Archive for June, 2014

WATCH RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL MOVIE REVIEWS ALL WEEKEND!

Screen Shot 2014-05-09 at 9.47.12 PMWant to know how to spend your theatre-going dollars this weekend? Richard’s CTV NewsChannel reviews for  ‘Jersey Boys’ (two stars), ‘Think Like a Man Too’ (three stars) and ‘The Rover’ (three stars) run all weekend! Tune in and check them out!

Richard’s CP42 weekend reviews of “Jersey Boys” and “Think Like a Man Too”!

Screen Shot 2014-06-20 at 2.32.25 PMRichard’s CP42 weekend reviews of “Jersey Boys” and “Think Like a Man Too” with George Lagogianes!

 

 

 

 

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RICHARD’S REVIEWS FOR JUNE 13, 2014 W “CANADA AM” HOST Marci Ien.

Screen Shot 2014-06-20 at 9.45.12 AMFilm critic Richard Crouse gives ‘Jersey Boys’ two stars while ‘Think Like a Man Too’ gets three stars.

Watch the whole thing HERE!

 

 

 

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JERSEY BOYS: 2 STARS. “a fourth-wall-breaking musical with the original show’s basics.”

Still from Clint Eastwood's Jersey BoysFor it’s rotating selection of Four Seasons hits like “Sherry” and “Walk Like a Man,” “Jersey Boys” could be called a jukebox musical.

But not only for that reason.

Like a coin-operated jukebox that relies on push buttons, stacks of vinyl and electric inner workings to make music, “Jersey Boys” feels like a mechanical retelling of the popular Broadway show.

The story begins in 1951 Belleville, New Jersey and follows childhood friends Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young who won a Tony for his performance of Valli on stage), Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza) and Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda) from the streets to the studio and with the addition of songwriter and keyboardist Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen), from clubs to concert halls as the Four Seasons, one of the biggest selling acts in rock history. Hits like Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like A Man and Can’t Take My Eyes Off You kept them at the top of the charts but ego, in-fighting and money troubles blew them apart.

Clint Eastwood has turned his camera on the Broadway hit, creating a fourth-wall-breaking musical that sticks to the basics of the original show. They were a proto-boy band—imagine New Kids on the Block without a drum machine—rubbing shoulders with the mob (in the form of Angelo ‘Gyp’ DeCarlo played by Christopher Walken) while presenting a clean-cut image that masked their scrappy real lives.

Eastwood sets up the story of the band well enough. From their hard scrapple beginnings to the height of their success, it’s a rags to riches story and when it focuses on the four band members it works. Unfortunately it takes a cast of characters to tell the tale and Eastwood seems content to allow his supporting actors to go off the charts theatrical.

Kathrine Narducci as Mary Delgado, Frankie’s wife and the woman who advised him on the sexiest spelling of his stage name (replacing a “y” with an “I” in Valli), for instance, is given a juicy scene near the beginning of the film only to allow it to spin out of control into a caricature of a femme fatale.

Speaking of stereotypes, Mike Doyle seems to be doing his best Paul Lynde impression as producer Bob Crewe.

By the time the end credits roll it’s clear that the movie is a caricature of a real life story. Nothing feels completely genuine, as if the theatricality of the stage version bled into the film.

There are some lovely set pieces that evoke an idealized 1950s New Jersey. In them the local beat cops know everybody’s name and girls at bars fall instantly in love with doo wop band singers. It feels like a postcard to the idea of what the 1950s and 60s were like. Eastwood has smoothed away all the hard edges, leaving only a finely polished “Happy Days” back lot style vision of the era.

What remains unchanged is the music. The songs are undeniably catchy and well performed by a cast, three quarters of which come from the various incarnations of the stage show. They are earworms that sound authentic, by and large thanks to Young who perfectly mimics Valli’s soaring multi-octave falsetto voice.

