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.

3Score

Fifty Shades of Chardonnay: Book Club Movie Review

Movie Review: Book Club A bound volume of vintage tomes gives a flimsy script some awards-hardware heft, and a few stray surprises, in a surreal celebration of sex, wine and stereotype.  
3Score

Deadpool 2 Goes Mega Meta

Movie review: Deadpool 2 Ryan Reynolds still has the magical combination of charm and smarm that makes Deadpool unique in the superhero universe, but this highly self-aware sophomore effort feels like being at a party where everyone is taking selfies.
2.5Score

Breaking In Casts Union as Bad-Ass Momma Bear

Capsule Movie Review: Breaking In Gabrielle Union plays a mother embracing her grizzly side as she makes a desperate bid to free her two children from armed kidnappers in James McTiegue’s latest round of high velocity action.  
3Score

Melissa McCarthy and Maya Rudolph May Be the Best Boobs in the Business

Movie Review: Life of the Party Taking on the part of a middle-aged mom who goes back to school, McCarthy revisits college comedy tropes with a seductive brand of physical comedy and an empathetic edge. Not all the comic concoctions work, but the female perspective makes room for affirmation amid humiliation.
2Score

Bad Samaritan Owes a Big Debt to Antonioni

Capsule Review: Bad Samaritan Dean Devlin, the producer behind Independence Day, steals a page from the indie playbook with a hackneyed story about a young photographer who accidentally captures a sex crime through his lens in this baby Blow Up.  
4Score

Tully Captures the Waking Dreams and Broken Sleeps of Motherhood

Capsule Movie Review: Tully Charlize Theron reunites with Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody for a beautifully rendered tribute to maternal sacrifice, and the unique mental space of a middle-aged mom who wonders if she did life right.

The Protest Movie: Medium Cool Gets Medium Hot

On Film: Activist documentary, embedded journalism at DOXA 2018 An explosion of activist filmmaking means a variety of issues are getting their closeup on the big screen. But are these new forms of non-fiction “protest movies” changing our minds, or changing our understanding of truth? The answer seems to be both.

The Mythic West Dies and Rides Again at Hands of Two Atypical Heroes

On Film: Lean on Pete, The Rider English director Andrew Haigh and Chinese director Chloe Zhao offer eulogies to the American Dream while spurring a new brand of male hero into the Western arena. Though they are barely men, Charley and Brady mark a newfound maturity in the cowboy genre for their ability to cope with loss -- without surrendering a gritty spirit of survival, or a will to love.
3.5Score

I Feel Pretty is Witty and Bright Because Schumer is Goofy and Good

Movie Review: I Feel Pretty Amy Schumer takes on the beauty myth -- literally -- in a story about an insecure woman concussed into confidence in I Feel Pretty, a piece of formula magically transformed into a one-woman screwball comedy of mistaken identity.

Happy National Canadian Film Day! Yes. We Have One.

News: National Canadian Film Day Once stunted by an icy carapace of quiet self-loathing and back-stabbing bickering, our love for Canadian cinema is beginning to blossom every spring with screenings across the country, and the world, in the budding celebration called National Canadian Film Day -- which celebrates its fifth year today with more than 850 events and a focus on female filmmakers.