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.

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Now You See Me 2 spells deja-vu

Movie review: Now You See Me 2 The sequel to a sleeper hit about illusionists who use their skills to steal from the rich and give to the poor doesn't conjure a sense of magic, but its A-list cast ensures it's entertaining

TIFF announces STUDIO slate

News: TIFF talent development A lucky dozen writer-directors get their hands metaphorically dirty with development sessions and skills workshops at this year's TIFF STUDIO programme By Katherine Monk “Writer-director” sounds good, but in the world of Canadian Film, it often means a hand-to-mouth existence without external support. The Toronto International Film Festival wants to change that, and this year, it refocused its STUDIO programme to assist writer-directors with a series of professional workshops designed to empower the nation’s storytellers. The monthly modules began Friday with sessions that include peer review, project development, packaging and talent, working with actors and casting agents as well as the requisite art of the pitch pep talk. “Since its launch in 2013, STUDIO has boasted immense success in readying Canadian producers for the global film industry,” said TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey in an announcement released Monday. ...

Popstar: Never Stops Stopping Sucking

Movie Review: Popstar - Never Stop Stopping The team that brought your their Dick in a Box reunites for another round of thigh-slapping comedy dependent on short attention spans and Justin Timberlake in a bird suit

Rebecca Miller gets screwball

Interview: Rebecca Miller She may be the daughter of the man who penned Death of a Salesman, but Rebecca Miller reveals an undeniable talent for thoroughly goofy comedy in her latest film, Maggie's Plan By Katherine Monk Rebecca Miller’s intellectual pedigree cannot be argued: daughter of Pulitzer-winner Arthur Miller, graduate of Choate and Yale, and married to the towering dramatic talent named Daniel-Day Lewis. But speaking to Miller over the phone, the legacy of Willy Loman walks out the door and the inner goofball emerges. It’s a side of Miller that’s on full display in her latest work, Maggie’s Plan, a feature film that charmed audiences at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and opens theatrically this week. A full-on comedy that’s been drawing comparisons to Woody Allen’s witty dissections of the academic elite, Maggie’s Plan stars Greta Gerwig as a modern gal looking to enhance her life in a millennial way. Maggie wants to have a baby without ...

Slicing Life: A Tale of Two Cities

Blu-ray blast from the past: A Tale of Two Cities Reflections on the Revolution in France - from the man who brought you Shanghai Surprise: Jim Goddard's adaptation of the Dickens classic still holds its edge, even in a 1980 Hallmark production starring Chris Sarandon and Peter Cushing
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Alice Through the Looking Glass distorted by Depp

Movie Review: Alice Through the Looking Glass Johnny Depp reprises his role as the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll's Alice sequel, but the one-time teen idol feels like a cross between a zombie Madonna and Ronald McDonald
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X-Men: Apocalypse, Now and Then

Movie review: X-Men: Apocalypse Director Bryan Singer brings the comic book franchise to the brink as he sends us back to the 1980s, when the powerful mutants were forced to pick sides

Whit Stillman loves powerful women

Interview: Whit Stillman on Love & Friendship The American filmmaker creates a fine comic weave using Jane Austen's material, Kate Beckinsale's sharp talents and his unique sense and sensibility for social satire By Katherine Monk “I really enjoy dominant, manipulative women. I find them very entertaining,” says Whit Stillman, his tone so matter-of-fact, it almost makes you laugh. Then again, that’s his charm. The director of Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco built a reputation as a cunning social satirist in the ‘90s for plucking the veil off human vanity to show us the pimples of truth. He also showed a preference for using powerful, insightful and somewhat self-absorbed females as the dainty hand behind his narrative tatting. It’s the reason why his latest endeavor, Love & Friendship, feels like such a natural stitch in Stillman’s oeuvre: It’s based on the work of Jane Austen, the godmother of social satire, a pioneer of female ...

Xavier the Great crushes Cannes skeptics

News: Xavier Dolan wins Grand Prix, Ecumenical Prize at Cannes 2016 Quebec's golden boy picks up second-highest honour at Cannes, but his quest for the coveted golden palm continues, as does his battle with critics By Katherine Monk He didn’t win the Palme D’Or, but Xavier Dolan’s double win at this year’s Cannes Film Festival marks the best performance by a Canadian on the Croisette since Atom Egoyan scored a triple with The Sweet Hereafter back in 1997. Dolan won the Grand Prix and the Ecumenical Prize for his latest film Juste la fin du mode (It’s Only the End of the World), a drama that follows a writer with a terminal illness on his final journey home. Based on the stage play by the late Jean-Luc Lagarce, It’s Only the End of the World is Dolan’s sixth feature, and fifth title to be invited to France’s red carpet extravaganza. “Dolan’s two latest awards at Cannes are renewed recognition of his immense talent, of course, but also of the determined ...
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High-Rise makes you feel the fall

Movie review: High-Rise Ben Wheatley's adaptation of J.G. Ballard's 1975 novel about high-rise living takes social metaphor to vertiginous heights