Posts Tagged ‘Til Schweiger’

RICHARD’S WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS FROM CP24! FRIDAY SEPT 9, 2022.

I joined CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres.  Today we talk about the latest remake of “Pinocchio” starring Tom Hanks, the historical drama “Medieval” and the house of horrors flick “Barbarian.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

NIAGARA IN THE MORNING: TIM DENIS MORNING SHOW MOVIE REVIEWS!

Richard sits in on the CKTB Niagara in the Morning morning show with guest host Stephanie Vivier to talk the new movies coming to theatres. This week we look at the latest remake of “Pinocchio” starring Tom Hanks, the historical drama “Medieval” and the house of horrors flick “Barbarian.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

CFRA IN OTTAWA: THE BILL CARROLL MORNING SHOW MOVIE REVIEWS!

I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the latest remake of “Pinocchio” starring Tom Hanks, the historical drama “Medieval” and the house of horrors flick “Barbarian.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

YOU TUBE: THREE MOVIES/THIRTY SECONDS! FAST REVIEWS FOR BUSY PEOPLE!

Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to flip a coin! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the latest remake of “Pinocchio” starring Tom Hanks, the historical drama “Medieval” and the house of horrors flick “Barbarian.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

MEDIEVAL: 3 STARS. “The action scenes are absolutely brutal and ham fisted.”

If “Game of Thrones” style decapitations are your thing, the fifteenth-century set “Medieval,” now playing in theatres, may be right up your alley.

Based on the early life of famous Hussite commander Jan Žižka of Trocnov (Ben Foster), “Medieval” is like an old-timey superhero origin story. Žižka’s story is the stuff of cinema. He was a fearsome warrior, a hero who never lost a battle, so the story isn’t what bogs down the movie, it’s the telling of it.

Set in 1402, the film opens with the voice of Lord Boresh (Michael Caine). “Power, tyranny, Violence; Europe is engulfed in war, plague and famine.”

In other words, “Yikes!” The Holy Roman Empire is in chaos, following the death of its reigning emperor. To prevent King Sigismund of Hungary (Matthew Goode) from taking the throne by force, Žižka is conscripted to kidnap Lady Katherine (Sophie Lowe), the French fiancée of Lord Rosenberg (Til Schweiger), a powerful ally of Sigismund.

In retaliation, France sends an army to retrieve her. As the heat rises on the battlefield, so it does between Katherine and Jan, who, when he isn’t busy wielding an axe to fight against the corruption and greed of the ruling class, find the time to fall in love.

From the title on down, “Medieval” has a generic feel. It is bloody and brutal—with the appropriate bone-crunching SFX—when it needs to be, and features fine period details, but the storytelling is formulaic; “Game of Throne” Lite.

There are interesting elements, particularly regarding the warrior’s religious convictions and political leanings, but the Foster feels miscast. His trademarked intensity is missing, which is bewildering considering the amped up nature of the battle footage.

“Medieval” is ham fisted. The action scenes are absolutely brutal, featuring the kind of violence usually reserved for bloody horror movies. The political intrigue is convoluted, and for a film that aims to pay tribute to a real-life hero, inaccurate. It gets the tone of the time correct. The reaction of the rebellious locals, worn down by years of high taxes, feels authentic, but Boresh, for instance, the catalyst of much of the action, has been cut out of whole cloth. It feels as though the history has been manipulated to fit the story director Petr Jakl wanted to tell, rather than fashioning the story around the history.

CTVNEWS.CA: “THE CROUSE REVIEW FOR ‘ATOMIC BLONDE’ AND ‘LADY MACBETH’!”

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 Charlize Theron’s Cold War spy story “Atomic Blonde,” the masterpiece theatre murder mystery “Lady Macbeth” and the found footage scares of “Phoenix Forgotten.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEWS & MORE FOR JULY 28.

Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Erin Paul to have a look at the big weekend movies including Charlize Theron’s Cold War spy story “Atomic Blonde,” the masterpiece theatre murder mystery “Lady Macbeth” and the found footage scares of “Phoenix Forgotten.”

Watch to the whole thing HERE!

Metro In Focus: Charlize Theron kicks butt and takes names in Atomic Blonde

By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus

“I got offered a lot of stuff in action movies that was either the girl behind the computer or the wife,” says Charlize Theron.

That was then, this is now. After dipping her toe in the action genre with Aeon Flux and Mad Max: Fury Road, the South African actress is kicking butt and taking names in Atomic Blonde, a wild spy thriller Variety calls “a mash-up of The Bourne Identity and Alias.”

Based on Antony Johnston’s 2012 graphic novel The Coldest City, it’s a Cold War thriller about an undercover MI6 agent sent to Berlin to investigate the murder of a fellow agent. “I didn’t just want to play a girly spy who depends on her flirty ways,” she says.

To prepare for the gruelling shoot Theron worked with eight personal trainers who taught her the stunt work.

