Sadness still makes her happy
People: Phyllis Smith
The veteran star of The Office says voicing the role of Sadness in Disney-Pixar's Inside Out was a joyous experience that continues to animate her life
By Katherine Monk
Finding true joy in sadness is the stuff of self-help books, but for Phyliis Smith, it’s become the defining moment of her career—and she’s still in it.
Speaking over the phone, apparently from the Midwest home she grew up in with her siblings, Smith’s voice is charged with audible enthusiasm as she talks about her time working on Inside Out.
Released theatrically June 19th by Disney-Pixar, the animated feature about an eleven-year-old girl named Riley remains one of the biggest hits of the year, standing at number three for the year with over $355 million in domestic receipts.
Now out on home video today, Smith says the minute the movie premiered at Cannes, people told her it would be a turning point—including executive producer and member of the Pixar brain ...
Our Brand is Crisis: A hopeless campaign
Bullock bulldozes a pile of political cliché
David Gordon Green attempts dark satire by placing two American strategists in a South American bullring, but despite some sharp lines and sharper clothes, there's no matador's grace in this ritual slaughter
Movie review: Truth, not black and white
Mapes's Revenge
Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford take us back to the 2004 CBS News scandal that saw senior producer Mary Mapes and veteran anchor Dan Rather pushed under the campaign bus
Burnt cooks Cooper to a golden brown
Iron pecs Chef
Bradley Cooper brings A-lister status to the world of rock star chefs, completing the ancient circle of food worship, and the gods who let us pleasure in the flesh
Pop Culture Decoder: Sexy Halloween
Why the media recycle the same damn story every October
By Misty Harris
Halloween is surely the most frustrating night of the year for actual hookers – and the riskiest one for men seeking their company. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention in the last two decades. And yet.
Every October, it’s the same thing: newspapers, media sites and TV news stations all clamour to report on the sexualization of Halloween. While they aren’t necessarily wrong in identifying this phenomenon, it’s hardly news. At this point, “sexy Halloween” falls into the same class as Nicki Minaj’s butt: significant, but nothing we haven’t seen before.*
So why does the media keep recycling the same story, year after year? Let’s decode.
Low-hanging fruit: We all know that sex sells. And in reports on the tawdriness of Halloween, sexual imagery is practically a journalistic requirement! Not featuring photo evidence would be akin to reporting ...
Movie Review: Rock the Kasbah
Clash of cultures creates crude comedy
Bill Murray returns to the big screen in the role of a rock 'n' roll flameout who tries to ignite his failing management career by heading to Afghanistan, where he encounters a Pashtun songbird in a gilded cage
Doom and ROOM
Movie review: ROOM
Irish director Lenny Abrahamson uses carefully constructed frames to bring Emma Donoghue's story of confinement to the big screen, finding concrete results with a careful pour of emotion and a gifted young talent
Liberal Sweep!
If the election were an Oscar race...
Ex-Press film critic Katherine Monk says Justin Trudeau and the Liberals would walk the red carpet to the podium thanks to campaign spots that banged the magic gong of belief
By Katherine Monk
They can be as intoxicating as a deep whiff of gasoline — a head-rush that makes you step back with a dizzy feeling, and a brief sense of awe. Political ads are high-octane experiences that fire your brain cells with all the engineering of a German automobile, as well as all the crafty deception.
The very best ads are a high form of propaganda that can be called art (as long as you’re willing to defend Leni Riefenstahl and Triumph of the Will as a great piece of cinematic persuasion), and as the Canadian election campaign draws to a close and the pundits have had their say, it's finally time time to look at the past 80 days through a slightly different lens: That of the film critic.
Sure, I may not have the insights of Chantal Hébert ...
Spielberg burns Bridge of Spies with boredom
Movie Review: Bridge of Spies
Cold War thriller warmed over: Tom Hanks shuffles his favourite deck of characters to take on the role of a real life insurance lawyer who ends up tangled in the concertina wire of East-West tensions
Hacking into Steve Jobs
Danny Boyle's biopic makes elegant bid to open Jobs's console
Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet create all the dynamic tension required to propel Aaron Sorkin's minimalist screenplay into epic terrain, but the film is an inspiring success and a frustrating failure at the same time -- much like the man himself, writes Katherine Monk
