Posts Tagged ‘David Branson Smith’

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY JUNE 1, 2018.

Richard joins CP24 anchor Nick Dixon to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the romantic nautical disaster flick “Adrift,” Ethan Hawke in “First Reformed” and the thought provoking “Black Cop.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

CTVNEWS.CA: THE CROUSE REVIEW LOOKS AT “FIRST REFORMED” & 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 the romantic nautical disaster flick “Adrift,” Ethan Hawke in “First Reformed” and the thought provoking “Black Cop.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

 

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FOR JUNE 4.

Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan  to have a look at the weekend’s big releases, the romantic nautical disaster flick “Adrift,” Ethan Hawke in “First Reformed” and the thought provoking “Black Cop.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

ADRIFT: 2 STARS. “most of its running time ‘Adrift’ is just that… adrift.”

“Apocalypse Now,” offers up some life advice in the form of one salient quote about crossing lines and the point of no return. To paraphrase. “Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goshdarn right. Unless you’re going all the way.” In the case of “Adrift,” a new film starring Shailene Woodley, it might have been a good idea to never have gotten on the boat in the first place.

Based on the true story of Tami Oldham (Woodley) and Richard Sharp (Sam Claflin), two sailors who meet disaster on a journey across the Pacific from Tahiti to San Diego, “Adrift” is an adventure tale in search of dramatic tension.

When we first meet her Oldham is a twenty-four-year old on hiatus from real life. Struck with a case of wanderlust, she is metaphorically adrift, jumping from place to place with the goal of making enough money to get to the next port. When she meets experienced seadog Sharp she finds someone who can provide companionship on her travels.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,“ he says. “You’re like a bloke.“ “I’ve never met anyone like you,” she replies. “You’re like a woman.“ Cue the kisses.

The newly minted couple take a job to sail a luxury yacht across the ocean they immediately set off on their nautical adventure. All is well until they sail into a class four tropical storm that goes all “Poseidon Adventure” on the yacht. During the storm that Sharp is banged up, left with a broken leg and ribs. His survival is in her hands. The couple drift for forty-one days, exhausted, dehydrated, delirious and hallucinating but not dead. ‘If this hadn’t happened,” she says, “I wouldn’t have us to remember. I wouldn’t trade this for anything.”

Flashing them backwards and forwards from their courtship, to the trip and the disaster, “Adrift” is choppier than the waves kicked up by the storm. The broken timeline shatters any kind of forward momentum. Just as a scene starts to build some heat director Baltasar Kormákur jumps around, skipping through time like a flat stone skimming along the water.

In his interpretation of the material director Kormákur seems intent on creating a new genre, the Young Adult Disaster Romance. The film leads up to the storm, an exciting-ish climax in a movie where nothing interesting happens until the final moments. The romance segments have a light feel, brightly coloured, set to bouncy music. They are cut, in sharp contrast, against the stark scenes of survival. Throughout Woodley and Claflin speak to one another in lines seemingly ripped from a Harlequin Romance Jr. “I sailed around the road to find you,” Richard coos. “I’m not letting you go.” “I just want to go everywhere with you,” she replies. How juvenile is it? It takes them 18 days at sea to discover the booze below deck. Any mature disaster artist would have found it in hours.

”Adrift” is meant to be a voyage of self-discovery but is a little more than a trip to the Young Adult section of the library. With little to no insight on the characters and uneven storytelling, for most of the running time “Adrift” is just that… adrift.

CTVNEWS.CA: “THE CROUSE REVIEW FOR ‘HITMAN’S BODYGUARD’ & ‘LUCKY LOGAN’!”

A new feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” withRyan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson, the Steven Soderbergh heist film “Lucky Logan” and the social commentary on social media of “Ingrid Goes West.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY AUGUST 18, 2017.

Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies including “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” withRyan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson, the Steven Soderbergh heist film “Lucky Logan,” the social commentary on social media of “Ingrid Goes West” and the down ‘n dirty grit of the ironically named “Good Time.”

Watch to the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS & MORE FOR AUGUST 18.

Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the big weekend movies including the Ryan Reynolds/Samuel L. Jackson buddy comedy “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” the Steven Soderbergh heist film “Lucky Logan,” the social commentary on social media of “Ingrid Goes West” and the down ‘n dirty grit of the ironically named “Good Time.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

METRO: Ingrid Goes West dispels social media’s picture-perfect world

By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

I wonder if, in 200 years, aliens will study all our dead Instagram accounts to gain insight into our way of life. If so, you could forgive them if they surmised that everyone in 2017 lived perfect, #blessed lives filled with the wonders of avocado toast and gorgeous sunsets.

The perfectly curated worldview of Instagram is at the heart of Aubrey Plaza’s dark new film Ingrid Goes West. The former Parks and Recreation star plays the title character, a lonely New Yorker who befriends people on Instagram only to get upset when they don’t let her into their lives. Fixated on a Californian social media star with a seemingly perfect life played by Elizabeth Olsen, Ingrid uses her inheritance money and, as the title tells us, goes west in search of the perfect life she sees on her phone everyday.