“‘We’re going to pretend to do that, right?’” she asked director David Leitch during the preparation. “David was like, ‘No you’re actually going to throw big dudes.’ Alright, let’s throw some big dudes.”

Throwing big dudes around like rag dolls may look great on film but was a physical challenge for Theron. The Oscar winner twisted her knee, bruised her ribs and clenched her teeth so hard while shooting one of the over-the-top fight scenes she cracked two teeth, requiring dental surgery.

Theron joins a list of dangerous distaff action stars like Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman), Scarlett Johansson (Lucy, The Avengers), Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Jenette Goldstein (Aliens), Angelina Jolie (Wanted, Salt, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider), Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil) and Uma Thurman (Kill Bill, Parts 1 & 2) who give Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson a run for their money.

All of those women owe a debt to two female action stars. Pam Grier and Tura Satana were larger-than-life pioneers, opening cans of whoop-ass on screen at a time when that was primarily the purview of the boys.

Quentin Tarantino directed Grier in Jackie Brown and says she may be cinema’s first female action star. Her films, like Foxy Brown and Sheba, Baby suggest he’s right. Grier could deliver a line and a punch, attributes that allowed her to cut a swathe in the male-dominated action movie market of the 1970s.

Perhaps the wildest female action movie of all time is 1965’s “ode to female violence,” Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! starring Tura Satana as the thrill-seeking go-go dancer Varla.

Experienced in martial arts, Satana did her own stunts and brought her unique style — black leather gloves, Germaine Monteil eyeliner and layers of Max Factor makeup — to the film.

She also supplied some of the movie’s most memorable lines.

When a gas station attendant ogles her cleavage while extolling the virtues of being on the open road and seeing America, Satana ad libbed, “You won’t find it down there, Columbus!”

Time critic Richard Corliss called Satana’s performance “the most honest, maybe the one honest portrayal in the (director Russ) Meyer canon and certainly the scariest.”

“I took a lot of my anger that had been stored inside of me for many years and let it loose,” Satana said of her most famous role. “I helped to create the character Varla and helped to make her someone that many women would love to be like.”

ATOMIC BLONDE: 4 STARS. “stylish film with visceral action scenes.”

“I didn’t just want to play a girly spy who depends on her flirty ways,” Charlize Theron told W Magazine. Mission accomplished. Based on the wild ‘n woolly graphic novel “The Coldest City” by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart “Atomic Blonde” is a Cold War thriller that sees Theron dropkick Daniel Craig or Matt Damon out of the space they’ve occupied as film’s go-to super spies.

Set in 1989, just days before the fall of the Berlin wall, the film starts with the KGB assassination of an undercover MI6 operative in East Berlin. Theron plays Agent Lorraine Broughton, a high-ranking MI6 spy sent to the communist side of the wall to retrieve a dossier containing the names of other vulnerable British intelligence assets. “It’s an atomic bomb of information that could set the Cold War back 40 years!”

Toby Jones and John Goodman as MI6 and CIA head honchos respectively urge her not to trust anyone but she sparks up a personal and professional relationship with an inexperienced French agent Delphine Lasalle (Sofia Boutella). Because everybody wants the dossier she is teamed with shady Berlin station chief David Percival (James McAvoy)—a “feral” man who moonlights selling bootlegged Jack Daniels to tourists—to beat the US, UK, USSR and France to the punch. How? By folding, spindling, mutilating, punching, kicking and head butting. There’s death by cork screw, fist and bullet and everything in between in some of the most dynamic fight scenes we’re likely to see on screen this year (and that includes “John Wick 2).

The trailers make “Atomic Bomb” look like wall-to-wall action. It isn’t. It’s a cold war spy movie with intermittent wild and woolly fisticuffs. And that’s OK. The fight scenes definite highlights and get the pulse racing but to be truly effective all movies must have hills and valleys.

If it was all action it would be like a Jason Statham movie. All talking it would be “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” As it is it hits the sweet spot between the two.

It’s a stylish film with visceral action scenes connected by an original cold war story, compelling characters and German versions of 80s pop hits.

This isn’t a Michael Bay style spectacular, it’s up-close-and-personal bare-knuckled warfare. Theron and her victims grunt and groan as fists hits faces and all manner of mayhem is unleashed. One particularly intense fight scene mixes and matches the above-mentioned grunts and groans with the catchy pop of George Michaels’ “Father Figure.” An even more effective sequence gets rid of the music completely.

The tour de force six-minute fight scene looks like a one-shot wonder. It’s hard to believe there isn’t some trickery involved but the sequence is dazzling nonetheless.

As Broughton, Theron is not a superhero. She comes out on top of most fights but emerges bruised and battered, which lends an air of unpredictability to the =storytelling.

“Atomic Blonde” is a violent, arty spy flick that doesn’t just open the door for Charlize Theron to create an effective spy franchise; it kicks it off its hinges.