Streaming/DVD 55 results

Reviews of movies now streaming and on DVD by Katherine Monk and Jay Stone.

3, 3, 3.5Score

Double-barrelled shot of Southern Gothic and a clean shot of Chastain

What’s On: September 18, 2020 Janelle Monae wakes up in unwoke South, Tom Holland practices his drawl in the holler and Jessica Chastain gets shaken and stirred as a super-assassin in Ava.  

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.”  
3.5Score

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.
3.5Score

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.
3.5Score

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.
3Score

Disobedience is an uncertain love story

Movie Review: Disobedience An art photographer and an Orthodox Jewish wife re-ignite a forbidden passion in a romance that never quite finds its footing
4Score

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
3.5Score

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