Posts Tagged ‘Dan Gilroy’

NEWSTALK 1010 JIM RICHARDS SHOW: WHAT DID RICHARD CROUSE THINK?

What Did Richard Crouse Think? It’s a weekly game played on NewsTalk 1010’s Jim Richards Show. It’s simple. Richard gives the synopsis of a new movie and Jim and others try and figure out if Richard liked it or hated it.

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY NOVEMBER 24, 2017.

Richard and CP24 anchor Nathan Downer have a look at the weekend’s new movies including “Coco,” the Vietnam reunion movie “Last Flag Flying” and the festive flick “The Man Who Invented Christmas.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

CTVNEWS.CA: “THE CROUSE REVIEW LOOKS AT “COCO” & MORE!

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 “Coco,” the festive flick “The Man Who Invented Christmas” and Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Watch the whole thing HERE!

ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ: 3 ½ STARS. “movie is less interesting than its title character.”

Denzel Washington has been nominated for seven acting Oscars, taking home two for “Glory” and “Training Day.” He’ll likely be nominated again this year for his turn as an idealistic defence attorney in “Roman J. Israel, Esq.” but don’t expect a nod for the film overall.

Washington is the title character, a brilliant behind-the-scenes legal eagle who, for thirty-six years, allowed his business partner to to be the public face of their firm. He’s a throwback to another time with an iPod with 8000 carefully selected deep jazz cuts and suits with lapels wide enough to take flight should the right wind conditions arise. He’s a stickler for the rules, a savant with a photographic memory for details, a sharp tongue and a higher purpose. “Not speaking out is ordinary,” he says. “We are agents of change.”

When his long time partner suddenly dies Roman is forced to work with hotshot lawyer George Pierce (Colin Farrell). Pierce is a shark, a corporate player with four upscale Los Angeles law offices that are essentially plea factories. However, he recognizes Roman’s genius. Roman wants to do the work of the angels, but his unconventional demeanour makes it difficult to find work in his chosen field, civil rights. Short of cash, he takes Pierce up on his offer. A square peg in a round hole, his ideas about reforming the legal system and social revolution don’t endear him to his co-workers.

Soon though Roman has a change of heart. “I’m tired of doing the impossible for the ungrateful,” he says of his impoverished clients. “I have more practical concerns. My lack of success is self-inflicted.” When he uses privileged information for personal gain he sets in motion a series of events he can’t control.

“Roman J. Israel, Esq.” is a character study of a man who betrays himself as well as others. He’s a man whose lifelong beliefs are pushed to the wayside when he butts up against a desperate situation. For a time his life gets better but, because this is a Dan Gilroy movie, you know it won’t last for long. It works for dramatic effect but Roman’s change of attitude rings hollow, as if simply having a few extra bucks in your back pocket—or, in this case, in a duffle bag in the stove—can smooth over all of Roman’s rough edges. The death of idealism is nothing new but the change in Roman never rings completely true.

Perhaps its because this is a legal drama with no courtroom showdown. It’s the anti “Law & Order,” a story that hinges on legal values but is more interested on how Roman believes in them, not why.

Still, while the movie may not satisfy as a frame for this interesting character, Washington impresses. He does edgy, complex work in a movie that is less interesting than its title character.

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS & MORE FOR MAR 10.

Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the big weekend movies, the great ape flick “Kong: Skull Island,” the Shirley MacLaine dramedy “The Last Word” and the animated “Window Horses.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

Metro In Focus: The wild evolution of an island that is truly fit for a king

By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus

Only two things are sure about Skull Island. First, it is home to Megaprimatus kong a.k.a. King Kong and a menagerie of prehistoric creatures. Second, as Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) says in this weekend’s Kong: Skull Island, “We don’t belong here.”

The latest adventures of King Kong take place almost entirely on the island but what, exactly, do we know about the place?

Not much, because Skull Island is uncharted and changes from film to film.

In the new movie, a digital map image suggests the island derived its intimidating name from its gorilla skull profile shape but originally the isle wasn’t called Skull Island. The best-known versions of the Kong story, the original 1933 Merian C. Cooper film and the 1976 Dino De Laurentiis production, never mention Skull Island.

The first movie and its subsequent novelisation describe a “high wooded island with a skull-like knob” called Skull Mountain while the ‘76 film refers to Beach of the Skull. It wasn’t until 2004’s Kong: King of Skull Island illustrated novel that the name was first used. Since then the moniker has stuck.

The same can’t be said for its location.

Over the years it’s been pegged everywhere from the coast of Indonesia and southwest of Central America to the Bermuda Triangle and the Coral Sea off the east coast of Australia.

