House of Crouse

What to watch when you’ve already watched everything Part Four! Binge worthy, not cringe worthy recommendations from Isolation Studios in the eerily quiet downtown Toronto. Three movies to stream, rent or buy from the comfort of home isolation. Today, rogue cops, troubled troubadours, a chef and a story about a cat!

What to watch when you've already watched everything Part Three! Binge worthy, not cringe worthy recommendations from Isolation Studios in the eerily quiet downtown Toronto. Three movies to stream, rent or buy from the comfort of home isolation. Today, road warriors, romantic zombies and an underemployed dancer.

What to watch when you've already watched everything Part Two! Binge worthy, not cringe worthy recommendations from Isolation Studios in the eerily quiet downtown Toronto. Three movie choices to stream, rent or buy that will help fill the minutes until we can comfortably cough in public once again. And no, "Electric Boogaloo" is not one of the selections.

What to watch when you've already watched everything. Binge worthy, not cringe worthy recommendations. It's a long title, I know but in self isolation I have more time on my hands than usual. Here are three movies you may not have seen that are available to rent or buy on VOD and streaming services that can help pass the minutes, hours, weeks... whatever, until we are allowed to touch our faces again.

This week on The Richard Crouse Show Podcast: Two of Richard’s favourite interviews from the most recent season of “Pop Life.” Singer-songwriter, author, political activist and occasional actor Bob Geldof stops by the Pop Life bar. He became famous as the lead singer of the Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and became a legend when he and Midge Ure founded the charity supergroup Band Aid to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia and went on to organise the charity super-concert Live Aid… He is an accomplished solo artist whose charitable work continues to this day. They were supposed to talk about the Boomtown Rats, “Citizens of Boomtown,” their first album in 36 years and a lead single, “Trash Glam Baby,” but, as you’re about to find out, that was just a starting point for a much wider conversation.

Then Richard welcomes an actor who plays a doctor on one of the most popular shows on television. You’ve seen Christina Chang in films like 28 Days and Random Hearts, and on television on 24, CSI: Miami, Boston Legal, Suits, and Desperate Housewives but she is best known as Dr. Audrey Lim on The Good Doctor. We talk about a little bit of everything, including what it was like to move to the United States from Taiwan when she was a teenager and the kind of research she does about medical procedures to convincingly play a doctor on TV.

Like most everybody else I’m self-isolating in this very odd time. With no movies to review and my television show "Pop Life" on hiatus I’m finding things to keep myself busy. Today I spent a chunk of my day going through closets, finding discs of unlabelled photographs and other bits and pieces that have piled up in the nooks and crannies of my house and I came across a set of interviews I did at a rather loud party at the Tavern on the Green in New York City in 2009 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the release of The Wizard of Oz.

I mixed and mingled with some of the original Munchkins like Karl Slover, who was just two feet tall when he played the first trumpeter, Villager Munchkin Ruth Duccini, member of the Lollipop Guild Jerry Maren and Judy Garland’s daughter Lorna Luft, while enjoying Wizard of Oz themed drinks like the Gin Tornado. But mostly I soaked up the stories from some of the folks who were there when Judy Garland was swept away to a technicolour OZ.

So, I banged the interviews together in a podcast, the first project from the newly dubbed Isolation Studios. Somehow the movie makes perfect sense for right now. "Someplace where there isn't any trouble? Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat or train. It's far, far away... behind the moon... beyond the rain."

This week on the Richard Crouse Show Podcast: Three years ago Alexis Alexander had a corporate advertising agency career. Then his second child was born with a physical ailment that kept the family in and our of Sick Kids Hospital. Alexis then changed up his life and started writing and self publishing Children's books based on his family called Friendly Fables.

Since 2017 Alexis has written and self-published 14 books, released a Children's Rap album that went to #1 on Itunes in November, and now performs in schools 2 to 4 times a week.

This week on the Richard Crouse Show Podcast: “I wasn’t delivered by a stork, I was pulled out of a hat.” That’s what my guest Julie Eng says about how she arrived in the world. Julie grew up learning and performing magic side-by-side with her father, who was a well known magician on the west coast and she is now an in demand performer and the executive director of Magicana, a Toronto-based organization dedicated to the exploration and advancement of magic.

This week on The Richard Crouse Show Podcast: Albert Shin, director of “Disappearance at Clifton Hill.”

Some info on the movie: “Downton Abbey’s” Tuppence Middleton is a woman troubled by a childhood incident. As a little girl on a fishing trip with her parents, she witnessed the kidnapping of a one-eyed boy. Years later, after the death of her mother she returns home to sell the family’s run-down motel, the Rainbow Inn. Sifting through some old photos she comes across some old photos that dredge up memories of the terrible event.

Instead of packing up and leaving town she opens an investigation. “I’m someone who saw it,” she says. “Saw them take him. I was seven. I was there when it happened and I have proof.” When she uncovers the story of some local performers, the Magnificent Moulins, and their missing and presumed dead son she wonders if he could be the one-eyed boy. Her sister Laure (Mindhunter’s Hannah Gross) doesn’t believe her story—Abby is a pathological liar—but local historian and podcaster Walter (David Cronenberg) does. “Do you know what happens when a body hits the bottom of the gorge?” he asks. “Think swallowing a live grenade.” That would explain why no body was ever found, but it opens the door to a conspiracy that leaves Abby questioning her sanity. “There’s a lot of history round these parts,” Walter says, ominously.

This week on The Richard Crouse Show: “Nose to Tail” writer/director Jesse Zigelstein and star Aaron Abrams. “Nose to Tail” is the story of an abrasive chef as he struggles to make a go of his failing restaurant over a one day and night.

Synopsis: Waking up hung-over in his cramped downstairs office, Daniel begins planning a special meal for a VIP table of investors who, if impressed, might provide the financial lifeline the restaurant needs to survive. Before dinner service begins, however, he must deal with an unhappy landlord, a disappointed ex-wife and the loss of a sous-chef. Also, like flies buzzing around a rotten piece of meat, there’s a food truck across the street that may be siphoning Daniel’s customers and an annoying food blogger who seems to know more about the state of Daniel’s restaurant than Daniel does.