Posts Tagged ‘Christine’

TORONTO STAR: Auto-themed podcast, book and streaming suggestions to devour next!

I write about fun podcast, book and streaming shows for the car fanatic to enjoy for the Toronto Star!

“To make ourselves feel better during the pandemic, we leaned into old favorites. We binge watched “Seinfeld” and “Fraser,” listened to classic rock and reread our favorite books. Those creature comforts made us feel better, and helped pass the hours. They were the pop culture equivalent of comfort food. But like meatloaf, the ultimate comfort food, you can’t eat it every day. You have to shake it up and try new things…” Read the whole thing HERE!

TORONTO STAR: “Fasten your seat belt, these rides are scary”

“As a child cars and trucks terrified King. ‘They seemed so large, and I seemed so small. I had the same imagination then as I do now,’ he told Bobbie Wygant in a TV interview in 1986. ‘Bulldozer treads looked so cruel. I would imagine what would happen to my little fingers if they started to move by themselves…’

I write about scary rides and eerie autos in today’s Toronto Star! Read the whole thing HERE!

WHAT TO WATCH WHEN YOU’VE ALREADY WATCHED EVERYTHING PART 10!

What to watch when you’ve already watched everything Part Eight! Binge worthy, not cringe worthy recommendations from Isolation Studios in the eerily quiet downtown Toronto. Three movies to stream, rent or buy from the comfort of home isolation. Today, newsrooms, vigilantes and a twelve-year-old vampire. #Christine #HarryBrown #LetMeIn

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

CHECK IT OUT: RICHARD’S “HOUSE OF CROUSE” PODCAST EPISODE 70!

Screen-Shot-2015-06-30-at-1.42.28-PM-300x188Welcome to the House of Crouse. “If it bleeds it leads,” is an accepted mantra around newsrooms these days but back in 1974 it was a new, controversial idea. In the based-on-true-events film Christine Rebecca Hall plays Christine Chubbuck, an investigative reporter at a local ABC affiliate in Sarasota, Florida. She was particularly disdainful of the idea until she became the poster child for news sensationalism by announcing to her viewers, “In keeping with WZRB’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see complete coverage of an attempted suicide,” before putting a gun to her head and pulling the trigger. Rebecca Hall stops by the HoC to discuss the film and the life of Christine Chubbuck.

 

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY OCT 14, 2016.

screen-shot-2016-10-14-at-4-39-11-pmRichard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies,“The Accountant,” starring Ben Affleck as a deadly bookkeeper, “American Honey” starring Sasha Lane, “Unless” with Catherine Keener and “Christine” with Rebecca Hall!

Watch the whole thing HERE!

CHRISTINE: 3 STARS. “aloof but human, edgy and without a trace of sentimentality.”

screen-shot-2016-10-11-at-11-19-42-am“If it bleeds it leads,” is an accepted mantra around newsrooms these days but back in 1974 it was a new, controversial idea. Christine Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall), an investigative reporter at a local ABC affiliate in Sarasota, Florida, was particularly disdainful of the idea until she became the poster child for news sensationalism.

In “Christine,” a based-on-true-events film, Chubbuck is working at local station WZRB. She’s a steely presence, a serious person doing light news. “People are listening to me,” she says, “so I have to be sure I’m really saying something.” Reports on strawberry festivals and local events are the station’s stock in trade but the station manager (Tracey Letts) is desperate to get higher ratings. How? “Juicier stories,” he says. “If it bleeds it leads.” When the station owner (John Cullum) decides to poach one or two of the Sarasota on-air talents for his much larger Baltimore new division, Christine sees that as a way out. “So if I get some footage of fat people burning in cars and I’m on my way to Baltimore?”

Her progression to the larger market is stymied by illness and depression—“My life is a cesspool,” she says.”—and culminates with the news reporter becoming the news. On July 15, 1974 Chubbuck was on air, reading the news when announced, “In keeping with WZRB’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see complete coverage of an attempted suicide,” before putting a gun to her head and pulling the trigger.

The events in “Christine” are well documented, so the shocking finale doesn’t come so much as a shock but the inevitable consequence of history. With the element of surprise removed what’s left is a look at the woman at the heart of the story. Hall plays Chubbuck as an almost otherworldly presence, someone who doesn’t quite feel comfortable in her own skin, always judging herself and those around her. “You’re not always the most approachable person,” co-worker George Ryan (Michael C. Hall) tells her, and that is the beauty of Hall’s work. In a terrific performance that elevates the movie, she plays Chubbuck as aloof but human, edgy and without a trace of sentimentality.

METRO TIFF: Christine explores true story of reporter’s on-air suicide

screen-shot-2016-09-13-at-5-59-12-pmBy Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

“If it bleeds it leads,” is an accepted mantra around newsrooms these days but back in 1974 it was a new, controversial idea. In the based-on-true-events film Christine Rebecca Hall plays Christine Chubbuck, an investigative reporter at a local ABC affiliate in Sarasota, Florida. She was particularly disdainful of the idea until she became the poster child for news sensationalism by announcing to her viewers, “In keeping with WZRB’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see complete coverage of an attempted suicide,” before putting a gun to her head and pulling the trigger.

“There are a lot of films that portray misfits and odd the people as cool,” says Hall during a stop at the Toronto International Film Festival. “I don’t want to say it fetishizes it but sometimes it makes it seem aspirational or trendy. The access [to Christine] for me personally was feeling like you are different and not excepted. That can be excruciating. Especially if you are a woman, especially at that time when you were operating it in un-meritocratic system. She had integrity. She wanted to serve your community. That was her driving force but she was not rewarded for that. [People around her] thought, ‘Well, you’re a lady in a bit weird.’ They didn’t know how to deal with that.”

Chubbuck’s progression to larger markets was stymied by illness and depression—“My life is a cesspool,” she says in the film.—and culminated with the news reporter becoming the news.

“To me Christine is someone who went through her life every day thinking, ‘OK what does it look like to be normal?’ What she perceives to be normal. She looks to everyone for affirmation. Am I doing OK? Did I get away with it today? Am I like you? Am I accepted? Sometimes she’s really good at it and sometime she’s really bad at it but regardless her community accepts her. The tragedy of the film is that she doesn’t see that. It is a compassionate film. It is a cautiously optimistic film about people.”

REBECCA HALL SIDEBAR:

“I don’t think I have given [a role] like it before and I probably won’t again because it is one of those jobs that if you are incredibly lucky you get maybe three of them in a career. And that’s only if you are incredibly successful and lucky and often only if you were a man.”