Posts Tagged ‘Valorie Curry’

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY OCT 28, 2016.

screen-shot-2016-10-29-at-10-18-16-amRichard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies, Tom Hanks as symbologist Robert Langdon in “Inferno,” two of the best movies of the years, “Moonlight” and “The Handmaiden” and Ewan McGregor’s directorial debut, “American Pastoral.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS & MORE FOR OCT 28.

screen-shot-2016-10-28-at-10-36-44-amRichard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel morning show to have a look at the weekend’s new movies, Tom Hanks as symbologist Robert Langdon in “Inferno,” two of the best movies of the years, “Moonlight” and “The Handmaiden” and Ewan McGregor’s directorial debut, “American Pastoral.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

AMERICAN PASTORAL: 2 STARS. “swiss cheese storytelling—lots of holes.”

screen-shot-2016-10-25-at-10-19-08-amEwan McGregor makes his directorial debut with “American Pastoral,” a crime-drama based on a novel by Phillip Roth. He deftly presents nice performances from Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Connelly, Rupert Evans and Valorie Curry but tells a story that feels disjointed.

McGregor stars as Seymour ‘Swede’ Levov, a man with a charmed life. He was a football star in high school, married Dawn (Connelly) his beautiful girlfriend, inherited a thriving business and was blessed with a daughter, Merry (played by Hannah Nordberg as a child, Fanning as a teen). He was “Our hero, our Kennedy,” says a schoolmate.

When little Merry, aged eleven, sees a news report of Buddhist monk Thích Quang Duc burning himself to death to protest the war in Vietnam, it awakens something inside her. “Why does that gentle man have to burn himself?” she cries. “Doesn’t anyone care? Doesn’t anyone have a conscience?”

Cut to several years later. Merry is now a politically engaged revolutionary teenager living under her father’s suburban Old Rim Rock, New Jersey roof. She calls the president, “Linden ‘Baby Burner’ Johnson,” and heads off to meet her radical friends in New York whenever possible. “What do you care about the war?” she shrieks at her parents. “You’re just contented middle-class people!”

The ‘Swede,’ concerned about his daughter’s behaviour forbids her to go to the city. Instead, he suggests, why doesn’t she protest a little closer to home? When the local post office blows up, killing the postmaster, and Merry disappears the human cost of her actions becomes clear. The bomb destroys the building, kills a man and presents ‘Swede’ with the first crisis of his charmed life.

“American Pastoral” is a handsome movie that tackles one of the most tumultuous times in American history. McGregor gets inside the stateside protest of the Vietnam War by keeping the story tight, focussed on one family and the devastating effect of radicalism has on them and, peripherally, on the victims of Merry’s crimes. Getting inside the head of a young woman driven to push away the comfy-cosy life provided by her wealthy parents for a life on the run would be fascinating. Too bad it isn’t here. Instead, Fanning plays Merry like a petulant teen, more likely to sneak out to meet boys than blow up government buildings.

Ditto the resulting toll Merry’s actions take on her decent, hardworking parents. Dawn falls apart, ending up in hospital before taking the most superficial way out of her heartbreaking problems.

There’s an affair and some intrigue but it’s all skin deep. There are many shots of McGregor looking concerned, but the full weight of the family’s tragedy is never truly felt. It feels by times as though sections of the movie are missing, either edited out from a longer version or left unfilmed. It’s a shame because what could have been an interesting look at what happens when radicalization comes home is neutered by some swiss cheese storytelling—lots of holes.

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY SEPT 16, 2016.

screen-shot-2016-09-16-at-2-57-48-pmRichard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies the long awaited sequel to “The Blair Witch Project,” the biopic “Snowden,” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the return of Renée Zellweger’s most famous character in “Bridget Jones’s Baby.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

 

 

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS & MORE FOR SEPT 16.

screen-shot-2016-09-16-at-10-24-47-amRichard sits in with Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the weekend’s new movies, including the found footage frights of “Blair Witch,” the rom com delights of “Bridget Jones’s Baby” and”Snowden,” Oliver Stone’s biographical look at one of the decade’s most controversial figures.

Watch the whole thing HERE!

Metro Canada: Blair Witch cast was too young to see the original film

screen-shot-2016-09-13-at-5-54-01-pmBy Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus

The long-awaited Blair Witch Project follow-up doesn’t have a theme song, but if it did I’d suggest Teddy Bear Picnic. In particular the line, “If you go out in the woods today you’re in for a big surprise,” because, boy, there are some shockers in the movie’s dense woods.

“When I saw our film I was scared,” says Corbin Reid who plays Ashley in Blair Witch, in theatres today.

