Movie review: The Dressmaker just doesn’t fit
This eccentric comedy/drama features Kate Winslet as a fashion designer who returns to her Australian home town to learn about her past — only to find the charms of Liam Hemsworth
For whom the cowbell? Trolls!
Movie review: Trolls
If you ever wondered what it would be like to drop acid in the middle of a Michaels craft store, Trolls is all glitter and felt as it scrapbooks happiness to a dance beat
Hacksaw Ridge affirms Gospel of Gibson
Movie Review: Hacksaw Ridge
The Academy Award-winning director of Braveheart seeks career redemption in a war movie that grinds the gears of genre via a hero who refuses to carry a gun into battle
Gleason scores, Anthropoid kills, Bad Moms just bad
Home Entertainment: November 1, 2016
Justin Lin puts Star Trek franchise into hyperdrive but fails to engage mental engines but there's plenty of other stars to check out on home platforms this week
By Katherine Monk
Star Trek Beyond (Directed by: Justin Lin, Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg) 2.5/5:
I wanted to love Star Trek Beyond as much as I enjoyed the other two reboots from mastermind J.J. Abrams, and yet, despite my ample enthusiasm for a franchise that puts friendship and humanity first, this third film starring Chris Pine as James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Mr. Spock failed to make it out of the transporter room in one piece. There are many reasons why Beyond falls from a high orbit, but the most noticeable is the name on the director’s chair. Abrams was busy helming that other sci-fi juggernaut, leaving the Fast and the Furious’s Justin Lin to assemble the pieces and play the cosmic strings. Lin is good at car crashes and man ...
Konelïne drills deep into the dark heart of colonialism
Movies: Available Light Film Festival
Veteran documentary filmmaker Nettie Wild heads North to explore a motherlode of ugly conflict unfolding against a backdrop of pristine beauty in her latest film, Konelïne: Our Land Beautiful
By Katherine Monk
(Feb. 8, 2016. Updated Oct. 29, 2016) WHITEHORSE, YUKON — “We didn’t want it. We still don’t want it. But it was a done deal when they called us to the table.”
Tahltan elder Lillian Moyer was speaking about a transmission line along the once-scenic Highway 37 in Canada’s Yukon, but the comments she uttered at the premiere of Nettie Wild’s latest documentary, Konelïne - Our land Beautiful, seem applicable to just about every situation that pits traditional First Nations’ values against the continuing colonial reality.
From resource extraction in pristine wildlife habitats in the North to condos and casinos on traditional lands in the South, Canada’s colonial history clearly didn’t end with when Europeans ...
Inferno: To Hell and Back
Movie review: Inferno
Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones get lost in a sea of attractive scenery and classical references in Ron Howard's decryption of Dante's Divine Comedy
Jack Reacher comes up short
Movie review: Jack Reacher
Tom Cruise returns as the peripatetic vigilante in a straightforward, if preposterous, adventure whose simplicity reveals how unsuitable the actor is for the role
Margie Gillis moves through it
Dance: Pearl - The Show, Queen Elizabeth Theatre Oct. 27, 28
The Canadian dance icon digs deep in a new show that pays tribute to the Pulitzer-winning author of The Good Earth, but that's just the beginning of Margie Gillis's bid to help us 'reincorporate' and find our inner Pearl
By Katherine Monk
(October 24, 2016) VANCOUVER – Dance icon Margie Gillis has many honours to pin on her lapels: Officer of the Order of Canada, Knight of the National Order of Quebec, Lifetime Achievement honoree at the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards and the first-ever winner of the Stella Adler Studio’s MAD Spirit Award.
Yet, there’s one credit she’s particularly proud of, though it features no hardware, prize money or resume-worthy mention. “I was listed as one of the reasons why the Sun News Network failed,” says Gillis over a requisite latte in Vancouver Monday.
In town for a two-night performance of Pearl, a “Broadway-style” production that celebrates the life ...
Tom Cruise on tiptoe as Jack Reacher
Movie review - Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
Looking to reaffirm his brand as an All-American action hero, Tom Cruise reboots Lee Child's franchise about an ex-military cop who operates outside the law to settle ugly scores
