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

Above Suspicion flays its central characters, but it’s okay – they’re awful

Movie Review: Above Suspicion Emilia Clarke ditches the dragons and thrones to pick up a hillbilly accent and a horny FBI agent in Phillip Noyce's cautionary tale that explores ego, power and two people with a pathetic desire to control each other.  
4Score

Nomadland cuts to the bone, draws rust-coloured blood

Movie Review - Nomadland Frances McDormand forces us to see the warmth of kindred souls seeking freedom in a landscape abandoned by the American Dream.
4Score

Cherry pops preconceived notions of heroism with sharp prick of PTSD

Movie Review: Cherry Joe and Anthony Russo use their superhero experience to  bring Nico Walker's novel to the screen with the epic scale of an Avengers movie, only to empty every hidden pocket in the cargo pants of male identity.
3.5Score

Death of a Ladies Man guzzles ego, self-indulgence, and Leonard Cohen’s catalogue of poetic misery

Movie Review: Death of a Ladies Man Matthew Bissonnette's new feature is not based on the famed Montreal poet-Lothario's writing, but it finds the same bruised skies and ice-covered steeples that inspired his work -- and in the process, gives Gabriel Byrne a clean shot at creative narcissism.
3Score

Raya and the Last Dragon sends a fiery message to a broken world

Movie Review: Raya and the last Dragon The new Disney blockbuster tries to celebrate peace while pushing female characters to the forefront, but ambient violence and distrust betrays a sensitivity to the fair sex with slings, arrows and spears.
3.5, 3, 4, 4Score

Movie reviews: The Croods, Christmas Chronicles 2, Collective, Zappa

What’s On November 27 A modern stone age family returns, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn re-gift, a sports journalist pummels political corruption, and Alex Winter offers a little green rosetta stone for Frank Zappa

The joy of wearing a mask when you’re facially disfigured

Health: COVID-19 Facial Coverings The Coronavirus Pandemic has disturbed the delicate balance of daily life, but one writer found a strange symmetry in suddenly being asymmetrical. “Is the mask magic?" he demanded with sudden, passionate interest. "Yes." I bowed my head, so that our eyes no longer met. "I made it magic to keep you safe. The mask is your friend, Erik. As long as you wear it, no mirror can ever show you the face again." - Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux By Katherine Monk VANCOUVER, BC — I woke up around midnight after passing out on the couch. I’d made a fire to get cozy after an hour-long swim in the ocean late in the afternoon, and I still felt cold. I plodded off to the bathroom to get ready for bed, and when I looked in the mirror — something looked a little off. I wrote it off to the awkward sleep position and the hard pillow. My face looked, well, saggy. It wouldn’t have been the first time I was a little shocked by a late night encoun...
4, 3.5, 3Score

The White House shines again in The Way I See It

What’s On October 16, 2020 The Way I See It is a must-see view at the White House through the lens of official photographer Pete Souza, I Am Greta goes on an epic journey to save the world, and Aaron Sorkin's Trial of the Chicago 7 fails to find a West Wing moment.
3, 3, 3.5Score

Double-barrelled shot of Southern Gothic and a clean shot of Chastain

What’s On: September 18, 2020 Janelle Monae wakes up in unwoke South, Tom Holland practices his drawl in the holler and Jessica Chastain gets shaken and stirred as a super-assassin in Ava.  
3.5Score

Movie Review: I’m Thinking of Ending Things

Movie Review: I’m Thinking of Ending Things Drenched in Melancholy, Charlie Kaufman finds a drifting sense of meaning in a movie that conjures the ghost of French Marxist Guy Debord, and the Society of Spectacle