Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk the new movies coming to theatres including “Yesterday,” a musical fantasy about a struggling musician who gets by with a little help from his friends, “Annabelle Comes Home,” the continuation of the devil doll story from “The Conjuring” and “Isabelle,” a psychological drama with a neighbourly twist.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard has a look at the new movies coming to theatres, including the Beatles-based musical fantasy “Yesterday,” the devil doll flick “Annabelle Comes Home” and the psychological drama “Isabelle” with CFRA Morning Rush host Bill Carroll.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Toys rule at the box office these days. “Toy Story 4” and “Child’s Play” made big bank last weekend. This week marks the return of Annabelle, the $1 billion devil dolly. The wickedest toy since Chucky she’s the creepy, glassy-eyed star of “The Conjuring” prequels.
On screen Annabelle, an old-fashioned doll possessed by evil spirits, has raised all manner of havoc. Before she was captured by “self-described “demonologists, ghost hunters and kooks” Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) she terrorized orphans and haunted children. “The doll,” says Lorraine, “is a beacon for other spirits.”
To keep the world safe from the demonic doll the Warrens stored her in a glass box at their Occult Museum (a basement that looks like a prop warehouse run by Bella Lugosi) in Connecticut. There she is controlled by chapel glass from an old church blessed by a priest to prevent her from causing any more trouble. But what happens if the spell wears off?
In “Annabelle Comes Home” a babysitter’s (Madison Iseman) snooping friend (Katie Sarife) upsets the spiritual balance of the museum, allowing the artefacts to do what they’re meant to do, cause trouble. Now everyone in the house, including the Warrens’ ten-year-old daughter, Judy (McKenna Grace), is a target of evil. “Annabelle. She’s doing all this,” says Judy. “She wants a soul today.”
As with all other “Conjuring” universe movies “Annabelle Come Home” takes its sweet time building an atmosphere of dread to leave you queasy and uneasy. For much of the running time the weirdest thing that happens is an invisible, ghostly hand breaking a glass of milk and starting the stereo. There are jump scares but they don’t deliver much of a payoff. Nothing is singularly shocking, it’s more the cumulative effect of evil versus innocence that disturbs. Director Gary Dauberman knows that the long game, the gradual reveal of evil, complete with the old-school now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t-theatrics, is creepier than overt scares.
“Annabelle Comes Home” works because it creates a mini universe with its own set of rules and God help you if you break them. Best of all it’s an old-fashioned film that doesn’t rely on gore to sell the thrills. Instead there’s lots of laboured breathing, wide eyed disbelief, low-fi drive-in thrills and characters you want to survive.
Richard joins CP24 anchor Nathan Downer to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the Elton John fantasy flick “Rocketman,” the foot-stompin’ “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” and the fashion documentary “Halston.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard has a look at the new movies coming to theatres, including the glittering Elton John musical fantasy “Rocketman,” the big monster movie “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” and the fashion doc “Halston” with CFRA Morning Rush host Bill Carroll.
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 movies! This week Richard looks at the Elton John fantasy flick “Rocketman,” the foot-stompin’ “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” and the fashion documentary “Halston.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
If Blue Öyster Cult were to write the hit song “Godzilla” today they’d have to change the lyrics. In 1977 they sang, “Oh, no, there goes Tokyo.” Today the prehistoric sea monster has expanded his worldview beyond Asia and is now concerned with the entire planet.
The action in “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” begins when paleo-biologist Dr. Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) and her daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown) are kidnapped by terrorists. What would these bad people want with this Emma and Madison? Turns out Emma belongs to the crypto-zoological agency Monarch, a scientific watchdog group who study the Titans, creatures long believed to be myths. Along with her ex-husband Dr. Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler) Emma invented “the Orca,” a device that allows communication with these mysterious beasts. More importantly, for the bad guys at least, it can also “control them using their bioacoustics on a sonar level.”
As reluctant hero Mark teams with Dr. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Dr. Graham (Sally Hawkins) to save Emma and Madison from the kidnappers the Titans, Mothra, Rodan, the three-headed King Ghidorah and others, rise, threatening to destroy the earth. It’s the ultimate clash of the Titans as Godzilla (who now appears to have a beer belly) stomps in to level the playing field. Cue the Blue Öyster Cult: “Go, go, Godzilla (yeah).”
“Godzilla: King of the Monsters” is a remarkable achievement. It’s one of the most incomprehensible movies in the “Godzilla” franchise and that is really saying something. This story of restoring harmony to the world by releasing these angry monsters is pure codswallop and remember, this is the series that once devoted an entire movie to the king of the monsters teaching his dim-witted son how to how to control his atomic breath.
I’ll start with the script, and I only call it that because it contains words and was presumably written by people and not some kind of Kaiju-Auto-Cliché generating device. Ripe with pop psychology (“Moments of crisis can become moments of faith.” #Deep), horrible dialogue (“We’ve opened Pandora’s Box and there is no closing it!” #howmanytimeshaveweheardthat?) and several big emotional moments you won’t care about because the characters are walking, talking b-movie stereotypes, the movie is as clumsy as the script is dumb.
But you don’t go to a Godzilla movie for the human content; you go to see Titans battling it out and on that score “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” delivers. Unlike the 2014 Gareth Edwards reboot the new film wastes no time in introducing the radioactive monsters. We then sit through a bunch of pseudo-scientific pontification until the main event, the cage match between G-zil and his three-headed foe. In those moments the film improves, mostly because these characters don’t spout endless exposition about saving the world. They simply fight. It’s WrestleMania with fire-breathers and when they’re wreaking havoc it’s a good, fist-pumping time.
“Godzilla: King of the Monsters” is in 3D—Death, Destruction and Decibels—and has a certain kind of cheesy appeal. Watching the cast of good international actors try and play it straight as they muddle through the nonsense leading up to the climax is fun for a short time but next time I hope we get more actual monsters and less monstrous scripting.
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the Elton John musical fantasy “Rocketman” and the big monster movie “Godzilla: King of the Monsters.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard joins CP24 anchor Nathan Downer to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the return of Newt Scamander in “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald,” the political doings of “The Front Runner” and the arthouse heist of “Widows.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