“Ingrid is in every scene of the movie,” Plaza says, “and I’ve never been in a movie where I’m in every single scene. It was exciting to me, the idea that I would have so much time to take that character on a journey and dig really deep and peel back all those layers. I really related to the idea of feeling like you want to connect and you want someone to like you.”

Plaza is on Twitter (@evilhag‏) and Instagram (plazadeaubrey) but says the movie reinforced the idea that everything on social media is not real life.

“It really reminded me of how all of the perfect, beautiful things you see are not real,” she says. “They’re purposeful. The film is a great reminder that we are all flawed and we have to be careful about the stories we tell about ourselves. I think it is important to build awareness about how it makes us feel at the end of the day.

“For me, personally, I always try to be authentic in every way that I can, but it really hard on social media because you have so much control over what you can show. As a consumer of it I think the movie has taught me that it is not always what it seems.”

Ingrid Goes West has the makings of either a comedy or psychological thriller but mostly plays like a cautionary tale. As a portrait of a woman who buys into the InstaMyth of an effortlessly curated life, it’s a withering comment on the real stories behind social media’s hashtagged pictures. Unlike her onscreen alter ego Plaza understands ‘likes” do not equal love.

“I’m really interested in talking about social media and encouraging other people to talk about it and how it is affecting them and how much time they spend on it,” she says, before adding, “Personally I hope it goes away. I hope it doesn’t stick around forever. I’m sure it will change. It will morph into something else.”

The thirty-three year old actress admits social media has positive aspects but remains sceptical of its effects.

“There are people who get support there and it is a global connector so I don’t want to dismiss those parts of it,” she says, “but I think there is something so isolating about it. That is what I really don’t like. There is more value in being present and living in the world that you are in.”

INGRID GOES WEST: 4 STARS. “mostly plays like a cautionary tale.”

Recently an article titled, “My Instagram’s Perfect, My Real Life is Not,” described the author’s myriad of professional and personal problems. It’s a laundry list of millennial angst framed by a line that appears midway through the story. Everything is real life was going wrong, but, she says, “you wouldn’t know any of this if you were to look at my social media presence.”

It’s not an uncommon story. In 200 years from now aliens, who will only understand the world through dead Instagram accounts, will believe that everyone lived perfect, #blessed lives filled with the wonders of avocado toast and gorgeous sunsets. Carefully curated Instagram pages, and a woman who loves them, are at the heart of “Ingrid Goes West,” a new film starring Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen.

Plaza plays Ingrid, a lonely New Yorker who befriends people on Instagram only to get upset when they don’t let her into their lives. “Lame and basic,” Ingrid goes so far as to show up, uninvited, to a “friend’s” wedding with a can of mace. Insta-blocked after that event, she fixates on Taylor Sloane (Olsen), a Californian social media star with a seemingly perfect life. With inherited money from her late mothers and state Ingrid, as the title tells us, goes west in search of the perfect life she sees on her phone everyday.

A fat bank account and plenty of nerve—Ingrid kidnaps Taylor’s dog so she can return him and insinuate herself into her life—she becomes friends with the InstaStar and her artist husband (Russell Wyatt). At first everything is hunky dory.

“You’re so funny. You’re so awesome. You’re the greatest person I have ever met,” gushes Taylor after knowing Ingrid for only a day. Soon, though, Ingrid is exposed for what she the possessive sociopath—a single white female for the Internet age—who gets jealous when Taylor hangs out or worse, is photographed with other people, and even her own brother.

“Ingrid Goes West” has the makings of either a comedy or psychological thriller but mostly plays like a cautionary tale. A portrait of a woman who buys into the InstaMyth of an effortlessly curated life, it’s a withering comment on the real stories behind social media’s hashtagged pictures. “Likes” do not equal love.

At the heart of this is Plaza, an actor unafraid to plumb the depths of desperation in her characters. Unlikeable in almost every way, Ingrid is as deep as a lunch tray and yet, because Plaza plays her as a human and not simply a caricature, she remains compelling.

Olsen, whose famous twin sisters were proto Instagram stars, embodies the kind of superficial social media maven who thinks nothing of asking—with a perfect vocal fry—a stranger to lay on the ground to take the perfect “candid” shot of her fabulous life. She’s the neo-American Dream, a perfectly fluffy confection with a dark heart and a permanent spot on the guest list for every hot club in town.

On the sidelines, but still memorable is O’Shea Jackson as Ingrid’s Batman-obsessed landlord Dan. He isn’t given much to do—he spends more time reading comics than cruising Instagram—but is a likeable and charming presence.

“Ingrid Goes West” essays the phony baloney world of social media but does so with grace and depth, exposing the disconnect many people feel in a digital world.