The Northman Cometh, and he’s got an axe to grind
Movie Review: The Northman
There’s not a lot of room for subtlety when most problems are solved by bludgeoning and dismemberment, but you can tell Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke and Alexander Skarsgard are desperate to bring every nuance possible to this broad-strokes study of our stubborn primitivism.
All the mothers of TIFF 2019
There are many problems for mothers in this year's Toronto film festival movies, but Jay Stone finds that his real-life mother is still going strong
By Jay Stone
TORONTO — The other night I played hooky from the Toronto film festival to have dinner with my mother, who lives in north Toronto. She’s 97, but she’s in terrific shape. She works out every day at the gym, and, as she tells it, the people at the retirement home are less amazed by the fact that she can still get down to stretch on the Pilates ball than they are by the fact that she can get back up.
This gives me a tremendous genetic advantage in life: Robert Benchley once wrote that one of the keys to a long life is to keep one’s parents alive, at gunpoint if necessary. It also gives me a huge edge over a lot of people in movies at the festival, many of which feature plots revolving around mothers who have just died, although they continue to haunt their offspring with varying dramatic ...
Kidman falls prey to bad hair daze in Destroyer
Movie review: Destroyer
By tugging at the fake-looking locks sported by Nicole Kidman in Karyn Kusama’s ode to L.A. Noir, our critic coughs up a tangled knot of endemic sexism, and a latent desire for a little more destruction from downer Destroyer.
Boy Erased etches sketch of family versus faith into film history
Movie Review: Boy Erased
Director-actor Joel Edgerton brings Garrard Conley’s memoir of his time in conversion-therapy to the big screen with a cast of powerful voices. Veterans, and fellow Aussies, Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman form the harmony and chorus, while Lucas Hedges performs a heartbreaking solo as the son of a Baptist minister struggling with sexual identity. The combination of all three is close to a religious experience, writes critic Katherine Monk.
#VIFF2018: A big fattie of a film festival that will alter perception
Movies: Vancouver International Film Festival, #VIFF2018
Boasting more than 216 feature films from 55 countries, The Vancouver International Film Festival is one of the beefiest film smorgasbords on the circuit. It can all be a little overwhelming, but veteran critic Katherine Monk offers five vetted bets to get your cinema season started.
The Beguiled Seduces with Mood
Movie Review: The Beguiled
Sofia Coppola revisits a Civil War sex drama to undress gender differences as she casts Colin Farrell as a 'the corporal' in this elegant dissection of desire
Lion has a big roar
Movie review: Lion
The true story of Saroo Brierley's quest for his ancestral home finds an epic scale through intimate, emotionally compelling scenes and standout performances from a top-notch ensemble
Jay Stone picks his TIFF16 ponies
Movies: #TIFF16
The Toronto International Film Festival offers 400 film titles, two Ryan Gosling movies, a Denis Villeneuve Arrival and if you're lucky, free chips
By Jay Stone
There are many things to look forward to at the Toronto International Film Festival, including that party they have every year to celebrate Canadian cinema where they hand out bags of potato chips and chocolate bars, although this year I hear they’re not having the chocolate bars. But we soldier on. Getting through a film festival requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice.
And oh yes: the films. There are about 400 of them here, and if you play your cards right, you can see a couple of dozen and still have time to pick up enough bags of complimentary potato chips to get you through to lunch, although some chocolate bars would have been a nice addition. You know. For dessert.
Where was I? Right: the films. Here, in no particular order, are some that I’m looking forward to.
Arrival
A sci-fi film ...
