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.
TV refugee finds oasis of hope on One Strange Rock, NASA TV
Television: One Strange Rock and NASA TV
Evidence of intelligent life on Earth can be tough to find on the daily trek across the grid, but there’s an alternate universe hidden between the perpetual fireplace and Marie Kondo videos where humility and the human endeavour intersect -- with inspirational results.
How Bao’s house of women brought new dimensions to Pixar animation
#OscarCheck2018
Interview - Bao Filmmakers Domee Shi and Becky Nieman-Cobb
The Oscar nominations come out January 22 and Canadian director Domee Shi is already on the shortlist with Bao. She can’t talk about the Academy Awards, but the Toronto-raised animator says just making the short at Pixar feels like a victory.
Widows buries thriller formula and finds female power
#OscarCheck2018
Movie Review - Widows
Steve McQueen's follow-up to 12 Years a Slave is a female-driven heist film based on a beloved British TV series. For most directors, making a genre thriller would put them out of Oscar contention. But the award-winning McQueen isn’t your average director, and in the wake of #MeToo, Widows could still blow things wide open.
Outlaw King reimagines tribal history, bares Pine’s parts
New on Netflix/Movie Review: Outlaw King
Chris Pine plays national folk hero Robert the Bruce in David Mackenzie's blood sausage of a costume epic that rewrites a few historical details to serve its dramatic cause, and quench our thirst for more Game of Thrones.
I Am Not Your Negro cuts to root of Strange Fruit
Movie Review/ Streaming/ DVD: I Am Not Your Negro
The words of the late James Baldwin provide a searing portrait of race relations in the United States, and prove how little things have changed in the decades since they were written
Confirmation deserves second look
VOD/DVD: Confirmation
Kerry Washington makes a compelling case as Anita Hill in Confirmation, an HBO original that proves more timely than ever as it disrobes the Supreme Court nomination process
Gleason scores, Anthropoid kills, Bad Moms just bad
Home Entertainment: November 1, 2016
Justin Lin puts Star Trek franchise into hyperdrive but fails to engage mental engines but there's plenty of other stars to check out on home platforms this week
By Katherine Monk
Star Trek Beyond (Directed by: Justin Lin, Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg) 2.5/5:
I wanted to love Star Trek Beyond as much as I enjoyed the other two reboots from mastermind J.J. Abrams, and yet, despite my ample enthusiasm for a franchise that puts friendship and humanity first, this third film starring Chris Pine as James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Mr. Spock failed to make it out of the transporter room in one piece. There are many reasons why Beyond falls from a high orbit, but the most noticeable is the name on the director’s chair. Abrams was busy helming that other sci-fi juggernaut, leaving the Fast and the Furious’s Justin Lin to assemble the pieces and play the cosmic strings. Lin is good at car crashes and man ...
