Katherine Monk 399 results

Katherine Monk is a former movie critic with The Vancouver Sun and Postmedia News, as well as co-founder of The Ex-Press. She still watches a lot of movies. She can be heard talking about them on CBC Radio, and you can read what she thinks about them here, exclusively in The Ex-Press.

4Score

Movie review: Wonka offers golden ticket to pure happiness

Movie review: Wonka Paul King, the director behind the warm and fuzzy Paddington movies, stretches a strong arm into the cauldron of modern chaos and pulls out a sweet, magical treat of a movie that affirms the power of a pure heart.
3Score

Movie Review: The Boys in the Boat pays homage to courage, and cliché

Movie Review: The Boys in the Boat George Clooney catches a crab in this respectful, but unforgivably clichéd, take on the true tale of the 1936 U.S. Rowing Team, and the crew of working class heroes who beat Hitler's elites to take home the gold.  
3Score

Movie review: Ferrari’s fake accents force some bad turns, but Driver saves the lines

Movie review: Ferrari Director Michael Mann demonstrates a passion for Italian engineering and mid-century aesthetics in this big-budget biopic that seeks to celebrate the power and the pistons of the masculine experience.
3.5Score

Movie review: Maestro reveals duelling Bernsteins living within a single legend

Movie review: Maestro Bradley Cooper brings a heap of passion and a stylish eye to a dysfunctional love story that strips artistic ego down to the studs.  Echoing the core themes of an entirely different film about Leonard Bernstein, Maestro may have you asking who plays Bernstein better: Bradley Cooper, or Cate Blanchett?
4Score

Movie review: Leave the World Behind captures a very creepy Zeitgeist

Movie review: Leave the World Behind Sam Esmail serves up a sophisticated psychological thriller that nods to Cold War convention while conjuring the biggest threat of the twenty-first century: A world where money governs morality, friendships are subject to outside influence, and even your neighbour can’t be trusted as an ally.

Mourning the golden age of journalism and the magic of random encounters

Tribute: Ward Perrin Before media outlets became boutiques for different brands of thought and billionaires seeking ego affirmation, newsrooms were a place where friendships were born from shared professional purpose, and a gut need to get the story. Katherine Monk looks back on a newsroom shift when the world changed overnight, and a friendship was born from the tatters of the Iron Curtain. By Katherine Monk It’s mourning. In America. Again. I’m not just referring to the most recent mass shootings that left shell casings and broken lives in Nevada, or the broad swath of destruction left by apocalyptic weather patterns in the Midwest. I speak of the profound sense of loss that seems to define the collective psyche right now — not just in America, but everywhere. Take a moment to process the prevailing winds of popular culture. Listen to the lyrics seeking absolute escapism, emotional oblivion and spiritual retribution. Then look at the cankered face of global politics, ...
3Score

Movie review: Oppenheimer fails to trigger emotional chain reaction

Movie review: Oppenheimer Director and writer Christopher Nolan puts Cillian Murphy in the middle of a chaotic narrative in the hopes of harnessing the creative power of Robert J. Oppenheimer. The movie is packed with style and period inflections, but ends up an emotional dud.
4Score

Movie review: Barbie offers an existential crisis in a pretty pink package

Movie review: Barbie Greta Gerwig strips Barbie down to bare plastic to expose her corporate stamp, and the industrial mold that stubbornly defines the female experience.
4.5Score

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse confirms the power of art, and non-conformity

Movie review: Spider-man Across the Spider-Verse Relying more on a smart and accessible script than mechanical action sequences, this second visit to the Spider-Verse is even better than the first as it leaves all expectations behind, to offer a new, bold-faced type.
2.5Score

Movie review: Hypnotic may leave you dazed and confused

Movie review: Hypnotic Robert Rodriguez directs Ben Affleck in the role of a police detective searching for his lost daughter in this silly science-fiction story about mind control, and something missing.