Jay Stone 92 results

Jay Stone has been a fixture in Canadian media for decades, and one of the most beloved movie critics in the country. He worked at the Ottawa Citizen and Postmedia News service until he retired.

On American Pastoral and Canadian Shields

Movies: #TIFF16 American Pastoral press conference Ewan McGregor's adaptation of Phillip Roth's novel points out the problems in bringing internal narrative to the big screen, but the actor-turned director faced the same challenge as those who braved the work of Carol Shields By Jay Stone TORONTO — Here’s something pretty interesting: in the Carol Shields book Unless (now a motion picture at the Toronto International Film Festival), a sensitive teenage girl sees a monk setting himself on fire and is inspired to drop out of society and become a mute beggar in front of Honest Ed’s discount emporium in Toronto. In the Philip Roth novel American Pastoral (also a movie at TIFF), a sensitive teenage girl sees a monk setting himself on fire and is inspired to drop out of society and become a domestic terrorist. This tells us something about Canada and the United States — or perhaps just something about Carol Shields and Philip Roth, and about the film industry in general. ...

In Praise of Amy Adams

Movies: Toronto International Film Festival A veteran movie critic spends the day with Amy Adams and concludes she's Oscar bait, as well as a reminder of what  Nicole Kidman used to look like before Botox By Jay Stone TORONTO — Let us now praise Amy Adams, and all who sail on her. I recently spent a morning with the actress — she was on screen in two movies at the Toronto International Film Festival and I was in the audience, but still — and I concluded that a) she reminds me of what Nicole Kidman would look like if she had more common sense, and b) she might be in line for a couple of Oscar nominations this fall for roles in which she plays troubled women in unhappy second marriages with doomed daughters but, nonetheless, beautiful houses with large windows overlooking vastly photogenic scenery. Both movies — Nocturnal Animals and Arrival — have all that in them, but Adams herself couldn’t be more different and you have to remind yourself that she was also, among ...

Toronto festival buzz or bust?

Movies: TIFF 16 - First Looks Jay Stone checks out a handful of the early buzz-makers at the Toronto International Film Festival, and keeps it real and offers this tip "longer is not always better" By Jay Stone TORONTO — Two things about a film festival are buzz (what is everyone talking about?) and more importantly, time (how long to I have to spend so that I can talk about it too?) After all, if life were eternal, you wouldn’t worry about it. Indeed, if life were eternal, you could afford to go to see a German movie called Toni Erdmann. But more about that later. First the buzz. Well, actually, first the fact that the escalator at the downtown theatre where Toronto International Film Festival screenings are held for the press was broken on opening day. Thus, you walk up 105 stairs (by my count) before you can even join the crowds. In film-going — as in film directing, they tell me — the knees go first. We’re here to sample three movies on our first day, all of ...

Jay Stone picks his TIFF16 ponies

Movies: #TIFF16 The Toronto International Film Festival offers 400 film titles, two Ryan Gosling movies, a Denis Villeneuve Arrival and if you're lucky, free chips By Jay Stone There are many things to look forward to at the Toronto International Film Festival, including that party they have every year to celebrate Canadian cinema where they hand out bags of potato chips and chocolate bars, although this year I hear they’re not having the chocolate bars. But we soldier on. Getting through a film festival requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice. And oh yes: the films. There are about 400 of them here, and if you play your cards right, you can see a couple of dozen and still have time to pick up enough bags of complimentary potato chips to get you through to lunch, although some chocolate bars would have been a nice addition. You know. For dessert. Where was I? Right: the films. Here, in no particular order, are some that I’m looking forward to. Arrival A sci-fi film ...
4Score

Hell Or High Water captures an American collapse

Two brothers are out to rob all the branches of a predatory bank, with weary Texas Ranger Jeff Bridges on their trail, in this dusty evocation of the collapse of the Western dream
3Score

Movie review: In Order of Disappearance is Norwegian noir

In this bleakly comic thriller, a mild-mannered snowplow driver is driven to take revenge on the local drug gangs, resulting in much bloodthirsty misunderstanding
4Score

The rise and fall (and rise and fall) of Anthony Weiner

Movie Review: Weiner A tell-all documentary about the brilliant politician who became a talk-show joke takes us deep inside a political campaign that is slowly, inexorably falling apart
3Score

Lo And Behold: Werner Herzog looks at the Internet (and also at Werner Herzog)

Movie review: Lo and Behold A new documentary examines the web from a variety of offbeat angles, and decides that it represents the biggest innovation in human history since Werner Herzog movies  
3.5Score

Movie review: Cafe Society a bittersweet love story

Woody Allen's new movie, set in Hollywood and New York of the 1930s, is very much the nostalgic yearnings of a veteran film-maker looking back at his obsessions
2.5Score

Movie review: Jason Bourne, again

In this overstuffed action film Matt Damon returns as the spy with amnesia, although this time he remembers everything far too clearly — except when to stop