Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel to have a look at the weekend’s big releases including the pseudo Bayhem of “Bad Boys for Life,” “Dolittle,” the strange adventures of the doctor who can speak to the animals and France’s entry to the Academy Awards “Les Misérables.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CFRA Montreal morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the seventeen-years-in-the-making sequel “Bad Boys for Life,” the reboot of a remake “Dolittle” and France’s entry for Best International Picture at the Oscars “Les Misérables.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
A weekly feature from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest and most interesting movies! This week Richard looks at the the reunion of Martin Lawrence and Will Smith in “Bad Boys for Life,” the talking animals of “Dolittle” and France’s entry into the Academy Awards “Les Misérables.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CJAD Ottawa morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the seventeen-years-in-the-making sequel “Bad Boys for Life,” the reboot of a remake “Dolittle” and France’s entry for Best International Picture at the Oscars “Les Misérables.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“Second Act,” starring Jennifer Lopez and Leah Remini, isn’t a startlingly novel idea. We’ve seen the story of a person who transcends class and education to change their lives in everything from “My Fair Lady” and “Working Girl” to Amy Schumer’s “I Feel Pretty” and Lopez’s 2002 rom com “Maid in Manhattan.” Part fairy tale, part study of class discrimination, “Second Act” breathes new life into an old trope.
Lopez plays Maya, a New York supermarket clerk who, despite her keen work ethic, gets passed over for a promotion because the other candidate has a college degree and she doesn’t. “Arthur got his MBA from Duke,” she is told. “He’s the best man for the job.” Irritated, she grumbles to her friend Joan (Remini), “I just wish we lived in a world where street smarts equalled book smarts.”
To help in her job search Joan and computer whiz son Dilly (Dalton Harrod) fabricate a resume, pumping up Maya’s credentials to include a degree from Wharton Business School and special skills like mountain climbing and fluency in Mandarin. “I gave you a completely new identity,” Dilly says. “You said you wanted to be fancy, so I Cinderella’d your ass.”
The resume does the trick and she soon lands a job as a consultant for a large skin care company. Surviving on a combo of enthusiasm and street smarts she bluffs her way through despite opposition from the boss’s insecure daughter (Vanessa Hudgens).
Like a Successories poster come to life “Second Act” is an attractively photographed bit of uplift complete with handy dandy inspirational message. “Our mistakes don’t limit us, our fears do.” It’s also rather boring. After a promising start with some giggles provided by Remini’s razor sharp line delivery and some quirky work from Charlyne Yi, the predictable tale of second chances takes a sharp U-turn into melodrama and never recovers.
What might have been a tale of class designations washed down with a joke or two becomes an uncomfortable hybrid of a soap opera and fairy tale.
“Second Act” sees Lopez doing her best with a script that requires little more from her than sitting on the subway looking introspective. This story of second chances won’t hold up to a second viewing.
A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at jason and the Giant Shark a.k.a. “The Meg,” the new Spike Lee joint ”BlacKkKlansman” and the doggie doo of “Dog Days.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard joins CP24 anchor Nick Dixon to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including ”BlacKkKlansman,” the latest film from Spike Lee, the giant shark flick “The Meg” and the doggie stylings of “Dog Days.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard has a look at ”BlacKkKlansman,” the latest film from Spike Lee, the giant shark flick “The Meg” and the doggie stylings of “Dog Days.” with the CFRA Morning Rush guest host Brian Lilley.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
In the dog days of summer comes “Dog Days,” starring a cast of folks including Vanessa Hudgens, “Stranger Things’s” Finn Wolfhard and Eva Longoria brought together by their canines. Expect bastardized cover versions of pooch songs like “Walking the Dog” and “Who Let the Dogs Out?” and more easy sentimentality than you can shake a dog bone at.
Set in modern day Los Angeles the story follows a litter of characters. There’s the host of a TV morning show (Nina Dobrev), her co-host (Tone Bell), a dog rescue owner (Jon Bass) with eyes for a barista (Hudgens) who has a crush on the vet next door (Michael Cassidy). That should be enough, but there’s also a couple (Thomas Lennon and Jessica St. Clair) who leave their unruly dog in the care of her even more unruly brother (Adam Pally) while another family (Longoria and David Cross) whose family is completed by a stray. Meanwhile, in another part of town, an elderly man (Ron Cephas Jones) and his pizza delivery boy (Wolfhard) bond over the love of a pug. Eventually, everyone finds either love or a sense of purpose or both through their dogs.
“Dog Days” is so predictable it’s as if the studio forced a bot to watch hundreds of hours of rom coms and Garry Marshal movies and then sat back as the machine spit out a script based on all the data. Beat for beat it telegraphs what is coming next as though any deviation from the form will result in a case of ringworm.
On the plus side, the dogs in “Dog Days” do not speak. If they could, they might say things like, “Call my agent! What am I doing in a movie as bad as this?”
You will not be bow-wowed by “Dog Days.” Instead you may wonder, not who, but why let the dogs out?
