Richard’s “Canada AM” Interview with David Byrne on Contemporary Color
Richard interviews Talking Heads legend David Byrne on his Luminato event Contemporary Colour.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Read more about the event HERE!
Archive for June, 2015
REVIEW OF RICHARD’S BOOK: “Elvis is King” at 2paragraphs.com
From 2paragraphs.com: “Author Richard Crouse, a Canadian film critic and culture vulture, smartly tells this tale of Costello’s beginnings — indeed he tells the tale of the invention of Elvis Costello the character. Another star of the book is Stiff Records, which was Dr. Frankenstein to Costello’s monster — and to his monster hits.”
“Elvis is King” according to “Be Stiff: The Stiff Records Story” author
By Richard Balls (author of Be Stiff: The Stiff Records Story and Ian Dury: Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘N’ Roll)
My Aim Is True has the strongest single identity of any of the albums contained in the pantheon of Elvis Costello’s work. It is also the most iconic. So Richard Crouse’s look at both the record and the inchoate, pre-Attractions Costello is a welcome addition to any fan’s bookshelf.
Crouse followed his hero’s progress from afar – Liverpool, Nova Scotia, in fact – after identifying the bespectacled singer on the other side of the Atlantic as someone who was “making music that spoke to me”. Fortunately, his pocket-sized book (just 118 pages) is no hagiography and far more instructive than a song-by-song dissection of the record he got his older brother to bring home for him.
Costello’s early musical influences were as diverse as the records he would go on to make, from The Siamese Cat Song by Peggy Lee, which as a toddler he demanded that his mum play, through to The Beatles, The Supremes and Gram Parsons. He was only 16 when he got up to play in public for the first time in the crypt of a church in Richmond, and by all accounts it did not go well. However, a move from London to Liverpool saw him develop a taste for American country-flavoured rock and the kind of groups that were inspiring groups to venture out into pub back rooms. He and his friends followed suit.
This scene-setting is vital as it explains why, as punk was frothing at the mouth, an agitating young singer was recording a country-tinged album with a Californian bar band. At this point The Attractions hadn’t been hired, and it was with Clover that he recorded his debut at Pathway Studios.
There is, rightly, much emphasis on Dave Robinson and Jake Riviera’s maverick label Stiff Records, in whose scruffy offices the transformation from computer-operating geek to cool new waver began. It was Stiff’s keen understanding of promotion and marketing stunts that helped launch such a difficult-to-market artist. His arrest for busking outside the Hilton Hotel in London where CBS executives were holding a conference resulted to him being signed and MAIT being released in the US.
Fan or not, he doesn’t shy away from aspects of the Costello’s early career that some found off-putting. The labelling of some of Costello’s anti-romance songs as misogynist is, says Crouse, “a fair charge”, while the abrasiveness he cultivated on-stage and press interviews is chronicled in a chapter headed Prince Charmless. On stage he could be no less prickly. “I see we’ve got some cunts in the audience tonight,” he snarled during the Stiff tour of 1977 on which he deliberately played songs no one knew.
There are no original interviews with Costello or any of the musicians involved in MAIT, Crouse instead getting the thoughts of a host of other writers. Nor are there any images in this latest in the pop classics series. But fans will find plenty to feast on in a book that documents a seminal record and the arrival of one of the most gifted songwriters of his generation.
RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY JUNE 19, 2015.
Richard’s CP24 reviews for “Inside Out” and “Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
RICHARD’S “CANADA AM” REVIEWS FOR JUNE 19 WITH MARCI IEN.
Richard’s “Canada AM” reviews for “Inside Out,” “Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman” and “Deli Man” with host Marci Ien!
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Metro Canada: Sometimes a great speed, Paul Newman and “Winning.”
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
Adam Corolla holds the Guinness Book of Records title for “most downloaded podcast,” is the author of two books and a filmmaker whose most recent movie is a documentary called Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman.
Just don’t call it a documentary.
“I wanted to make this documentary feel like a movie and not a documentary,” he says. “Sometimes documentaries feel like homework. I think if you strike the balance correctly you can entertain and learn.”
Most of Newman’s fans found out about him through iconic movies like Cool Hand Luke, The Sting or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Not Corolla. He discovered Newman by buying and restoring the actor’s race cars.
