Blue is the Warmest Colour has attracted a lot of critical attention. This could stem from its accolades at Cannes this summer for its seven-minute long sex scene. What I found interesting were the comments that arose from the portrayal of the women in the film. Manohla Dargis, writing in[Read More…]
Film and TV
NTS graduate Colm Feore graces local stage once again
It’s no secret that there is a healthy amount of tension between Anglophone and Francophone cultures in Montreal, but one place the two co-exist beautifully is at NTS, a school that fosters the acting, writing, and directing talents of young people of both languages. Canadian actor Colm Feore graduated from[Read More…]
Adam Devine’s prime time
If you’re into raucous laughter and slacking off when you should be doing something productive, you’re probably familiar with a little show called Workaholics. The crew of lazy, hilarious telemarketers (played by Blake Anderson, Anders Holm, and last—but definitely not least—Adam Devine) have been making waves with their uniquely ridiculous[Read More…]
Gerontophilia: an unconventional love story
Gerontophilia, the first ‘mainstream’ venture of provocative Toronto based director, writer, artist, and photographer Bruce LaBruce, is the beautifully shot story of Lake (Pier-Gabriel Lajoie), an 18-year-old gerontophile (one who is sexually attracted to the elderly) and his love affair with 82 year old Melvin (Walter Borden). In the film,[Read More…]
The Italian surveillance job
Gianfranco Rosi’s panoramic portrait of the working communities connected by Rome’s Grande Raccordo Anulare (GRA) highway hews closely to broad-brush expectations of what one might find in the region: a man chews a cigar in the golden bathtub of a palatial home, a fisherman trawls for eels at dawn, and[Read More…]
Blue Jasmine : a riches to rags story
Jasmine French—the character that Cate Blanchett is already generating serious Oscar buzz for portraying in Blue Jasmine—behaves like she could have been plucked right off the set of another Oscar-caliber film: Titanic. Jasmine is an obnoxious, narcissistic social climber who, like the Titanic itself, is sinking dramatically throughout the movie.
Despite ethereal visuals, Gravity is full of narrative antimatter
For a space film, Gravity is fairly un-spacey. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney star as astronauts who must struggle to survive when a space mission goes horribly wrong. Gravity doesn’t disappoint visually—director Alfonso Cuarón’s famous long takes seem particularly amiable to outer space—but the film repudiates much of the intellectual legwork done by previous sci-fi masterpieces. Insofar as Gravity’s message is being reduced to humanity finding itself in adversity, the film is as thematically sophisticated as a made-for-TV space horror. But such a criticism may mean little to some. As a straightforward action flick, Gravity is certainly meritorious, with some flashy technical bells and whistles thrown in.
Eat, drink, and be merry…unless you’re not
collider.com collider.com After tending to their vegetable garden and sharing a warm cup of tea, Tom and Gerri Happle go home to fill their wine glasses and cook a hearty dinner. Occasionally, they invite friends, or their son Joe, to break bread with them. Through thick and through thin, from[Read More…]
Midseason Sitcom Roundup
poptower.com poptower.com Episodes While its concept sounded great, the Episodes pilot is not as exciting and hilarious as it should have been. The show, starring Matt LeBlanc of Friends fame and some Brits, plays off a familiar Hollywood theme: taking a British comedy hit and bringing it over to America.[Read More…]
True Grit
Many of the films that will be contending in this year’s Academy Awards were released during the holiday season. For this reason, we bring you a rundown of the best movies from December 2010 that you should be sure to catch in theatres before school starts taking over.