The bulk of the movie, unfortunately, doesn’t soar as high as Young’s voice. The Broadway show is basically a rock concert with a story. The big screen treatment requires more. As game as the actors are, they aren’t supported with enough real humanity in the script to make the audience care about them as people. The songs will stay in your head, the characters won’t.

THINK LIKE A MAN TOO: 3 STARS. “more Hart than actual heart”

1393878315000-XXX-THINK-LIKE-MAN-TOO-MOV-jy-1077The idea of turning self-help books into movies isn’t new. Fifty years ago Helen Gurley Brown’s guidebook “Sex and the Single Girl,” which featured advice on “How to be Sexy,” among other useful tips, was made into a film starring Natalie Wood and “Mean Girls” was an adaptation of the high school survival manual “Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughters Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence.”

So the idea of the 2012 farce “Think Like a Man” based on Steve Harvey’s best-selling book, “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man,” wasn’t a stretch.

But now a sequel? The question is: How do you conjure a second story out of a book with no plot? Set it in Vegas and let Kevin Hart do all the heavy lifting.

The idea of Harvey’s tome is to give women an inside look into the workings of the male psyche and take control of their relationships. It’s typical battle of the sexes stuff and on film they play it for laughs.

The four couples from the original movie— Maya and Zeke (Meagan Good and Romany Malco), Dominic and Lauren (Michael Ealy and Taraji P. Henson), Jeremy and Kristen (Jerry Ferrara and Gabrielle Union) and Tish and Bennett (Wendi McLendon-Covey and Gary Owen)—plus the almost single Cedric (Kevin Hart) reunite in Las Vegas—“The number one destination in the world for people who do the craziest thing… get married.”—for “Think Like A Man Too.”

They’ve gathered for the wedding of Candace (Regina Hall) and Michael (Terrence Jenkins) but you know as soon as someone says, “I’m going to give you the perfect wedding… nothing is going to go wrong,” that, of course, everything is going to go wrong. The romantic getaway is jeopardized when the bachelorette and bachelor parties spin out of control.

“Think Like a Man Too” plays like a tamer version of “The Hangover.” There’s even a cameo from a world champion boxer but “TLAMT” doesn’t have the cynical edge of the Bradley Cooper movie. Instead, it plays it safe, making Sin City look like a wild but not terribly dangerous place to get married. All the usual Vegas clichés are well represented, from the gambling montage to the glaring neon lights to flaming cocktails to skimpy bikini-clad women to male strippers. What happens in Vegas also happens in the movies… quite often. The only thing missing is an Elvis impersonator or two.

Director Tim Story moves the story—what there is of it—along faster than a spinning roulette wheel. Montages and music video interludes keep the pace up, disguising the fact that there isn’t much going on. The story is thin, despite the multiple storylines crisscrossing throughout.

Kevin Hart seems to be trying to singlehandedly make up for a dearth of story by pulling out all the stops. No pratfall or face pull is beyond him. He even recreates Tom Cruise’s “Risky Business” underwear dance. His hyperactive performance stands in stark contrast to the more laid back work from his co-stars, but it does add a splash of life to every scene he’s in. Only his enthusiastic reading of a line like, “I’m sick of this non-tourage,” could pull laughs from some of this material.

“Think Like a Man Too” is a thin story bolstered by a few laughs (courtesy of Hart) and good-looking people navigating the choppy waters of modern romance. The advice contained within has more Hart than actual heart and is unlikely to provide much self-help, but has the same kind of bland appeal as its predecessor.

THE ROVER: 3 STARS. “not pedal-to-the-metal, but it packs a primal punch.”

HQ-The-Rover-Stilll-With-Robert-Pattinson-Guy-PearceNear the beginning of “The Rover” there is what can only be described as an Anti-Michael Bay car chase. Slow speed with lots of brake action, it plays more like the OJ Bronco chase than anything we’ve come to expect from Hollywood. Like the rest of the movie it’s not pedal-to-the-metal, but it packs a primal punch.

