Posts Tagged ‘Dane DeHaan’

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS & MORE FOR FEB 17.

Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Erin Paul to have a look at the big weekend movies, the Ice Cube high school comedy “Fist Fight,” the Matt Damon white saviour flick “The Great Wall,” Dane DeHaan in the incomprehensible “The Cure for Wellness” and “My Scientology Movie.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

A CURE FOR WELLNESS: 1 STAR. “feels like an audience endurance test.”

You’ve never been on an office retreat like this one. “A Cure for Wellness” sounds like it could be a self help guide on leading a happier, healthier life but is in fact a mystery thriller about a cure that may be worse than the illness.

Dane DeHaan stars as financial whiz Mr. Lockhart, an ambitious executive in an American company. His boss, the company’s CEO Roland Pembroke, has disappeared at a European wellness spa in the Swiss Alps. The big wig came to the facility to take advantage of the healing waters that run underneath the spa’s castle but later sent a note back to Wall Street. “One cannot willingly return to the darkness when he has the gift of the light. I will not return do not contact me again.”

With the CEO unwilling to return on his own Lockhart’s partners send him to retrieve the AWOL boss so they can unload the company at a huge profit. “The merger cannot go through without Pembrook signing off on certain legal matters.”

One 4000-mile journey later, Lockhart arrives at the castle, missing visiting hours by just five minutes. Without a working phone or WIFI he travels to the nearest village, only to be badly injured and left, stranded at the castle as a patient. As he recuperates it becomes clear the sanatorium is like the Hotel California, you can check in anytime you like but you can never leave!

As the line between real and unreal blur, his search for information on Pembroke takes on the air of a gothic horror story, embroidered with equal patches of history and mystery. It seems there might be a connection to the genetic experiments conducted by a Baron who lived in the castle 200 years previously.

“A Cure for Wellness” has an on-going sense of Gothic unease that builds with every sideways glance and dark and shadowy corner. Director Gore Verbinski aims to find a similar off kilter feel to “The Shining” where every day objects and places take on sinister feel. He spends endless time establishing the atmosphere, time that might have been better spent crafting an interesting story. Many times throughout I didn’t think ‘How will this end?’ but ‘Will it ever end?’

It drones on for two-and-a-half hours, a running time that equals an audience endurance test, throwing characters and ideas at the screen, hoping for one to take hold. It all leads up to a pretty good ‘n twisted climax, one that Vincent Price would approve of, but it takes for too long to get there. Verbinski is known for his unrestrained running times, but please someone explain to him that less really is more.

DeHaan does deserve credit for submitting to some very uncomfortable situations but one has to wonder how he kept a straight face while head doctor and creepy guy Volmer (Jason Isaacs) intones gobbly goop about the cure for the human condition being disease because only then is the hope for a cure. Perhaps if this were a bit campier, played with a sense of how ridiculous it is, it may have been tolerable, but as it stands “A Cure for Wellness” is a Seatbelt Movie, a film so misguided I needed a seatbelt to prevent me from bolting from the theatre.

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS & MORE FOR OCT 7.

screen-shot-2016-10-08-at-10-16-21-amRichard sits in with Beverly Thomson to have a look at the weekend’s new movies, the boozy thriller “The Girl on the Train,” the courtroom drama “Denial,” the rebellious “The Birth of a Nation” and “Two Lovers and a Bear,” starring Tatiana Maslany.

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY OCT 7, 2016.

screen-shot-2016-10-08-at-10-17-07-amRichard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies, the Emily Blunt thriller “The Girl on the Train,” the Nate Parker historical drama “The Birth of a Nation,” Rachel Weisz in a slice of legal history called “Denial” and “Two Lovers and a Bear,” starring Tatiana Maslany.

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

Metro: Two Lovers and a Bear director braved frigid Nunavut landscape to shoot

screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-3-07-26-pmBy Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

The story of two star-crossed lovers on the run from bad memories is at the heart of Two Lovers and a Bear, a new Arctic-set film from Rebelle director Kim Nguyen.

