ALBUMS Red (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift 2012 was a simpler time: As conspiracy-theorists announced the approach of the world’s end, Taylor Swift was easing into pop music with catchy breakup songs. Nine years later, she has re-recorded her chart-topping album Red, adding 10 new songs (from the vault) that[Read More…]
Film and TV
‘Get Back’ is a time capsule of a pivotal breakup in music history
Warning: Spoilers ahead Before John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were The Beatles, they were The Quarrymen—a happy-go-lucky skiffle group. With Starr joining in 1962, The Quarrymen became The Beatles and catapulted into stardom. They will always be known for bringing some much-needed flair and gaiety to[Read More…]
‘Firebird’ is a stunning, emotionally vulnerable portrait of the cold war
Warning: Spoilers ahead For over three decades, the image+nation Film Festival has worked to promote local and international queer filmmakers, and this year is no exception. From Nov. 18-28, the festival played a variety of international 2SLGBTQIA+ films at the Centre PHI, including Firebird//, an Estonian film based on Sergey[Read More…]
‘The Wheel of Time’ turns, and women are behind it
Robert Jordan’s famous fantasy novel series The Wheel of Time has long been considered unadaptable to film and television due to its complex world and the hundreds of characters that populate it. Amazon Video’s new spin on the series, of which the first three episodes premiered on Nov. 19, undertakes[Read More…]
‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ fails to recapture the magic of its predecessor
Hollywood’s obsession with reboots has given birth to one of its worst yet, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Arriving in theatres across North America on Nov. 19, this long-delayed film might have been better off going straight to video-on-demand. Although director Jason Reitman is the son of the original installment director Ivan Reitman,[Read More…]
DannyBoy: A practice in the absurd
Warning: This review contains spoilers. Every once in a while when the moon is hanging high and my coffee tastes especially bitter, I come across a special kind of movie, one that is so strange that I can’t look away. To say that DannyBoy is an example of this phenomenon[Read More…]
There’s something seductively toxic about ‘You’ season three
Warning – Spoilers ahead ! Previous seasons of You have presented all the makings of a modern romantic story: Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy would do anything for girl. This time around, however, boy happens to be an obsessive stalker whose love language includes nothing[Read More…]
‘Eternals’ takes forever to almost achieve greatness
After numerous iconic filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese and Denis Villeneuve made disparaging comments about the standards of superhero films, Marvel Studios faced extra public pressure to create innovative and exciting iterations of the familiar genre. Eternals follows several members of an immortal alien race who secretly lived on Earth[Read More…]
‘The French Dispatch’ is the height of the Wes Anderson aesthetic
Nearly three years after his last feature, beloved American filmmaker Wes Anderson is back with The French Dispatch. Premiering in Toronto and theUnited States on Oct. 22, the film was released in theatres across Canada on Oct. 28. Anderson described it as a “love letter to journalism,” and it is[Read More…]
‘Dune’ is a return to the grandeur of in-person film
The pandemic has placed restrictions on movie theatres since March 2020, forcing many large studios to push back the release dates of their most anticipated films. One of the victims of these delays was Dune. Following its premier at the Venice International Film Festival, Dune finally debuted on HBO Max[Read More…]