The story of Eric (Guy Pearce), the proverbial man with nothing left to lose, plays like a recently discovered Michelangelo Antonioni 1970’s nihilistic thriller. Or maybe like the love child of “Mad Max” and “Dude, Where’s My Car.”

Eric makes Clint’s Man With No Name seem like an open book. He’s a dangerous man, a crack shot set into motion when three thieves steal his car. Determined to get it back he is relentless in his efforts as he combs the Australian outback. Along the way he picks up Rey (Robert Pattinson) the only person who knows the whereabouts of the thieves’ hideout and presumably the stolen car.

“The Rover” seems to take its narrative thrust from a single line of dialogue. “Not everything has to be about something.” It’s an action movie punctuated by occasional bursts of violence, but where most of the action is internal. Holy Antonioni! The real turmoil here is inside the heads of the leads, Pearce and Pattinson.

The edgy non-narrative works for most of the film, it’s only when the action becomes slightly more external that the bleak, existentialist atmosphere is broken. The more standard the movie becomes, the less interesting it becomes. Eric is searching for his car, but the last forty minutes of the film feels like director David “Animal Kingdom” Michod is searching for an end to the story. When it does come it feels tacked on, as though Michod felt compelled to provide some sort of reason for Eric’s violent behavior. Stopping the film about a minute before he actually wraps the story would have been more in line with the bleak approach established in the first hour instead of the lame coda provided here. Sometimes it’s best not to know why characters do the things they do.

Pearce underplays Eric, allowing the menace of the character to grow with every unanswered question and steely glare. It’s a terrific performance that allows him to use his considerable on-screen charisma to get the audience inside Eric’s coldblooded behavior.

Pattinson takes the route of many pretty boy actors before him and uglifies Rey as much as possible. With blackened teeth, sweat stains on his clothes and “Sling Blade-esque” accent, he’s moving away from heartthrobdom into the next phase of his career. Nothing about this movie or his performance will appeal to the teenage Twihards who crammed theatres to see him as Edward Cullen. And that’s a good thing. Leaves more room for the rest of us.

“The Rover” is a frustrating movie, and not because of its glacial pacing or taciturn characters, but because it fails to push its desolate, neo-noir Western themes all the way.

OBVIOUS CHILD: 4 STARS. “the secret weapon is star Jenny Slate.”

maxresdefaultThe Sundance hit “Obvious Child” arrives in theatres with a reputation. In its film festival run it got labeled “the abortion rom com.” While that shorthand description is technically accurate, it’s also reductive, ignoring the film’s well-crafted and hilarious coming-of-age story about accepting responsibility, to concentrate on the more sensational aspect of the story.

Jenny Slate plays Donna, a twentysomething comic with an infectious laugh who works at New York’s Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bookstore to pay the bills. She’s funny, charming and a bit of a loose canon who uses her life as the basis of her comedy. One night after a show her boyfriend (Paul Briganti), who’s been having an affair and is tired of providing material for her act, brutally dumps her, leaving her devastated and vulnerable.

She drinks wine, engages in “a little light stalking,” and tries to work out her pain on stage. A couple of weeks later, still smarting from the split, and after one—or three—drinks too many she has rebound sex with Max (Jake Lacy), a straight laced business school student she meets at the comedy club.

Their tryst leads to pregnancy—”I remember seeing a condom but don’t know,” she recalls through a hangover haze, “like, exactly what it did.”—and Donna’s decision to terminate the baby. She has no doubts she’s doing the right thing but she is unsure whether she should tell Max.

The debut feature of writer-director Gillian Robespierre rides the line between feminist comedy—without taking an overt pro-choice or pro-life position—and full-blown rom com. The female characters are well defined without an ounce of cliché but at the same time the movie embraces the clichés of the romantic comedy genre while simultaneously subverting them. Harry and Sally, for instance, may have celebrated Valentine’s Day, but not at a Planned Parenthood office.