Counselling the couple is a talking polar bear, a philosophical addition to a movie that is part romance, part thriller and all icy cold isolation.

Montreal native Nguyen says the script for the film evolved over time, but many of the elements, including the talking bear came to him on a stopover at the Amsterdam airport.

“I was reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami,” he says. “There are weird gods in the book, kind of like imperfect Greek gods with flaws. It dawned on me that I should have something like an imperfect, flawed deity in the film.”

At the same time he noticed the airport’s giant brass teddy bears and voilà, the idea of an advice-giving polar bear was born.

The bear, played by a real polar bear named Agee and voiced by acting legend Gordon Pinsent, is the most fanciful part of a film that sees Lucy and Roman, played by recent Emmy winner Tatiana Maslany and Dane DeHaan, embark on a physical and metaphysical journey to confront their troubled, violent pasts.

“I’ve seen a lot of people like that,” Nguyen says of the people he met in Nunavut, “(people) who just can’t connect with an organized, dense, compact society. They have to go up North and that’s why you meet very interesting, unique characters up there. Often it is the people who don’t cope with societal norms.”

Nguyen’s unpredictable story intensifies with every twist, finding depth as the volatile Lucy and Roman explore the vast white expanse of their home and their innermost fears.

The lead actors have some heavy lifting to do to navigate the film’s many shifts from comedy, to psychological drama and isolationist horror.

To survive the inhospitable cold of their home both must be strong willed characters but both also wear their fragility on their parka sleeves. As such, Maslany and DeHaan are perfectly cast.

“We met a lot of people,” says Nguyen. “At the beginning it wasn’t defined exactly who Lucy was going to be; where she would come from. We wanted to keep it open with the casting. Tatiana came a little later on. We didn’t even think about her. Coming off of Orphan Black the casting director said, ‘Why don’t we try her? She’s versatile. She has range.’  She was gracious enough to do a screen test. She blew us away. She was totally way up there in the truthfulness and the authenticity. She is really someone who is able to connect. Kind of like Dane.

“I discovered Dane when I saw Place Beyond the Pines. When I saw that, I was certain that Dane wasn’t a trained actor. He was so authentic I assumed he was this guy who had this one role in him. Then I learned he was a trained actor and was really impressed by his performance.”

The six-week Nunavut shoot was gruelling for all, requiring physical stamina and a trait Nguyen calls “one of the biggest, most important qualities”— fearlessness.

“Dane and Tatiana have that,” says the director. “They dive in and they are not analyzing their performance as they’re playing it.”

TWO LOVERS AND A BEAR: 4 STARS. “quite unlike anything we’ve seen before.”

screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-3-07-26-pmThe story of two star-crossed lovers on the run from bad memories is at the heart of “Two Lovers and a Bear,” a new film from “Rebelle” director Kim Nguyen. Counselling them is a talking polar bear, a philosophical addition to a movie that is part romance, part thriller and all icy cold isolation.

Set in Apex, Nunavut, just shy of the North Pole, “Two Lovers and a Bear” is the tale of Lucy (Tatiana Maslany) and Roman (Dane DeHaan), angst-ridden lovers, tormented by recollections of their abusive pasts. The mere thought of Lucy’s father inspires panic attacks and Roman finally put his violent father in the rear view mirror by fighting back and leaving home. Still the thought of it haunts him. When Lucy is accepted into a school program in the south, the pair split, only to be brought back together by tragedy. Together they embark on a journey that forces them to confront their pasts while solidifying their bond.

The emotional stakes rise throughout as Nguyen weaves together magic realism—the silky voice of the polar bear is supplied by Gordon Pinsent—romance and the hard realities of Northern life. It’s an unpredictable story that intensifies with every twist, finding depth as the volatile characters explore the vast white expanse of their home and their innermost fears.