“I always respected and appreciated him but I was never a big Paul Newman fan,” he says. “I knew his movies were some of the best movies but [I didn’t like him] any more than any other celebrity whose movies I’ve enjoyed. Tom Hanks didn’t race cars and I race cars but I don’t have six of Tom Hanks’s race cars so I figured I’d keep it to something I know. I have Paul’s cars which is what propelled me towards Paul Newman.“
The film paints a picture of a deeply private man who loved pranks, cars and cherished the outlet that racing gave him as a pressure valve release from the day-to-day of being one of the most famous men on the planet. It focuses on his passion for racing but this isn’t a film for gearheads only. Racing is treated as a portal into the actor’s personality, an entrance into what really made him tick. By zeroing in on one of his passions Winning gives us a broader look at what made the man tick.
“I don’t think he had a half assed way of doing anything,” says Corolla. “There’s a part in the Newman movie where he says, ‘I guess if I don’t want to do it anymore, all I have to do it stop.’ I always think about those words. All Paul Newman had to do was stop at any point. He didn’t need to do any of it. The salad dressing, the popcorn, the racing. He didn’t need the money. When Paul Newman sixty-five years old he could have just stopped, and he always knew, ‘If I want to stop I could just stop but until then, I’m busy.’”
NEED FOR SPEED: CELEBRITY RACERS
Screen legends Paul Newman, Steve McQueen and Gene Hackman all had the need for speed that would have allowed them to turn pro, but they aren’t the only serious race car contenders.
Patrick Dempsey recently came in second at the legendary Le Mans 24 Hours in France and Furious 7 star Paul Walker competed in several top level amateur races.
When he isn’t playing Mr. Bean Rowan Atkinson is a car enthusiast, racing (and crashing) a McLaren F1 while Star Trek actor Eric Bana has been driving competitively since 1996. Jason Priestley began open wheel driving in 2002 and is co-owner of the FAZZT Race Team.
Less successful than his fellow actors—on the track, anyway—was racing wannabe Tom Cruise. Driving opposite Newman at the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) competition in the late 1980s, Cruise fishtailed twice and spun out completely on a turn. As far as Cruise was concerned the SCCA was nicknamed See Cruise Crash Again, with one of the drivers joking, “I drive faster going to work.”
Phyllis Smith was an NFL cheerleader to a warehouse worker before acting
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
Actress Phyllis Smith has had many jobs in and out of show business.
She was working as a casting associate when director Ken Kwapis fell in love with the way she read opposite the auditioning actors and cast her as Dunder Mifflin saleswoman Phyllis on The Office. She appeared on the hit show for nine years and just as that series wound down she got a call from Pixar.
Inside Out producer Jonas Rivera was flicking around the stations one night when he settled on Bad Teacher, a 2011 comedy co-starring Smith and Cameron Diaz. The raunchy film couldn’t be further afield of Pixar’s family friendly movies, but Rivera liked the sound of Smith’s voice. He knew she was the actor to play one of Inside Out’s main roles, the living embodiment of an emotion in an eleven-year-old girl’s head.
“He picked up the phone and called [director] Pete Docter and said, ‘I think I’ve found our Sadness,’” recalls Smith. “I guess it was the timidity in that scene and the timbre of my voice. That’s the nice thing about working for Pixar, when you get that call they pretty much already know what they want.”
Smith joins an all-star cast — Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling and Amy Poehler as Fear, Anger, Disgust and Joy respectively — in a film that Variety called, “the greatest idea the toon studio [Pixar] has ever had.”
“Long after we’re gone people will still be watching,” Smith says. “Sort of like the Wizard of Oz.”
Smith, who is much more gregarious in person than her onscreen persona would suggest, is riding high today but it was a long circuitous route to television and film success.
“I started out as a professional dancer,” she says. “A show dancer. No stripping, but there were plumes, feathers, g-strings and all that. I was also in two ballet companies, a jazz company. That was my passion but I had an injury and knew logically it was time for me to make a switch in my career. I was getting older. So I just did what I had to do to pay my bills.”
She worked as a receptionist, an NFL cheerleader and manned the box office at a Los Angeles movie theatre. She dressed as Marilyn Monroe and played Steve Carell’s mother in a deleted scene from The 40-Year Old Virgin, but one job stands out for her.
“I worked for JC Penny in the warehouse tagging the merchandise,” she remembers. “I used to stand there and tag thousands of fishing lures or bowling balls or roller shades, which were heavy as heck to lift around. The people were great to work with but the merchandise was a little challenging.