None of this would work unless the film was genuinely funny, which it is. The cast is uniformly excellent. They all feel genuine but the secret weapon is star Jenny Slate.

Slate does the heavy lifting in “Obvious Child,” appearing in every scene and carrying the emotional weight of the story, while still providing the lion’s share of laughs. She could have been the indie manic pixie dream girl—she does cute things like scream when surprised and then scream again because she surprised herself with the first yell—but her portrayal of Donna is much more raw than that. She’s complicated, like real people are, working through confidence and life issues. Best of all, in a summer packed with two-hour plus movies, she does it in a tightly packed 83 minutes!

Metro Reel Guys: Jersey Boys “sets up the story of the band well enough.”

jersey-boys-movie-poster-13By Richard Crouse & Mark Breslin – Metro Canada Reel Guys

SYNOPSIS: Based on the Broadway hit of the same name, Jersey Boys begins in 1951 Belleville, New Jersey and follows childhood friends Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young who won a Tony for his performance of Valli on stage), Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza) and Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda) from the streets to the studio and with the addition of songwriter and keyboardist Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen), from clubs to concert halls as the Four Seasons, one of the biggest selling acts in rock history. Hits like Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like A Man and Can’t Take My Eyes Off You kept them at the top of the charts but ego, in-fighting and money troubles blew them apart.

STAR RATINGS:

Richard: 2 Stars

Mark: 3 Stars

Richard: Mark, I thought director Clint Eastwood set up the story of the band well enough. From their hard scrapple beginnings to the height of their success, it’s a rags-to-riches story and when it focuses on the four band members it works. Unfortunately it takes a cast of characters to tell the tale and Eastwood seems content to allow his supporting actors to go off-the-charts theatrical. By the time the end credits roll it’s clear that the movie is a caricature of a real life story. Nothing feels completely genuine, as if the theatricality of the stage version bled into the film.

Mark: Richard, I think I know when the film goes off the rails. When the band breaks up two thirds of the way through, everything that follows feels forced, cheesy, and the emotions play a bit phony. But I still enjoyed the movie. I saw the theatrical version twice and I’m a big fan of the group. The music makes a bigger impact in the stage version, but some of the characters play better in the film. None of the acting is stellar, but it’s always fun to watch Christopher Walken do his “good mobster” schtick, and Erich Bergen as Bob Gaudio, the brains of the group, really stood out for me.

RC: The songs are undeniably catchy and well performed by a cast, three quarters of which come from the various incarnations of the stage show. They are earworms that sound authentic, by and large thanks to Young who perfectly mimics Valli’s soaring multi-octave falsetto voice. The bulk of the movie, unfortunately, doesn’t soar as high as Young’s voice. The Broadway show is basically a rock concert with a story. The big screen treatment requires more.

MB: I thought it did-in places. The feuding between the members of the group worked better in the movie, but the opening scenes of Italian boys in da hood has been done many times before and went on way too long. Note that it takes one full hour before they sing their first hit, Sherry. The movie filled in a lot of texture about the Jersey mob and life on the road that wasn’t in the play, but you know, Richard, it’s about a rock group in the Sixties, so I don’t even have to like it to like it.

RC: I liked the style, the songs but I wanted more from the characters. The songs will stay in your head, the characters won’t.

MB: And after Valli got his name upfront of the group, shouldn’t it technically have been “Frankie Valli and the Three Seasons?”

KATIE CHATS: C.C.E. Awards, RICHARD CROUSE, TV PERSONALITY/HOST

Screen Shot 2014-06-18 at 7.22.21 AMWatch Richard’s “Katie Chats” interview from the Canadian Cinema Editor’s Awards HERE!

Here’s some info on Katie Chats! “KATIE CHATS  is an online entertainment network based out of Toronto, Canada. Since July 2012, the network has posted over 1,400 interviews with TV and film professionals who work in front of and behind the camera. Katie Uhlmann, the host of KATIE CHATS, is setting out to create the largest database of interviews with Canadian Talent in the world.”