Angry Birds flaps hard and flies
Movie review: Angry Birds
The film adaptation of the "stupid game" features an all-star voice cast hurled through a surreal landscape, capturing the essence of modern times as flightless birds struggle to save their eggs from greedy pigs
The Man Who Knew Infinity goes beyond cliché
Movie review: The Man Who Knew Infinity
A paint-by-numbers picture of genius still finds a lot of soul thanks to the determined presence of Dev Patel and the timeless talents of Jeremy Irons
Ben Wheatley’s attack of social vertigo
Interview with Ben Wheatley
The Down Terrace director climbs to new cinematic heights in High-Rise, an adaptation of J.G. Ballard's book about class wars unfolding in a concrete tower - and we haven't even mentioned the stuff with Scorsese
By Katherine Monk
VANCOUVER – “If I had to draw something right now, I would draw a cross face. I can draw them quite well,” says film director Ben Wheatley, revealing a secret talent – and maybe, just a hint of repressed hostility.
It’s hard to read his face. Half-covered in facial hair and wearing a look of unmistakable fatigue, the director of Sightseers, Down Terrace, A Field in England, the new feature High-Rise and a forthcoming Martin Scorsese-produced thriller called Free Fire
looks like a prisoner who just sat down in the warden’s office: Present, honest, but not altogether enthusiastic.
This is something he has to do. When you make a movie with a studio, they expect you to hit the road and talk about ...
Captain America: Civil War goes South
Movie review: Captain America Civil War
Chris Evans returns as the reflective patriot Steve Rogers in this latest Avengers saga that tries to stuff far too many problems, plot points and people into its skintight pants
Oh Mother! It’s The Meddler!
Movie Review: The Meddler
Susan Sarandon's performance as a mother looking to insert herself in her daughter's life defies a sit-com styled script to find the mushy heart of motherhood
David Bezmozgis dives into Russian diaspora
Interview: David Bezmozgis on Natasha
The Toronto-based writer-director grew up in a community of Russian Jews who left the Soviet Union, but decades later he says the "Russian immigrant experience" has become more difficult to define -- yet far more interesting to explore through drama
By Katherine Monk
The “immigrant experience” is a phrase that’s been getting a lot of media mileage in the wake of Syria’s collapse and continuing mass displacement due to climate change, but as a phrase, it’s generic.
It assumes all immigrants share a similar reality: a sense of exile and limited expression until assimilation takes hold. Toronto author and filmmaker David Bezmozgis thinks the North American “immigrant community” deserves better than a broad label between quotation marks, so he wrote a short story called Natasha, originally published in Harper’s before appearing in a bound collection in 2004.
A Lolita-like yarn about a sexy young Russian girl who moves ...
Michael Joplin remembers a happy Janis
Interview: Michael Joplin
Though Janis Joplin's surviving siblings don't occupy huge amounts of screen time, Michael and Laura Joplin's presence brings a new dimension to Amy Berg's new documentary, Janis: Little Girl Blue, premiering tonight on PBS
Art Bergmann plays The Apostate
Music: Interview with Art Bergmann
The former Vancouver punk icon says his joints are sore, his back aches and his neck breaks, but the release of his first new LP in a decade proves Art Bergmann is more than a survivor, he's close to folk hero
By Katherine Monk
For the first few minutes, we talk about sciatica, arthritis, spinal surgery and who’s dead. That's just what happens when you're over 50 and you haven't spoken to someone in 20 years. Even if that someone is Art Bergmann – the iconic face of Canadian punk rock turned apostate.
Make that “The Apostate,” because after an extended recording hiatus that witnessed the release of just one EP and a lost recordings collection over the course of a decade, Bergmann has a new LP, The Apostate, what he calls his “response to living in the west."
Bouncing from Vancouver to a small parcel of Albertan landscape situated near “the beige town of Airdrie,” Bergmann started a new life with his wife Sherri a decade ...
Mother’s Day: Greeting Cardboard
Movie review: Mother’s Day
Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts and Kate Hudson bend over backward to accommodate cliche in this yoga class for yummy mummies
Green Room: a zombie movie sans zombies
Movie review: Green Room
Jeremy Saulnier's follow-up to Blue Ruin reimagines zombie movie cliche as a real-life face-off between a struggling punk band and a group of calculating white supremacists laying siege to their dressing room
