Bruce McDonald gives Stephen McHattie a double-scoop of Dreamland
Movies: Interview with Canadian director Bruce McDonald
McDonald’s latest film features a drug-addicted trumpet player and a jaundiced hitman on a collision course in the middle of Europe. “It’s about the journeyman and the artist,” says the director. He might as well have been talking about McHattie himself -- the Canadian character actor who sits at the heart of this “one-man two-hander.”
First Stripes revises bootcamp cliché with a Canadian accent
Movie Review: First Stripes
Jean-François Caissy’s fly-on-the-wall documentary isn't about glorifying the military with a starry-eyed salute to symbols. It's about celebrating the humans who sacrifice a part of themselves for the national ideal, but more importantly, for each other.
Greed mauls corpulent corpse of affluence
Movie review: Greed
Michael Winterbottom gives the billionaire class a kick in their overweighted assets in Greed, a black comedy that tries to address systemic inequality through an unsympathetic character modelled after the founder of Top Shop. It’s an interesting movie, but that doesn’t mean it’s an artistic, or even a rhetorical, success.
Sonic the Hedgehog revives cartoon soul
Movie Review: Sonic the Hedgehog
James Marsden shows the movie-going public how to handle a '90s-era videogame character reborn on the big screen as a kid-friendly version of Deadpool: Just roll with it.
The Assistant coolly dissects Weinstein scandal
Movie review: The Assistant
Documentary filmmaker Kitty Green casts Julia Garner as a 20-something underling struggling to navigate a toxic work environment and a loud, bellowing boss who bullies those around him into submission. It's not a feel-good movie. It's an ode to millennial malaise.
Dolittle could have done a lot more
Movie review: Dolittle
Robert Downey Jr. dons Victorian garb and a Welsh accent for his turn as a dotty vet with a particular gift in this grim take on a kid-lit classic that lacks authenticity, despite the realistic creatures.
Bad Boys for Life suffers from ED – excitement deficiency
Movie Review: Bad Boys for Life
Bad Boys proved movie formula could transcend all demographic boundaries while establishing the career of Michael Bay, but a quarter century hence, not even the combined charisma of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence can salvage the bore and gore of a tired reboot.
Jay Stone’s Top 10 movies of 2019
(Along with one honourable mention and one movie that every one else loved conspicuous by its absence)
By Jay Stone
Here are my favourite movies of 2019, in alphabetical order:
Honeyland: An amazing documentary, filmed in Macedonia, about a female beekeeper who lives with her ailing mother in rocky isolation, and harvests honey in a way compatible with her deep understanding of the life of bees. This hard-scrabble harmony is disrupted by a family of raucous nomads who move next door. The result is a galvanizing drama about society, greed, culture and, well, bees.
Gloria Bell: Sebastián Lelio’s remake of his own 2013 Spanish-language movie Gloria stars Julianne Moore as a divorcee who assuages her loneliness at dance clubs, and John Turturro as the constricted man who falls for her. The final scene, with the magnificent Moore dancing to the titular disco hit, is one of the great cinematic shouts of joy of the year.
Jojo Rabbit: New ...
