Small Wins, Big Tanks: Top Ten Movies of 2017
Movies: Top Ten Films of 2017
Film critic Katherine Monk looks back on a year without frontrunners or favourites, making 2017's top choices a truly personal matter with I, Tonya, Icarus and Wonder Woman landing on the podium, and plenty of other worthy contenders in the race.
By Katherine Monk
It seems the President and Harvey Weinstein eclipsed the klieg lights of the entertainment world: There is no artistic standout, nor crowd-pleasing frontrunner in the race for this year’s movie laurels as the recent Golden Globe ceremony proved. The five major awards were handed out to four films. No Moonlight. No Lala Land. Not even a Hidden Figures. The year 2017 will be remembered for the last-minute resuscitation at the box-office thanks to Star Wars’s enduring shock paddles, pulling a loser year into so-so territory in the home stretch with more than half a billion in receipts for The Last Jedi. Nonetheless, revenues were down 2.7 per cent ($11 billion US) over 2016’s $11.377 ...
I, Tonya Has Triple Axel to Grind
Movie review: I, Tonya
Margot Robbie goes for the gold as disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding in Craig Gillespie's dazzling ode to dysfunction that captures the early daze of reality-based entertainment
I, Tonya Has a Triple Axel to Grind
Movie review: I, Tonya
Margot Robbie goes for the gold as disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding in Craig Gillespie's dazzling ode to dysfunction that captures the early daze of reality-based entertainment
Kate Winslet Spares Woody’s Wonder Wheel
Movie review: Wonder Wheel
Woody Allen's direction is just plain wooden as he hands the dramatic tray to Kate Winslet, forcing her to serve up a bland meatloaf formed from F. Scott Fitzgerald scraps and Tennessee Williams's vulnerable female gristle
Canadians get early Christmas presence from NFB
Brief: Canadian Film
The National Film Board of Canada wants you to unwrap your present of Canadian presence, offering 20 award-winning movies on-line for free, starting today
By Katherine Monk
(December 7, 2017) -- Naughty? Nice? No matter. The National Film Board is giving everyone a gift by posting 20 award-winning movies on-line — for free. Starting today, Canadian film fans can take in an assortment of documentaries and animated films, including Sarah Polley’s The Stories We Tell, a timeless portrait of her own family and its secrets, as well as Mina Shum’s Ninth Floor, a documentary about racial tensions at Concordia and the scars that linger decades later. Perhaps best suited to the Christmas season is Payback, Jennifer Baichwal’s big screen take on Margaret Atwood’s Massey Lecture outlining the unspoken balance sheet that exists between humans. “We all have these scales of acknowledged or unacknowledged balances in our heads. Some are family things. ...
Canada’s Sundance 2018 Delegation: Sexy and Animated
News Brief: Canadian Film
Three NFB shorts and four Canadian world premieres selected for the prestigious independent film festival founded by Robert Redford
By The Ex-Press
VANCOUVER — A sexy wolf washing repairman, epic girl crushes and a Croatian co-production about a hedgehog’s quest for home will be heading to Park City as part of the National Film Board’s Sundance Film Festival delegation. Accepted into this year’s short film competition are Diane Obomsawin’s LGBTQ-themed I Like Girls, Chintis Lundgren’s Manivald — a howling take on the Maytag man, and Eva Cvijanovic’s Hedgehog’s Home, a stop-motion story of hedgehog domesticity. According to the news release issued Monday, the three films have already pulled in more than 40 international awards before heading to Utah in the New Year. In addition to the three NFB shorts, the following Canadian projects will also be taking part in the recently announced feature program with several world ...
Big Time Almost Misses Bjarke Ingels’s Big Point
Movie review: Big Time
The man behind the architectural powerhouse, BIG, gets a medium close-up in Kaspar Astrup Schröder's globe-trotting portrait that takes us to the heights of Manhattan's skyline to the depths of a Danish maritime museum
Frankie Drake Mysteries Rewrites The Feminine Mystique
Interview with Lauren Lee Smith
Frankie Drake is a female crime-solver working in 1920s Toronto, but for Vancouver actor Lauren Lee Smith, the new CBC heroine played a pivotal role as personal emancipator
By Katherine Monk
She never thought she’d be a dick. Little girls aren’t conditioned to be assertive, let alone take control — which is exactly why Lauren Lee Smith had to say yes to Frankie Drake. A female detective working in 1920s Toronto, Frankie Drake makes her debut on the national broadcaster tonight, but Smith says the journey to bring the character of Frankie to televised fruition is a feminist odyssey. “The whole idea of a female detective working in 1921 is pretty rad,” says Smith over the phone from Toronto. “But she’s part of a larger history. She worked as a messenger during the First World War, was recruited to be a part of British Intelligence, but when someone blew her cover, she went back to Canada… and opened the first female detective ...
Killing of a Sacred Deer Roasts Sacrificial Lamb
Movie Review: The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Yorgos Lanthimos rewrites Greek tragedy for a modern fit by forcing the audience to ponder the bargains we strike to separate heart and mind in a movie that mercifully screams "metaphor!"
Thor Loses His Thunder
Movie Review -- Thor: Ragnarok
Marvel Studios' latest product feels like industrial birthday cake as it overcooks A-list talent and coats the formulaic boredom in green-screen icing
