Handing out Canadian Candy
News: The Canadian Screen Awards 2016
Room cleans up with nine wins in the film category, including best picture, while Schitt's Creek, Book of Negroes and Orphan Black dominate the TV side of Canada's annual awards show... now called The Candys?
By Katherine Monk
It was pretty good, eh? They had a big stage. A band. Gold statuettes. A host that wasn't William Shatner. And people in the audience -- some of whom were even recognizable. More importantly, this year's Canadian Screen Awards also included a few titles with proven international appeal, such as the TV show Orphan Black and the film Room, the Oscar-nominated drama that cleaned up with nine wins at Sunday night's gala, including best picture, best director, best actress, best actor, best supporting actress and best adapted screenplay for Emma Donoghue.
For an awards broadcast that's struggled with audience ambivalence and stumping films with no box-office visibility, this year's show, hosted by Norm Macdonald and ...
News: The National Film Board and Vimeo launch new service
News: Streaming Services
New platform showcasing short films from the Oscar-winning studio is available now
By The Ex-Press
It’s the first rule of drug dealers and encyclopedia salesmen: The first one is always free. And now, the National Film Board will be adopting a similar strategy hoping to get you addicted to short films.
Partnering with Vimeo, the on-line streaming service, the NFB has created NFB Shorts on Demand. The subscription-based, on-demand platform (SVOD) was unveiled in a press release late Wednesday — declaring it available immediately.
One newly added film will always be available for free, but after that, there’s a $4.99 subscription fee for monthly unlimited streaming, a $1.99 single streaming fee, or a $3.99 charge for download-to-own.
The new outlet is designed to showcase the latest work coming out of the acclaimed studio, unlike the current film board website, which allows access to a great deal of the deep and decorated short film ...
Luke Kirby takes another waltz with romance
People: Luke Kirby
He played a problematic brand of Prince Charming in Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz and now Canadian-born Luke Kirby is walking a tightrope of sanity as a bipolar Romeo in Paul Dalio's Touched With Fire
By Katherine Monk
He played a pedicab-driving Romeo opposite Michelle Williams in Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz, and now he plays a bipolar brand of Percy Bysshe Shelley in Paul Dalio’s Touched With Fire, but if you think Luke Kirby has a thing for playing the problematic prince charming, it’s just optics.
The Guelph-raised Kirby is also a regular on the Sundance Channel crime drama Rectify, did several seasons of the Astronaut Wives Club and recently appeared in The Good Wife. And for those who weren’t paying attention to Canadian cinema at the turn of the present century, Kirby starred as the gay son of traditional Italian parents in Emile Gaudrealt’s Mambo Italiano.
“Right now, I’d like to work on my tan if I could find the ...
Ryan Reynolds: swimming in Deadpool success
People: Ryan Reynolds Interview
Ryan Reynolds wears his love of Vancouver on his fleshy sleeve with a tattoo of the Nine O'Clock Gun, but thanks to the skyrocketing success of Deadpool, the sexiest dad alive is making a big noise of his own.
By Katherine Monk
VANCOUVER, BC – He’s officially the hottest star in Hollywood now that Deadpool has racked up a quarter-billion $US in its first week of release and launched an on-line fan frenzy demanding he host SNL, get his own statue in the prairie province of Saskatchewan, and get on with spawning a series of Deadpool sequels.
Vancouver’s Ryan Reynolds has come a long way since his so-called “breakout year” back in ’02-’03, when he made the leap from recurring roles on TV shows such as Fifteen, The Odyssey and The Outer Limits to being the star of features films. He played a party hound Van Wilder, and a master thief in Foolproof, Canada’s first full-size experiment with the action genre. The whole movie was geared ...
887: Robert Lepage televises the revolution
Theatre: 887
After decades of detouring issues of cultural identity, the veteran writer, actor and director creates his own confessional with 887, a new one-man show that revisits the minutia of memory
By Katherine Monk
VANCOUVER, BC — Robert Lepage always looks a little uncomfortable up there, standing like a ten-year-old at the altar, hands forcibly clasped, waiting for some wafer-thin affirmation of self. It’s the reason why his one-man shows are probably the best in the world: He can manifest conflict just by standing on stage.
The quake of insecurity. It’s deep: A black vein of that shimmers though his oeuvre and powers his creative locomotive, now many cars long, with a relentless head of steam. As a critic who’s followed his shiny train of thought for decades, I’ve always wondered where that dark seam started. And when I had the occasion of interviewing him, I would ask.
Whence the duality? Is there a political element? And he would always remain ...
Snowtime! animates a Canadian classic
Movies: Snowtime!
The creators behind Snowtime! talk about the challenges of tinkering with an emotional strand of the Quebec's cultural DNA, and getting Celine Dion onboard to sing about loss
By Katherine Monk
PARK CITY, UT — The footsteps they chose to follow were Yeti-sized craters, but that didn’t stop the filmmakers behind Snowtime! from recreating one of the most popular films in Canadian history.
Originally released as a live action feature in 1984, La guerre des tuques went on to become the highest-grossing film of the year in both English and French Canada with well over a $1.2 million in domestic receipts, not to mention several more million in ancillary merchandize in the years that would follow as the film became the go-to Christmas season broadcast — the Rudolph or Frosty for French-Canada.
“What you have to understand is this is part of the DNA of the quebec people,” said producer Marie-Claude Beauchamp, who sat down with The Ex-Press during the ...
Deadpool reanimates comic book form
Movie review: Deadpool
Ryan Reynolds's physical skills and comic timing prove unbeatable as he takes on the role of a nihilist antihero in Deadpool, a self-conscious wink to Spandex form that would have been unwatchable without him
The Revenant is raw tension
Movie review: The Revenant
Leonardo DiCaprio undergoes a horrendous series of trials — including that famous bear attack — in Alejandro G. Inarritu's masterful tale of survival
Mississippi Grind percolates
Movie review: Mississippi Grind
The team behind Half Nelson and Sugar return with a film about chronic gambling that isn't as depressing as it probably should be, thanks to a pair of pocket kings in Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn
Wim Wenders finds warmth in Canadian winter
People: Wim Wenders
The German filmmaker says he used stereoscopic 3D technology in Every Thing Will Be Fine, his latest art film about grief and loss, in a bid to bring depth to Quebec's unique landscape
By Katherine Monk
TORONTO – His voice sounds like something straight out of a fairy tale: a soft German accent bending over vowels with a delicate arc and a deep warm tone that seems to echo through hand-milled timber.
Even his name, Wim Wenders, feels like a plucky character from a Grimm plot, so the fact that this German auteur has transformed the stark hues and blinding skies of the Canadian landscape into a cozy microcosm feels strangely natural.
Every Thing Will Be Fine is Wenders’s 46th film, but it marks a series of firsts: It’s his first film in Canada, his first shoot in winter, and the first time any auteur has used 3D technology in the heady pursuit of an art film.
Wenders always thought the technology was used poorly – a point he proved in ...
