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

Land of Mine Digs Up Explosive Past

Movie Review: Land of Mine Denmark's best foreign film contender didn't win an Oscar, but this truth-based drama about young Germans forced to clear beaches blows up war movie cliche by focusing on consequence instead of action

Iconic Flotation Devices on Film

Top Ten: PFDs Baywatch may have made the red lifeguard torpedo float a familiar sight to TV watchers, but it's not the only object that bobs up to the top of the pop culture imagination when it comes to PFDs By The Ex-Press (May 30, 2017) Baywatch’s red torpedo may be the most famous, but as summer approaches and boating season begins in earnest, The Ex-Press felt it was time to celebrate the personal flotation device and its other star turns, from Titanic’s grand finale to Benjamin Braddock’s extended backyard float. The formal history of what we now call the “PFD” dates back to 1854, when a British naval inspector by the name of Ward created a cork vest to be worn by lifeboat crews. Yet, there are images of Assyrian sailors using inflated animal skins as early as 860, as well as the creation of a formal anti-drowning society that dates back to 1767. Humans and water have a love-hate relationship: We're drawn to the water's edge, but according to the scant ...
3Score

Baywatch proves undeniably buoyant

Movie Review: Baywatch The American Dream always looks better on the beach in a bathing suit, so get ready to soak up some eye candy as Dwayne Johnson resuscitates a small screen classic
3.5Score

Alien: Covenant begs you to get it off your chest

Movie Review - Alien: Covenant Ridley Scott gestates another fiendish fetus in the continuing Alien saga, yet for all the blood, gore and acid burns, Covenant leaves a gaping hole
3.5Score

Norman finds second Gere

Movie review: Norman Taking on the role of a New York fixer in Joseph Cedar's modern iteration of the 'Court Jew' archetype, Richard Gere proves he's capable of suppressing his sexiness in service to a worthy, if pathetic, cause
2Score

Song to Song feels long, off-key

Movie Review: Song to Song Terrence Malick probes the nature of intimacy through a portrait of Austin's music scene, but the existential maestro fails to find the right notes in this hollow solo
4Score

Ghost in the Shell shows off Johansson’s muscle

Movie Review: Ghost in the Shell The woman who plays Black Widow packs a punch and a few roundhouse kicks as Major, the police robot with a human brain and a big metaphysical question in this detailed homage to the Japanese original

Linda Thorson makes a first in Second Time Around

People: Linda Thorson After a career that bathed her in the London limelight, the Canadian actress who replaced Diana Rigg on The Avengers makes a homecoming in her first starring role as an icy Ontario matron in The Second Time Around By Katherine Monk “Never a dull moment.” For Linda Thorson, it’s more than a life motto. It’s an existential promise. The Toronto-born actor crafted a career via British stage and television after replacing Diana Rigg on The Avengers, but the life adventure just keeps going. Thorson has a new boyfriend, and after five decades in the business, her first starring role in a feature film. Thorson plays Katherine, an uptight, opera-loving matron who finds love in a seniors’ home in The Second Time Around, a new movie from Leon Marr that recently picked up the audience award at The Palm Beach film festival. Currently on the Canadian art house circuit with stops in Vancouver and Montreal, The Second Time Around tells the story of ...

Screwing up his courage for The Second Time Around

People: Leon Marr Talking about sex and the seniors' residence with the director of The Second Time Around, a new movie that tackles taboo and takes us into the boudoir with tenderness, patience and operatic ambition By Katherine Monk (April 3, 3017) -- The Centers for Disease Control declared April STD awareness month, which means there’s no better time for the release of The Second Time Around. It’s a new feature film by Leon Marr after a decades-long hiatus, and while it’s not about sexually transmitted disease – at all – it does focus on a demographic with an increasing transmission rate: senior citizens. The CDC suggests the aging baby boomers are making the most out of their senior years, if the steady rise in syphilis cases among those over 65 is any indication: between 2007 and 2011, researchers noted a rise of 52 per cent. Part of it has to do with taboos surrounding sex in the golden years. It’s not something society talks about all that often ...
3Score

The Boss Baby demands your attention

Movie Review: The Boss Baby Alec Baldwin scales down his 30 Rock character to a pint-sized power broker looking to put puppies in their place and pad the bottom line for infants everywhere in The Boss Baby