Posts Tagged ‘Rene Russo’

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY OCTOBER 31, 2014.

Screen Shot 2014-10-31 at 2.18.07 PMCP24 film critic Richard Crouse reviews the weekend’s big releases, “Maps to the Stars,” “Nightcrawler,” “Before I Go to Sleep” and “Horns.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S REVIEWS FOR OCT 31, 2014 W “CANADA AM” HOST BEVERLY THOMSON.

Screen Shot 2014-10-31 at 10.13.14 AM“Canada AM” film critic Richard Crouse reviews “Maps to the Stars,” “Nightcrawler” and “Before I Go To Sleep.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

NIGHTCRAWLER: 4 STARS. “Gyllenhaal’s bold performance stands out.”

1406229123_jake-gyllenhaal-zoomThe old maxim “If it bleeds it leads” has been heard at least once in every newsroom the world over. The more sensational the story, the better placement it will receive in the newspaper or on the nightly news. “Nightcrawler,” a new movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal, takes it one step further.

The news director of KWLA, Los Angeles’s lowest rated morning news show wants more than just blood. What leads on her broadcast? “A screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut.”

Gyllenhaal is Lou Bloom, a slick talking drifter who falls into the freelance news gathering business after he overhears a stringer negotiate a fee for some ENG footage. He has the chutzpa and talent to get lurid footage of crashes, fires or murders no one else can…. or will. He violates crime scenes to get “first look” footage and isn’t above sabotaging the competition. “If you’re seeing me,” he says, “you’re having the worst day of your life.”

His sole client is Nina (Rene Russo), news director of the “vampire shift” at KWLA. His sensational footage is giving the station a much needed ratings bump, but soon Lou is revealed to be a compulsive manipulator who will not let anyone or anything get in the way of his success.

The name “Nightcrawler” and the October 31 release date suggests that this is a horror movie, conjuring up images of vampires and other nocturnal creeps, but this isn’t a traditional horror film. Instead it’s about the horror of a greedy sociopath and the ripple effects of his behavior.

Lou is a ruthless predator, a high school dropout who speaks in platitudes—“A friend is a gift you buy yourself.”—but isn’t above using violence to get what he wants. He’s bent on success at any price and regards one bloody car crash victim not as a person, but as “a sale.” Gyllenhaal dives in with both feet, delivering a terrific performance that fills the space vacated by Gyllenhaal’s vanity with tension, menace and charisma. When he says, “What if my problem wasn’t that I don’t understand people but that I don’t like them?” he proves to be remarkably self aware, embracing his bad behavior and being well rewarded for it by Nina.

Russo, as the news director who buys into Lou’s methodology, is a cautionary tale of exploitative media and Riz Ahmed hands in a star making turn as Lou’s naïve intern Rick.

“Nightcrawler” paints an ugly picture of the news business, but it’s not simply a satire or condemnation. It’s frequently funny and there are some very tense action scenes, but at the end it is Gyllenhaal’s bold performance that stands out.

Mr. Peabody & Sherman travel through time to the big screen.

mr__peabody__sherman_2014-wideBy Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

Jay Ward may not a household name, but many of the characters he created are.

As the Grand Poobah at Jay Ward Productions he produced the animated television shows that gave us Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Peabody and Sherman and George of the Jungle among others.

His cartoons weren’t just for kids. The Los Angeles Times wrote, “The good ones, which Ward was a master at creating, worked at two levels: one direct and another wonderfully satiric.”

This weekend his characters take over the big screen in Mr. Peabody & Sherman, an animated film starring the voices of Modern Family’s Ty Burrell, Stephen Colbert and Leslie Mann.

Based on Peabody’s Improbable History segment from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, the movie sees the duo use the WABAC machine to ping pong through time, interacting with everyone from Marie Antoinette to King Tut to Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein.

Mr. Peabody & Sherman isn’t the first film based on Ward’s characters.

In a 199 television movie (originally shot in 1988 for theatrical release) SCTV alum Dave Thomas played Boris Badenov, “world’s greatest no-goodnik.” With his partner-in-crime Natasha Fatale (Sally Kellerman) he leaves Pottsylvania for the United States to retrieve a micro-chip. TV Guide said, “as a 90-minute feature film, it’s at least 80 minutes too long,” but it’s worth a gander to see one of the rare live action performances of June Foray, the original voice of Rocky.

Brendan Fraser brought two of Ward’s characters to life, George of the Jungle and Dudley Do-Right.

George of the Jungle is a riff on Tarzan. He’s boy raised in the jungle by an ape (John Cleese) but who never mastered the art of swinging from tree to tree. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 56% Fresh Rating, but the film remains most memorable for the catchy “George, George / George of the Jungle / Strong as he can be / Watch out for that tree,” theme song by the Presidents of the United States of America.

Two years later Fraser was back in another Ward inspired movie about a bumbling Canadian Mountie called Dudley Do-Right who “always gets his man.”

Co-starring with Sarah Jessica Parker and Alfred Molina, the story saw Dudley track his nemesis, the depraved Snidely Whiplash. Bad reviews—USA Today’s called it a “Dead-carcass spinoff of Jay Ward’s animated TV favorite.”—doomed the movie, but the character lives on as part of an amusement park ride called Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls at the Islands of Adventure theme park.

Finally, despite an big name cast—Jason Alexander, Rene Russo and John Goodman—The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle bombed at the box office despite Robert De Niro doing a take on his famous “You talkin’ to me?” speech from Taxi Driver.