on a 2008 Image Comic, “Random Acts of Violence” begins with comic book writer Todd (Jesse Williams) suffering a case of writer’s block. His series, a grisly and successful adaptation of a real-life serial killer dubbed Slasherman, is coming to an end and he doesn’t know how to wind it down.
On a press tour from Toronto to New York to promote the final issue, Jesse and friends, visit the scene of the Slasherman’s crimes. As the group fall victim to a series of heinous copycat crimes the film asks, “What are the real consequences when life (and death) begin to imitate art?”
I talk about that with Jay in this interview but we started by reminiscing about the “beforetime” when we could go to the movies. I asked him what movie memories stand out for him when he thinks back to the theatre experience…
NOTE: The language in this interview is NOT suitable for all age. NSFW!
Watch the whole thing HERE on YouTube or HERE on ctvnews.ca!
In 2001 Ben Stiller sent up the fashion industry in a movie called Zoolander about moronic models. In his new film, Tropic Thunder, which he co-wrote, directs and stars in, he goes for something a little closer to home—his fellow SAG members.
Tropic Thunder, with its cigar smoking children drug lords, liberal use of the word “retard” and Robert Downy Jr’s blackface performance may be the most politically incorrect—and funniest—movie of the summer.
It’s the story of “the most expensive war movie NEVER made” featuring three pampered Hollywood superstars. There’s action star Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) the kind of dim bulb who describes the movies he stars in as “effects-driven-event-films”; Oscar magnet Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), a method actor (possibly based on Russell Crowe) who spouts nonsense like “I don’t read the script! The script reads me!” and comedian Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), a drug addled star best known for flatulence jokes. Two newcomers round out the fictional movie’s cast: multi-platinum hip-hop-star-turned-actor Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) and Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel).
The five are stranded in a Southeast Asian jungle by a director (Steve Coogan) determined to get realistic performances from his spoiled cast. Things get a little too realistic when the actors are targeted by a drug cartel that holds one of them for ransom. To get out of the jungle alive they have to come together and become more like the soldiers they are portraying.
For once you’ll want to arrive at the theatre in time to check out the trailers. Director Stiller introduces each character with a mock trailer from their most recent movie. These fake promos establish the movie’s silly tone starting with Stiller’s over-the-top Stallone-esque Scorcher clip, followed by the Eddie Murphyish The Fatties, where Jack Black plays multiple characters and a surprise cameo in the Downey Jr trailer promises that Tropic Thunder will take no prisoners in its ridicule of Tinsel Town.
After the trailers Stiller jumps right into the action. He opens the main story with a set piece from the fictional film so violently crazy it makes Jerry Bruckheimer look subtle. Blending in every cliché from every Chuck Norris war movie ever made Stiller shows how his pampered cast has gotten the film “one month behind schedule after only five days of shooting.” As the fictional story begins to echo the real life trials and tribulations of the legendary Apocalypse Now shoot, the lampooning of Hollywood broadens to include a grocery list of show business excesses. The movie business is so ripe for parody it’s a wonder it doesn’t happen more often.
Stiller aims his jaundiced eye at everyone in front of and behind the camera. From actors, portrayed as needy, coddled masses of insecurity to managers more obsessed with a contract rider that promises their client TiVo than the safety of the actor, no one is safe.
Stiller and Black (who brings notes of John Belushi and Chris Farley to the role) hand in good, solidly entertaining comedic performances, but it is Robert Downey Jr who steals the show. As Kirk Lazarus, an extreme method actor who changed his skin color to play an African American soldier, he creates a portrait of an artiste who is just an empty vessel waiting to be filled by the people he plays. It’s as effective a comment on earnest actors who take themselves a bit too seriously as it is hilarious. Highlights of Downey’s performance include a completely offensive, but screamingly funny breakdown of Speedman’s role in a movie called Simple Jack.
Tropic Thunder is an effective parody of Hollywood made by insiders—including Tom Cruise in a cameo that proves he may have a sense of humor after all—who understand how truly silly and confounding celebrity culture has become.
Jay Baruchel attended the same high school as William Shatner, but unlike his famous alumni, or other well-known Canadians like Mike Myers and Jim Carrey, Baruchel has never turned his back on his Canadian roots.
The young Montrealer, who has a maple leaf tattooed over his heart, alternates between appearing in big budget American movies like Knocked Up and Tropic Thunder and coming home to make smaller films like Real Time and The Trotsky (featured at this year’s TIFF). I don’t mean American films that use Toronto as a stand-in for New York, but honest-to-God homegrown films made by Canadians for Canadians.
Fetching Cody, for instance, played at TIFF in 2005. Variety called it a “mix of gritty street-life drama, perky teen romance and seriocomic sci-fi time-tripping,” but that description hardly does this strange little gem justice. Baruchel is Art, a drug pusher on Vancouver’s Downtown East side. When his girlfriend Cody (Sarah Lind) drops into a coma after a drug overdose, Art uses a homemade time machine to visit key moments of Cody’s life. Ultimately he learns that the best way to save her life will be the hardest option for him to choose. It’s a cool film for those who like their romantic fantasy with a bit of grit.
Just Buried (TIFF ’07) is another dark romance; a Haligonian take on The Trouble with Harry. This time out, Baruchel plays a nervous young man who inherits a nearly bankrupt funeral home. It isn’t until he falls in love with an attractive young mortician (Rose Bryne) that he begins to realize she might have something to do with the mortuary’s upturn in business. Reviewing the movie, the L.A. Times said, “Just Buried puts ‘fun’ in funeral.”
At last year’s TIFF, Baruchel co-starred with Randy Quaid in Real Time, a dramedy about a compulsive gambler from Hamilton given one hour to live by a Zen master hit man. Here Baruchel takes an unlikable character and breathes life into him, showing how a real person can fall down the rabbit hole of excess and crime.
It’s probably easier to get laughs (and better paying as well) doing his Chewbacca impersonation à la Knocked Up in big American films, but Baruchel is determined to continue working in Canada.
“I am a proud Canadian, number one, that’s the biggest thing,” Baruchel said. “All I want to do is make independent movies in Canada.”
On the Richard Crouse Show for August 9, 2020 we meet Jay Baruchel. He’s been acting since the age of twelve and has appeared in everything from “Knocked Up” and “Tropic Thunder” to “The Trotsky” and “She’s Out of My League” to the action-fantasy “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “This Is the End.” He’s probably best known as the voice of Hiccup in the wildly successful “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise but he says, despite all the success in front of the camera, what he really wants to do is direct.
