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Jay Stone and Katherine Monk movie reviews and profiles. Movies new to streaming / DVD.
Reviews of Canadian movies and filmmaker profiles by Katherine Monk and Jay Stone.

Is Tom Hardy the best actor in the world?

The star of the new gangster drama Legend is a versatile actor whose roles range from the indomitable Mad Max the villainous Bane. Is there nothing he can't do? By Jay Stone   TORONTO — Tom Hardy might be the best actor of his generation.   He can do anything. He was the scary buff gangster in Bronson and then he was the scary but doomed hit man Ricki Tarr in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy. Next thing you know, he’s Bane, the gigantic muscled villain in The Dark Knight Rises, growling through a leather mask. Hard to believe it was the same guy in Locke, a solo film about a man who’s responsible for the concrete in a British construction project, called away because a woman he once slept with is about to give birth to their child. Now he’s Bob, the compliant bartender in the gangster drama The Drop who turns out to be a guy you don’t want to screw around with. Then he’s the indomitable (but vulnerable!) hero in the post-apocalyptic desert in Mad Max: Fury ...

#TIFF15: Demolition deconstructs grief with heart

The Toronto International Film Festival opened with Jean-Marc Vallée's off-beat drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts Demolition Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Chris Cooper, Judah Lewis.  Jean-Marc Vallée’s opening night movie befuddled some critics here in Toronto, but I fell in love with this movie about an investment banker who unravels in the wake of a personal tragedy — if only because I had no idea how it would end. Anyone who reads the synopsis of Brian Sipe’s screenplay knows how it begins: Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal) is in the car with his wife arguing over a leaky refrigerator when the random force of fate T-bones their vehicle. His wife is killed, but Davis escapes without so much as a scratch. On the surface he is whole, but beneath the shiny exterior, he is shattered — and it’s this dissonance that powers the whole off-beat drama.   How could an external reality and an internal truth be ...

TIFF report: So far, so exciting

It’s easy to find things to love at the Toronto film festival, especially if you let Alfred Hitchcock be your guide through the movie magic, writes Jay Stone     By Jay Stone   TORONTO — On the sidewalk of John Street, just around the corner from the theatre where most of the Toronto International Film Festival movies are screened, someone has stenciled the instruction, “Find out what you love and let it kill you.”   It’s a line from Charles Bukowski — who found out that he loved alcohol, then died of it, thus proving the authenticity of his advice, if not the wisdom — and it’s an ideal motto for TIFF, where, if you’re not done in by the pace of the films or the parties, you’re also tempted by the unlimited free doughnuts in the hospitality suite of EOne, the distributor that runs a must-visit salon on a high floor of the nearby Intercontinental Hotel.   Mmmm. Doughnuts. I mean, Movies.   It’s also ...

Can TIFF ride to box-office rescue?

With 2015 shaping up to be one of the worst box-office years on record, film industry types are desperately hoping this year's Toronto International Film Festival manifests a movie messiah. The Ex-Press takes a look at the top contenders.   By Katherine Monk September 10, 2015  TORONTO — The truth fades quickly in the pop and hiss of paparazzi flashes, but it sits here nonetheless, a little lump lying under the red carpet: 2015 could turn out to be the worst year at the box-office in adjusted dollar-history.   Sure, J.J. Abrams will awaken the force, James Bond will rise with Spectre and the ever-hungry Katniss Everdeen will no doubt slaughter as the calendar year draws to a close, but as the Toronto International Film Festival kicks off today with the gala world premiere of Jean-Marc Vallée’s eerily titled Demolition, the big question is: Can TIFF ride to the rescue and resuscitate the public’s interest in “cinema” — movies that don’t have ...
3.5Score

Mistress America a shaggy comedy

Movie review: Mistress America Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig have concocted a screwball story of friendship between two women that finds a beacon of hope in one of life's lovable losers  
4Score

Why I’m addicted to The Knick

Clive Owen and Steven Soderbergh create a volatile dramatic mix in The Knick, the HBO-Cinemax series about turn-of-the-century surgeons that broke viewing records last year   The Knick: Season One 4/5 Starring: Clive Owen, Juliet Rylance, André Holland, Eve Hewson, Michael Angarano, Eric Johnson Directed by: Steven Soderbergh Cinemax/ HBO Home Entertainment Available now on VOD, DVD, Digital HD, Blu-ray   By Katherine Monk September 3, 2015 -- It’s as addictive as the cocaine our lead character injects between his toes, and for that, we can thank the unsheathed thespian potency of Clive Owen. The 50-year-old English actor who emerged as a force in the wake of Croupier takes the gloves off for his portrayal of John Thackery, a turn-of-the-century surgeon trying to save lives at the Knickerbocker Hospital. If he sounds like your standard soap opera doctor, you’re partly right. Dr. Thackery engages in all kinds of heroics, as well as sexual escapa...

Cameron Labine climbs mountain of manhood

Interview: Cameron Labine The director and writer behind the new movie Mountain Men explores the nature of masculinity as he sets two brothers into the Canadian wilderness to cope with simmering sibling issues, and a medical emergency By Katherine Monk September 3, 2015, VANCOUVER – Like some of mankind’s most classic adventures, it all started with a great fall. Filmmaker Cam Labine was at a full moon party far up the Squamish River on B.C.’s South Coast. He wasn’t “in his right mind,” started wandering, and took a bad tumble in the dark. “That was sort of a wake up call for me,” says Labine, sitting in a warm and decidedly cozy café in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood. “Growing up in BC, in Maple Ridge, you sort of spend a lot of time outdoors. At least, I spent a lot of time camping and snowboarding and hiking… and you end up feeling comfortable in the mountains, like I belong to them. But with the fall came an epiphany: That I am an urban kid ...

Wes Craven was horrified by horror crown

Wes Craven faced his lapsed Baptist fears and exorcised personal demons through his work, but the man with the graduate degree from Johns Hopkins said his biggest victory was overcoming his anxiety around "The Master of Horror" label By Katherine Monk Wes Craven is dead, but his characters will haunt us forever. The master of cinematic Screams and A Nightmare on Elm Street passed away of brain cancer August 30 at the age of 76, but he leaves more than a scar on our collective subconscious thanks to the razor-fingered Freddy Krueger. Like many horror auteurs, Craven’s work forced us to experience the world differently: To feel fear, and in turn, to feel more alive.   “My films are about waking up... and no matter what you do, don’t fall asleep. The idea is to be here now; to live in the moment, and to understand what’s happening between yourself and the other,” Craven once told me in an interview.   It was over the phone, done when George W. Bush ...
2Score

We Are Your Friends samples cliché

Zac Efron plays a young man from the San Fernando Valley looking to make it as a top-tier DJ in this half-empty can of cinematic Red Bull that has lots of energy but lacks substance, soul and any semblance of intelligence  
4Score

The End of the Tour stands at existential edge

Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg engage in a cerebral sword fight that punctures ego and hits metaphysical bone in James Ponsoldt's low-key snapshot of the late David Foster Wallace