Maslany and DeHaan are an intoxicating combination. Lucy and Roman are strong willed characters, they have to be to survive the inhospitable cold of their home, but both wear their fragility on their sleeves. Desperately in love, the couple can’t live without one another but, paradoxically, are bad for one another. That contradiction at the heart of their relationship feeds the narrative thrust of the film, binding the story’s mishmash of genres.

“Two Lovers and a Bear” covers the kind of troubled relationship we’ve seen in other indie films—two young lovers battling demons—but Nguyen’s bold use of the setting and the strong, naturalistic and soulful performances at the heart of the film make it quite unlike anything we’ve seen before.

CHECK IT OUT: RICHARD’S “HOUSE OF CROUSE” PODCAST EPISODE 68!

Screen-Shot-2015-06-30-at-1.42.28-PM-300x188Welcome to the House of Crouse. Today Tatiana Maslany, Dane DeHaan, Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson and more stop by to talk about their new movies, “Two Lovers and a Bear” and “Denial.” Find out why Maslany was afraid of one of her “co-stars” and why Wilkinson doesn’t love doing interviews. C’mon in, sit a spell and hang out at the good old HoC!

 

 

 

Metro Canada: Emmy winner TATIANA MASLANY stars in TWO LOVERS AND A BEAR!

screen-shot-2016-09-29-at-3-09-38-pmBy Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

Just before Tatiana Maslany flew to Los Angeles to accept an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for Orphan Black I asked her what she’s been doing lately.

“I filmed the movie Stronger and since then I’ve been chillin’ hard,” she laughed.

The Regina, Saskatchewan-born actress may have taken some downtime over the summer, but that is likely the last time off she’ll see for the foreseeable future. Right now she defines the term ‘in demand,’ enjoying the kind of popularity usually reserved for the very top of the a-list. Her Emmy win lit the internet on fire, earning millions of mentions that made her the most talked about person on facebook and twitter that night. Currently she is shooting the last season of Orphan Black and has three movies set for release, including Stronger opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and next weekend’s Two Lovers and a Bear.

The Nunavut-shot film focuses on star-crossed lovers Lucy and Roman, played by Dane DeHaan and a talking bear. Veteran actor Gordon Pinsent lent his kindly voice to the polar bear, but Maslany says she was scared of Agee, the full-size adult female who played the carnivorous title character.

“She can smell women and doesn’t like them,” Maslany said of the bear who stands over seven feet when on her hind legs. “She’s a woman and doesn’t like them. She gets ‘Agee-tated.’ I’m so sorry about that.”

Maslany doesn’t want to discuss the movie’s twists and turns. Instead she’d like audiences to enjoy the story the way she did when she was offered the part of Lucy.

“I didn’t know what to expect at any moment when I read the script. It would flip from this very heavy romance to comedy and it sort of feels like sci fi or a thriller at the end.”

She will say her character has “a restlessness to her spirit and a need to find some stillness and peace and a desperate love of Roman. She can’t live without him and can’t be with him.”

Filmed over the course of six weeks on locations in Nunavut, the shoot for Two Lovers and a Bear was often unforgiving. “Our stills photographer lost chunks of his nose [due to the cold],” she says, but adds that shooting in the isolated location was invaluable to her performance.

“Just as having a real polar bear there,” she says, “being in the actual environment is so much easier and telling and informing in terms of character and how you move through the world. You understand more about why Roman and Lucy are the way they are by being there and living in that kind of environment. You see how two people could need each other so desperately and be the only thing the other has.”

“There are such vibrant youth there. It was really cool to be part of the community. I got to meet and be part of it and see their artwork. At the same time there are a lot of issues up there in terms of things from years back and systemic things. It has this bizarre duality to it.”

“I loved it up there,” she says. “I would go back in a heartbeat.”

Chances are good, however, given her workload and popularity she won’t have time to go North any time soon.

Canada AM: The 69th annual Cannes Film Festival kicks off in Paris

Screen Shot 2016-05-11 at 9.19.54 AMRichard talks about the big films at Cannes this year with “Canada AM” host Beverly Thomson.

Watch the whole thing HERE!