Isle of Dogs Marks Wes Anderson’s Territory
Movie review: Isle of Dogs
There’s the heavy sigh of melancholy that defines Anderson’s whole oeuvre in this second stop-motion piece of animation, but as it howls at the loss of childhood innocence, it also recreates a little chunk of magic by hand.
Hello Tokyo, How You’ve Changed
Globe Trot: Tokyo
Returning to Japan's teeming metropolis after a 60-year absence offers a distilled glimpse of technological progress and the immutable Japanese character
By Charley Gordon
(November 22, 2016) In the busy Asakusa neighbourhood of Tokyo is the Senso-ji Temple, a major attraction. Thousands of people jam the narrow street leading from the gate to the temple, which is lined with dozens of shops selling just about anything. Not everything sold relates to religion. In fact, there is a store that sells cookies that are made right in front of you by a machine. Japanese, unlike North Americans, don’t eat on the streets but those cookies are a temptation. Hence a sign, in the kind of Japanese English that has always held a peculiar charm: "This street is not able to eat while walking." After being away from Japan for 60 years, it was encouraging to see that some things haven’t changed. The Japanese do things their own way, no matter how much Western influence they ...
Hacksaw Ridge affirms Gospel of Gibson
Movie Review: Hacksaw Ridge
The Academy Award-winning director of Braveheart seeks career redemption in a war movie that grinds the gears of genre via a hero who refuses to carry a gun into battle
Nadia Litz and Jai West dig deep in The People Garden
People: Interview - Nadia Litz and Jai West on The People Garden
The former actor and first-time feature director says she wanted to create a female character in her 20s who could ride a wave of emotional ambiguity to escape the warm, fuzzy, vulnerable and typically banal female box
By Katherine Monk
VANCOUVER, BC – Ambiguity isn’t a topic that generally lends itself to passion, yet a recent sit-down with director-writer Nadia Litz and actor Jai West reveals a mental desire to resist closure that’s near obsessive. “Oh man. Ambiguity is the whole thing…” says Litz. “It’s everything. It’s the theme of the film: that there is no black and white conclusion to anything. It’s what relationships are. It’s what life is. It’s what death is.” When Litz talks about “the whole thing,” she’s talking about The People Garden, her debut feature starring West, Pamela Anderson and Dree Hemingway (daughter of Mariel Hemingway, niece of the late Margaux). ...