In reality many places have subbed in for the island. In 1933 several locations were pieced together to create Kong’s home.

Outdoor scenes were shot at Long Beach, California and the caves at Bronson Canyon near Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Everything else was filmed on a soundstage in Culver City using odds and ends from other sets. The giant Skull Mountain gate was later reused in Gone with the Wind’s burning of Atlanta sequence.

De Laurentiis spared no expense bringing the island to life in 1976, moving the entire crew to the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

The shoot began at the remote Honopu Beach, a place the crew were told was deserted. Arriving in four helicopters laden with equipment they were greeted by a honeymooning couple who, thinking they had the place to themselves, had slept nude on the beach.

The impressive stone arch seen in the film — “Beyond the arch, there is danger, there is Kong!” — was natural and so huge years later when an episode of Acapulco Heat was filmed there a helicopter flew underneath it.

Peter Jackson’s 2005 King Kong reboot used a combination of New Zealand’s picturesque Shelly Bay and Lyall Bay as Skull Island’s “jungle from hell.” In the film’s closing credits the director paid tongue-in-cheek tribute to all the stars of the 1933 movie, calling them, “The original explorers of Skull Island.”

This weekend’s installment was shot in Vietnam, Queensland, Australia and Kualoa Ranch, Hawaii, where giant sets were built near where Jurassic World was filmed.

The scenery, as John Goodman’s character says, is “magnificent,” but there was also a practical reason to shoot in these exotic locations. The Hollywood Reporter stated the production shot in Australia to take advantage of a whopping 16.5% location offset incentive — i.e. tax break — offered by the Australian government.

Kong: Skull Island describes the isle as “a place where myth and science meet.”

On film though, it’s a spot where the imaginations of Kong fans run wild.

KONG: SKULL ISLAND: 4 STARS. “a fun romp with some big budget beasts.”

Set in 1973, the “Kong: Skull Island” is unrelated to the Kongs that came before. There’s no Empire State Building, no Jessica Lange, no romance between damsel and beast.

John Goodman is Bermuda Triangle conspiracy theorist William Randa, a man with some wild ideas about an uncharted island in the South Pacific. “This planet doesn’t belong to us. Ancient species owned this earth long before mankind. I spent 30 years trying to prove the truth: monsters exist.” With government funding supplied by a senator (Richard Jenkins) Randa leads an expedition to prove his ideas about certain life forms on the planet. Along for the ride are a military helicopter squadron, a handful of scientists, U.S. military commander Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), former British soldier turned mercenary James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) and antiwar photographer Mason Weaver (Brie Larson).

Arriving at the island they are greeted by the tallest King Kong ever. “Is that a monkey?” gasps Jack Chapman (Toby Kebbell). Some monkey. At over 100 feet he dwarfs his cinematic brothers—1933’s Kong was 24 feet, the 1976 version was 55 feet while Peter Jackson knocked him back to 25 feet for his 2005 adaptation—and easily knocks many of Randa’s helicopters from the air.

The survivors hit the ground running, only to meet up with Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly), a World War II fighter pilot stranded on the island for decades. “You’ve probably noticed a lot of weird things on this island,” he says in the understatement of the century. As they try and brave the treacherous landscape to meet a refuelling team at the north end of the island the motley crew soon realizes Kong isn’t their only or even biggest problem.

At its furry heart “Kong: Skull Island” feels like an anti-war movie. At least half of it does. The opening section, roughly half the movie, suggests the unintentional and deadly consequences that come from dropping bombs were you shouldn’t. “You didn’t go to someone’s house and start dropping bombs and less you’re looking for a fight.” It’s a timely message about unleashing powers we don’t understand in the name of war wrapped in a Vietnam allegory. “Sometimes the enemy doesn’t exist until you show up at his doorstep,” says Cole (Shea Whigham).

Then Reilly enters and with him comes a new shift. What was once a message movie is now a story of survival and giant beasts. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts pivots at this point, staging a series of action scenes with cool creatures, and it works as pure creature feature entertainment. It’s cool to see Kong tossing military helicopters around as though they were Tonka Toys and another scene will make you think twice about sitting on an old hollowed out log. Fans of bigly beast action will be more than satisfied with the final battle between Kong and a massive subterranean people eater.

“Kong: Skull Island’s” social commentary doesn’t fade away completely but Kong’s mighty roar does drown most of it out. Just below the roar, almost out of earshot, is the idea that displays of force aren’t always the way to deal with conflict, a rare sentiment for an action movie laden with WMDs. Mostly the flick provides a fun romp with some big budget beasts and (secondarily) an Oscar winner or two.