“I actually had chills,” chimes in co-star Wes Robinson. “I thought that was cool because I don’t think that’s an easy feat for someone who was there shooting it, who read the script and knew everything that was going to happen. It is the combination of the shots and the sound design and everything.”

Shot last year with the woods of Squamish, B.C., subbing in for the story’s haunted woods, the movie follows James (James Allen McCune) who was only four years old when his sister vanished while making a 1994 documentary about a witch said to haunt the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland. James thinks his sister may still be alive. Cue the jump scares, red herrings, things that go bump in the woods and close-ups of scared young people.

“Not to get too macabre,” says Corbin, “but I think one of the reasons people are attracted to horror is because you’re dealing with death in a safe space. It is something unknown to everyone. We don’t know what happens after we die, but you get this fictional setting that you can live it out in. There is something about exposing yourself to your fears. If you can laugh at it or move through it, it forces you to deal with it. You become the master of it.”

Robinson praises director Adam Wingard’s skill at scare making. “Adam always gives you a real sense of security in his films. Then when you’re not expecting it, he takes it away.”

“It gives you time to really sink into the psychological aspect of it,” adds Corbin. “You establish the relationships, and then you have something to lose. It’s not just trick after trick after trick. That’s the thing I love about the filmmaking. It’s not cheap. Everything is earned and everything is smart. It is thought out. I think that’s why there is such an effect.”

In Blair Witch, Wingard does a good job with body horror — ick — and primal fears of the dark, small spaces in the unknown. “Everyone’s fear is represented at some point in this movie,” says Wes.

Corbin and Wes spent two months in the woods shooting and getting inside the new story, but how familiar were they with the 1999 film? Corbin was just eleven years old when the original movie caused a sensation but that didn’t stop her from trying to see it. “I went with my sister and she didn’t know it was rated R,” she says. “She got in but my mom had to come pick me up.”

“I actually saw it in the theatre,” says Wes. “I was with a lot of adults. We went to see it and it traumatized me. It’s weird where life takes you, though, because I had no idea when I watched it that I would do the sequel one day.”

BLAIR WITCH: 3 ½ STARS. “actually made me say ‘yuck’ out loud.”

screen-shot-2016-09-13-at-5-51-06-pmThe long awaited “Blair Witch Project” follow-up doesn’t have a theme song, but if it did I’d suggest “Teddy Bear Picnic.” In particular I’m thinking the line, “If you go out in the woods today you’re in for a big surprise,” because, boy, there are some surprises in the film’s dense woods.

“Blair Witch” begins with the core cast preparing to return to the scene of the strange disappearances documented in the original film. James (James Allen McCune) was only four-years-old when his sister vanished in 1994 while making a documentary about a witch said to haunt the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland. James thinks his sister still may be alive after he found some blurred footage online that seems to contain a shot of her. Teaming with friends Peter (Brandon Scott), Ashley (Corbin Reid) and student filmmaker Lisa (Callie Hernandez) he sets off to find answers, camera gear in hand.

They meet up with Darknet666, the Burkittsville stoner couple named Lane (Wes Robinson) and Talia (Valorie Curry) who posted the footage that grabbed James’s eye and proceed into the woods in search of the house seen in the 1994 footage. “This area has a history happening that nobody really wants to talk about,” says Lane ominously.

Lane, an expert in Blair Witch lore warns the troupe, “The legend says if you look directly at the witch you die of fright,” as strange things begin to happen. Cue the jump scares, red herrings, things that go bump in the woods and close-ups of scared young people.

This really should have been called “Blair Witch: Return to Burkittsville” because the style of the film so closely apes the original film. Shadowy, half lit images fill the screen as the camera careens around the screen as if it was tied to the back of an agitated mule. It’s all over the place, rarely resting on any one image for longer than a fraction of a second.

In the first hour it’s same old, same old. It feels like every other found footage film that came after ‘Blair Witch Project. ” Then, about sixty-minutes in things get really shaky… I mean scary. When director Adam Wingard gets over his love of jump scares and does a pretty good job with some body horror—ick—and primal fears of the dark, small spaces in the unknown.

“Blair Witch’s” final third actually made me say “yuck” out loud and question why I was spending my life watching this movie. In a good way. When Wingard moves past the cheap theatrics he concentrates on the uncomfortable scares that horror fans crave. If you want to feel scared in a place where you are actually safe, go see “Blair Witch” in a theatre. For me, the best part of “Blair Witch” was listening to the audience, the other people in the dark, give in to the film’s frights.

Richard’s “Canada AM” interview with “The Following’s” Valorie Curry.

Screen Shot 2014-01-20 at 8.43.09 AMValorie Curry sits down with “Canada AM’s” Richard Crouse to talk about the hit CTV drama series ‘The Following,’ starring Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy.

Watch the whole thing HERE!