Entertainment 505 results

Movies, music and popular culture reports from Ex-Press staff

Summer tentpoles hit home entertainment

What's new on DVD, Blu-ray and streaming services With Avengers, Tomorrowland and San Andreas hitting the small screen in October, now everyone can get a sniff of the dogs of summer   By Katherine Monk   Me and Earl and the Dying Girl 4/5 Stars Directed by: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. Starring: Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, RJ Cyler. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon emerged as the breakout director of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival thanks to this touching and cinematically vibrant exploration of high school life that pushes the dramatic needle into the red zone. Unlike other teen traumas that pivot on locker room taunts, mean girls and backstabbing bad apples, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl takes all that generic teen angst and throws it against the brick wall of mortality. Greg (Thomas Mann) is an ordinary high school senior looking to make it to graduation without getting noticed, but when his mother (Connie Britton) asks him to befriend Rachel (Olivia Cooke) after ...

Ramin Bahrani forecloses on 99 Homes

People: Rahmin Bahrani The writer-director of Man Push Cart returns with 99 Homes, another story about social justice and an economic system that he says creates Donald Trumps, rewards greed and fails to protect families By Katherine Monk After directing Man Push Cart a decade ago, the late great Roger Ebert described director Ramin Bahrani as one of the most important new voices in cinema, hailing his ability to see the outsider and sympathize with those silently struggling to find their way. His low-budget dramatic debut focused on a former Pakistani rock star who ended up selling food on the streets of Manhattan, and his more recent At Any Price starring Zac Efron took on the reality of genetically modified crops and their effect on America’s family farms. He is unapologetic about his interest in themes concerning social justice, but Bahrani’s most recent feature, 99 Homes, may be the most trenchant piece of social commentary he’s made so far as it brings us ...

Adios, Buena Vista Social Club

The venerated Cuban act made famous by Ry Cooder's chart-topping recording are on their final tour, but even as octogenarians, the surviving legends send chills through the nervous system By Rod Mickleburgh It was a magical night, mixed with a heavy dose of poignancy, as the vaunted Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club made its final appearance in Vancouver. There will be no more tours. Many of the aging Cuban music stars we got to know and love from Ry Cooder’s venture to Havana in the 1990’s are no longer with us. Only five Buena Vista originals are left, and one of them, the incomparable diva Omara Portuondo, will soon be 85. She could barely walk onto the stage at the Chan Centre. As soon as the music started up, however, her fountain of youth kicked in, transfixing us still with the haunting power of her voice and an aching ability to caress the lyrics. Spanish really is the loving tongue. For most of her short set, we were on our feet, showering her with the adulation ...
3Score

Movie review: Hyena Road lacks destination

Paul Gross's war movie attempts to tell the story of Canada's involvement in Afghanistan with a shotgun not a sniper's rifle

Review: Peaches pushes the body politic

The performance artist, composer and electronic musician hit the stage accompanied by dancing labia then took a walk over the crowd encased in a gigantic condom By Katherine Monk October 6, 2015, VANCOUVER, BC -- Katy Perry has dancing sharks. Peaches has dancing labia. There’s a good argument to be made for the merits of each mascot sidekick – an uncoordinated shark made Perry’s Super Bowl performance a viral sensation, and Peaches plushy vulvas have brought the Toronto-raised, Berlin-based performance artist international acclaim as a gender activist with a sense of humor. But even without the shock value of gigantic stuffed genitalia prancing around the stage, there’s a clear difference in showmanship and intent that makes a Peaches show more than a night of entertainment. The woman born Merrill Beth Nisker is able to straddle disparate worlds through her weird mise-en-scene that uses the tricks of arena rock theatrics while mocking their phallocentric ...
2Score

Movie review: The Walk is no coup

  Robert Zemeckis's computer-generated spectacle about wire-walker Philippe Petit's famous promenade between the Twin Towers lacks any sense of tension because everything about it feels fake
3.5Score

Movie review: Grandma is delightfully cranky

Lily Tomlin plays a cantankerous older woman who must find $630 to pay for her granddaughter to get an abortion in this slight but memorable drama
4Score

Movie review: The Martian is out of this world

Matt Damon is stranded four years from home in Ridley Scott's compelling — and surprisingly humourous — sci-fi adventure, writes Jay Stone    
4Score

Sicario: Denis Villeneuve deploys A-list talent to the dark side

Movie review: Sicario Emily Blunt kicks down the doors as Kate Macer, an above-board FBI agent who ends up knee deep in the decomposing corpses of cartel land
2Score

Movie review: The Green Inferno

Eli Roth's new movie screams "Eat me" There's more to horror than dismemberment, cannibalism and gory plane crashes, but the director of the Hostel series remains oblivious to the emotional needs of horror, and the whole concept of acting