3Score

Movie review: Secrets of Dumbledore spills beans… and blood

Movie review: Fantastic Beasts - The Secrets of Dumbledore The characters we came to love through the Harry Potter franchise get a decidedly dark makeover in a continuing prequel that offers deeper moral dilemmas and more cute creatures, but an overstuffed plot that drains sympathy.    
2.5Score

Movie review: Cyrano may leave everyone unrequited

Movie review: Cyrano Joe Wright's take on Edmond Rostand's classic tale of courting makes a bold move that hits a bad note, despite an inspired performance from Peter Dinklage in the title role of a man who struggles with his physical appearance.
3Score

Munich: Edge of War wallows in pre-war paranoia

Munich: The Edge of War  When the world feels unfriendly and the people you thought were friends whisper behind your back, you know you're not in Hollywood anymore. You're watching the fully earnest Munich: Edge of War.
3.5/5, 4/5Score

Two new docs offer deep dive on African-American dance icons

Movie review: Ailey and Can You Bring It - Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters Alvin Ailey and Bill T. Jones redefined modern dance for their generation, but while Ailey's company became the de facto representative of the African-American experience on the legitimate stage, Bill T. Jones lingered in the shadows long enough to truly know himself, and the emotional purpose behind each move.  
4Score

Nomadland travels a cold road to personal freedom

Movie Review - Nomadland Frances McDormand forces us to see the warmth of kindred souls seeking freedom in a landscape abandoned by the American Dream.

Before we called it ‘the Beforetimes,’ we watched baseball — without worry

Column: A Long Day's Journey into COVID awareness Last March, Ex-Press staffer Charles Gordon was in Dunedin, Florida when COVID-19 cancelled Spring Training, and forced his family on an angst-filled road trip northward. A year on into the pandemic, we look back at the moment when everything, and everyone, changed. A memoir from March 21, 2020 By Charles Gordon We had already decided to come home before the call came officially from our government. For one thing, a prescient friend had announced, on the Tuesday before, that he was leaving: he had a respiratory infection and the Coronavirus could be fatal to him. A bunch of us were at the Florida restaurant where he told us that and we made light of it on the way back to the hotel. “Should I go straight to the hospital?” I asked, to general chuckles, as we got into the car. Still, it made me think. Here I was, an older Canadian, pushing 80, and a long way from a decent health care system. For another thing, they cancelled ...
4Score

Cherry strips full metal jacket off explosive content to keep heart intact

Movie Review: Cherry Joe and Anthony Russo use their superhero experience to  bring Nico Walker's novel to the screen with the epic scale of an Avengers movie, only to empty every hidden pocket in the cargo pants of male identity.
3.5Score

Death of a Ladies Man rides drifts down St. Lawrence Street on a raft of booze-fuelled memory

Movie Review: Death of a Ladies Man Matthew Bissonnette's new feature is not based on the famed Montreal poet-Lothario's writing, but it finds the same bruised skies and ice-covered steeples that inspired his work -- and in the process, gives Gabriel Byrne a clean shot at creative narcissism.
3.5Score

My Salinger Year serves up character on a silver platter, with a side of quirk

Movie review: My Salinger Year Joanna Rakoff's memoir takes its small gestures to the big screen in Philippe Falardeau's adaptation that finds a soft spot for a world before word processors, emails and the amputated personal communiques called 'texts.'  
3Score

Raya and the Last Dragon seeks peace, but gets lost in labyrinth of war

Movie Review: Raya and the last Dragon The new Disney blockbuster pushes female characters to the forefront, but ambient violence and distrust betrays a sensitivity to the fair sex with slings, arrows and spears.