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.
Never Look Away all about the red, white and blur
Movie review: Never Look Away
Oscar winner Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s latest film is a fictional epic inspired by German painter Gerhard Richter’s early career in the East, but it captures the contours of human truth by pulling us through pigments of pain with a creative brush.
Welsh movies — yes, and there are a lot of them — come to Ottawa
By Jay Stone
OTTAWA — The most famous Welsh film ever made is probably How Green Was My Valley, the sentimental 1941 portrait of a growing up in coal mining town that was directed by American-born John Ford and starred Walter Pidgeon, the pride of St. John, New Brunswick, and Maureen O’Hara from Dublin. Everyone in the movie spoke English with an Irish accent. It was, however, filmed in Wales. How Green Was My Valley — which won the Best Picture Oscar that year, beating Citizen Kane — was just one of many movies throughout the years that have been set, or sometimes just filmed, in Wales. Even more have featured Welsh-born actors: the country has contributed a mighty roster of stars to the world cinema, including Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ray Milland and a current Oscar nominee, Christian Bale. But there’s another Welsh movie industry as well, that tells stories of the country, often in the Welsh language. Those films ...
Remembering Michael Kesterton: An Oasis of Old-Fashioned Civility
Tribute: Michael Kesterton
Though he made his name in journalism with the collection of arcane facts that became the Globe's beloved Social Studies column, Rod Mickleburgh remembers the young, and somewhat awkward, Varsity staffer who shared a quirky sense of humour.
By Rod Mickleburgh
The unexpected can hit you in the solar plexus. Such was my feeling late December, when I received an email from a former colleague at the Globe and Mail giving me the sad news that the one-of-a-kind Michael Kesterton had died. He was best known to Globe readers as the genius behind the assemblage of arcane facts, news, trivia, miscellanea, humour and occasional bits of string that made up the paper’s beloved daily feature, Social Studies, which ran for 23 years. In the midst of all the superb journalism and writing that filled the Globe in those days when I was on the paper (smile), many readers turned first to Social Studies. A hit from the beginning, his unique creation – Twitter before its time ...
Alita: Battle Angel embodies modern socialist ideal
Movie Review - Alita: Battle Angel
James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez pull off some careful reprogramming of a Japanese animé heroine by pitting her superior cyborg parts against human selfishness in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Isn’t It Romantic? feels like a rhetorical question
Movie review: Isn’t It Romantic?
Rebel Wilson leads a revolutionary effort through the red taffeta jungle of rom-coms, but fails to topple the upper tier of icing-covered couple expectations. And that’s probably just the way we want it. “Somewhere deep down, we crave a fairy tale ending for a relatable character — just as we do for ourselves,” writes movie critic Katherine Monk.
LEGO Movie 2 misses magical click but still sticks
Movie Review: The LEGO Movie 2 - The Second Part
The absurdist edge and creative intelligence that made the first LEGO movie a masterpiece is eclipsed by shallow self-awareness and plastic brick branding, but the Second Part still builds a world of enchantment by piecing together sibling rivalries with heart.
Movie Review: Stan & Ollie finds comic sweetness
Movie Review: Stan & Ollie
Jon S. Baird’s pathos-laden take on Laurel and Hardy allow Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly to explore the slow-boiling lunacy that fuelled the comic legends, yet lacks a light and loving touch.
