month : 01/2016 39 results
4Score

45 Years a devastating drama

Movie review: 45 Years Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay play a married couple who uncover a long-buried secret that changes everything they think about their marriage in this devastating British drama      

The Hollars cried out for Krasinski

Film: Sundance Film Festival The veteran star of The Office says becoming a father brought new meaning to Jim Strouse's tragic-comedy about a dysfunctional family struggling to connect By Katherine Monk PARK CITY, UT — The closing night moment bordered on awkward. Sundance Film Festival director John Cooper celebrated the fact he wouldn’t have to introduce any more films at this year’s festival, and in the next breath, introduced the world premiere of John Krasinksi’s The Hollars. The veteran star of The Office and Michael Bay’s 13 Hours looked a little surprised at the suggestion of duress, but took it all in stride as he thanked Sundance for the incredible privilege of unveiling his sophomore effort on Sundance’s final night of premieres. “Sundance was always the goal,” said Krasinski to a sold-out crowd at Park City's Eccles theatre Friday.  Originally attached to the script as the star, Krasinski said he took on actor-director duties because he was ...

Pop This! Patti Smith’s M Train

Podcast: Pop This! The pop culture savants are bowled over with emotion as they crack the spine of Patti Smith's latest book about 'grief, coffee and travel' in their first-ever book club episode  
3Score

The Finest Hours survives a perfect storm of flaws

Movie review: The Finest Hours The story of a split oil tanker off the Massachusetts coastline looks fantastic but leaves a slick of limp scenes and dramatic debris floating in its wake  

Audrie and Daisy and Rehtaeh and Amanda

Film: Sundance Film Festival Audrie & Daisy breaks down the door of teen secrecy to expose flaws in a legal system that allows for social media bullying in the wake of sexual assault By Katherine Monk PARK CITY, UT — The movie is called Audrie & Daisy, but it could just as easily have been called Amanda Todd and Rehtaeh Parsons because the stories are so similar: A young woman is sexually exploited, then shamed and harassed on social media to the point where she feels she has no option but to take her own life. It’s become a tragic fact of modern puberty, and as Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk’s (The Island President) new documentary makes abundantly clear, there are no easy answers to a problem that requires wholesale change to both the legal system and the secret social world of teens. “You think you’re having the conversation with your kids, but there’s so much more to say… which is why I am so grateful for this film,” said Cohen after the film’s ...

Sundance Critic’s Notebook

Film: Sundance Capsule Reviews Keeping it in the Family Norman Lear: Another Version of You (Directed by Rachel Grady, Heidi Ewing. Featuring Norman Lear, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Mel Brooks) Norman Lear revolutionized the small screen by creating characters such as Archie Bunker, Maude and the Jeffersons, but as this sweet documentary portrait makes abundantly clear, he was also a true Mensch. Constantly striving to make the world a better place by forcing his fellow citizens to face intolerance and prejudice through narrative, Lear found the fussy fulcrum between entertainment and enlightenment. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s (Jesus Camp, Detropia) opening night feature doesn’t reinvent any wheels of form as it relates the story of Lear’s fascinating life, but it does try some different techniques, such as archival projections over re-enacted moments, and the irritating use of a young actor to play Lear’s inner child and former self. Because Lear is such a grand ...

Greening the bleak midwinter

Food: Recipe - Broccoli-Quinoa Salad with Buttermilk Dressing The colour palette may be all black and white this time of year, but you can treat your palate to a rainbow of taste with this delicious salad that feels like spring By Louise Crosby The winter colour palette is bleak but beautiful, all black and white and shades of grey. Snow has a way of softening the hard lines, of putting some magic into the landscape. There’s nothing prettier, for example, than a dusting of snow on bare branches, or an expanse of rooftops iced like cakes in white frosting. The only problem is that, at some point, our eyes long for colour. Many go south for their fix of pink bougainvillea and turquoise sea. Others buckle up their bootstraps and carry on, their eyes fixed on the horizon, where spring will appear. I’m in that second category, toughing it out, grasping at little life rafts to help me get through, life rafts like this bright green Broccoli-Quinoa Salad with Buttermilk ...

Under the Gun at Sundance

Film: Sundance Film Festival Director Stephanie Soechtig and producer Katie Couric take aim at the rhetoric of fear and the politics of paranoia surrounding firearm regulation in the U.S. By Katherine Monk PARK CITY, UT — The explosive topic of gun control isn’t just at the heart of two documentaries here at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, it’s an issue that’s seeped into the very fabric of the Sundance vibe. For the first time ever, attendees must undergo a security check before entering a theatre. Bags are screened, coats must be unzipped and open — and they aren’t just checking for recording devices. According to organizers, the festival didn’t receive any specific threat to mandate the new policy. It’s just a new measure to keep up with the new American reality, where mass shootings are almost commonplace and ordinary citizens are at risk of a violent death at the hands of a gun-toting stranger. It’s a fact that haunts and conflicts the ...

A hairy homecoming

Fiction: Mob Rule - Part 45 Back in the arms of the armed and dangerous in New York, Jack learns the gang war that started before he left on the campaign trail has been smouldering ever since By John Armstrong It was clear sailing the rest of the way, straight through on the old highway past Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. By the time we hit DC, the road was in even better shape and we made fine time, turning heads as Brown Lightning roared past shining, chrome-dripping newer cars like they were parked by the side of the road. It was a good thing, too, because we were stone-broke. The Morrisville Bridge over the Delaware into New Jersey took the last of our money and we were still short the full price. Vanessa got us through, turning her purse upside down, shaking it to prove we really had nothing left and batting big eyes at the poor man, a hitch in her voice and a tremble in her shoulders warning of imminent tears. He offered her a Kleenex and waved us through. He ...

Southside With You takes rom-com in new direction

Film: Sundance Film Festival Movie about Barack and Michelle Obama's first date takes the frame off the official portrait to paint a tender picture of two people falling in love By Katherine Monk PARK CITY, UT — There’s a good chance this year’s Sundance Film Festival will be defined by a larger, and perhaps more honest, discussion about race in America. And if it is, we can look at Richard Tanne’s debut feature Southside With You as a beautiful example of a paradigm shift. It’s not just an accessible romance starring two rising African-American stars in Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers, it’s a fictionalized take on the first date between would-be First Lady Michelle Robinson and a young Harvard law student named Barack Obama. We knew the two met at a corporate law firm. We knew she was his advisor. And we knew she wasn’t eager to get involved with a junior, fearing it would erode her professional edge and play into white expectation. The rest became the ...