“I used to stand there, thinking about life, wondering what it is we all have in common because we’re not all given the same opportunity. Some people’s health is impaired when they’re born while others are charmed with intelligence or looks. I thought, ‘There has to be something that we all have. A commonality.’ I figured out that it’s the ability to love. We all, in some form or another, want to love and be loved. That was my big revelation. My lightbulb moment. Also, if you’re standing on a concrete floor, make sure you’re wearing comfortable shoes or you’ll pay for it later.”
INSIDE OUT: 4 ¾ STARS. “it will make you laugh, cry and think.”
If you’ve ever looked at someone and wondered what’s going on inside their head—and who hasn’t?—the new Pixar film “Inside Out” tries to provide some answers. Loosely based on the mood swings of director Pete Docter’s twelve-year-old daughter it’s an action adventure set in the subconscious of a young girl.
The set up is simple. A Minnesotan family, Mom (voice of Diane Lane), Dad (Kyle MacLachlan) and eleven-year-old daughter Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), leave their comfortable Midwestern life behind in favour of business opportunities in San Francisco. Riley leaves behind her friends, her school and her beloved hockey team; everything she’s ever known.
Plopped down in a new city, homesick and surrounded by new people, she becomes moody. She’s completely guided by her emotions, which happen to run things from Headquarters, located deep inside her thinking box. In these San Fran days and nights Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) rule the roost, while Joy (Amy Poehler) tries to hold things together. Navigating Riley’s cerebrum, Joy journeys through long term and core memories, the Islands of Personality and Dream Productions to realize it takes a variety of emotions to make a balanced life.
I don’t know if there is such a thing as an instant classic but “Inside Out” is the best argument for creating the term I’ve come across for some time. From dazzling animation, to a script that toggles between childlike wonder and ingenious introspection “Inside Out” is glued together with a degree of emotional acumen not often found in mainstream film. In other words, it will make you laugh, cry and think.
Like the best of Pixar’s work—“Toy Story,” “Up,” “WALL-E”—“Inside Out” works on multiple levels. It is, first and foremost a family film designed to entertain everyone from the young’uns to grandma, but it’s also simultaneously a flight of fancy and a grounded story about growing up that kids (and anyone who has ever been a kid) will relate to. The movie may deal with abstract thought, but the idea that without sadness there can be no joy, and vice versa, is clear as day.
“Inside Out” is a film that will deepen with repeat viewings, which is probably a good thing as when it hits Blu Ray kids are going to want to watch it again and again, and for once, parents won’t mind joining in.
WINNING: THE RACING LIFE OF PAUL NEWMAN: 3 STARS. “not just for gear heads.”
“Racing became his passion and he went for it.” So says Paul Newman’s “Butch Cassidy and he Sundance Kid” co-star Robert Redford. Although Newman didn’t start racing cars until his late 40s, when most racers are thinking about retirement, it became a permanent part of his life following the making of the 1969 film “Winning.”
In that movie he plays Frank Capua, an up-and-coming racer with aspirations of winning the Indianapolis 500. For maximum realism it was decided the stars—Newman and Robert Wagner—would drive their own cars. He had always been interested in motor sport but had never been behind the wheel of a race car until signing up at a high performance driving school in prep for the film. He immediately felt the need for speed and became obsessed. “After that he got so boring,” laughs Redford. “[Racing] was all he talked about. It drove me crazy.”
As a driver and the owner of the Newman/Haas Racing team the actor would mentor Willy T. Riggs, the first African American championship racer, and win more than 100 races and 8 Drier’s Championships in IndyCar Series. Newman, after trying his hand at football and boxing, had found his sport. “I didn’t have any physical grace. The only thing I found any grace in was an automobile.”
“Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman” paints a picture of a deeply private man who loved pranks, cars and cherished the outlet that racing gave him as a pressure valve release from the day-to-day of being one of the most famous men on the planet. A combination of contemporary interviews with the likes of Jay Leno, Patrick Dempsey and “Cars” director John Lasseter and archival footage, the movie isn’t just a biographical look at one facet of Newman’s life. It focuses on his passion for racing but this isn’t a film for gearheads only. Racing is treated as a portal into the actor’s personality, an entrance into what really made him tick. By zeroing in on one of his passions “Winning” gives us a broader look at what made the man tick.
Director Adam Corolla (who restores and races Newman’s cars) is clearly a fan but it is his passion for both racing and Newman that fuels the doc.
