3Score

The Gripes of Wrath: Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham embark on a messy quest for morality in The Wrath of Man

Movie Review: The Wrath of Man An armored car heist forms the bloody backdrop of a predictable action movie that packs more than gunplay and mano-a-mano combat into its magazine. The Wrath of Man also fumbles with manly friendships, family bonds and female affection -- but for all the extra writing, it's Jason Statham's pitbull-like screen presence that keeps us watching.
4Score

Quo Vadis, Aida? digs up an ugly truth while giving voice to old ghosts

Movie Review: Quo Vadis, Aida Exhuming the hidden horrors of the Bosnian War forces us to bear witness to the small lapses of humanity that enable genocide as families struggle to save themselves -- at all costs -- in Jasmila Zbanic's Oscar-nominated Quo Vadis, Aida?  
4Score

Nobody announces a new dirty, hairy kind of anti-hero

Movie review: Nobody Bob Odenkirk brings all of his beleaguered Everyman capital to an action movie that grants catharsis by throwing haymakers at a cruel, chaotic world
3Score

Above Suspicion flays its central characters, but it’s okay – they’re awful

Movie Review: Above Suspicion Emilia Clarke ditches the dragons and thrones to pick up a hillbilly accent and a horny FBI agent in Phillip Noyce's cautionary tale that explores ego, power and two people with a pathetic desire to control each other.  
4Score

Nomadland cuts to the bone, draws rust-coloured blood

Movie Review - Nomadland Frances McDormand forces us to see the warmth of kindred souls seeking freedom in a landscape abandoned by the American Dream.

Before we had the ‘Beforetimes,’ we watched baseball — and it was good

Column: A Long Day's Journey into COVID awareness Last March, Ex-Press staffer Charles Gordon was in Dunedin, Florida when COVID-19 cancelled Spring Training, and forced his family on an angst-filled road trip northward. A year on into the pandemic, we look back at the moment when everything, and everyone, changed. A memoir from March 21, 2020 By Charles Gordon We had already decided to come home before the call came officially from our government. For one thing, a prescient friend had announced, on the Tuesday before, that he was leaving: he had a respiratory infection and the Coronavirus could be fatal to him. A bunch of us were at the Florida restaurant where he told us that and we made light of it on the way back to the hotel. “Should I go straight to the hospital?” I asked, to general chuckles, as we got into the car. Still, it made me think. Here I was, an older Canadian, pushing 80, and a long way from a decent health care system. For another thing, they cancelled ...
4Score

Cherry pops preconceived notions of heroism with sharp prick of PTSD

Movie Review: Cherry Joe and Anthony Russo use their superhero experience to  bring Nico Walker's novel to the screen with the epic scale of an Avengers movie, only to empty every hidden pocket in the cargo pants of male identity.
3.5Score

Death of a Ladies Man guzzles ego, self-indulgence, and Leonard Cohen’s catalogue of poetic misery

Movie Review: Death of a Ladies Man Matthew Bissonnette's new feature is not based on the famed Montreal poet-Lothario's writing, but it finds the same bruised skies and ice-covered steeples that inspired his work -- and in the process, gives Gabriel Byrne a clean shot at creative narcissism.
3.5Score

My Salinger Year spares the hagiography but hangs on to writer’s halo

Movie review: My Salinger Year Joanna Rakoff's memoir takes its small gestures to the big screen in Philippe Falardeau's adaptation that finds a soft spot for a world before word processors, emails and the amputated personal communiques called 'texts.'  
3Score

Raya and the Last Dragon sends a fiery message to a broken world

Movie Review: Raya and the last Dragon The new Disney blockbuster tries to celebrate peace while pushing female characters to the forefront, but ambient violence and distrust betrays a sensitivity to the fair sex with slings, arrows and spears.