Kathleen Hepburn Takes a Metaphorical Skinny Dip
Interview: Kathleen Hepburn
The first-time feature director went back to the family cabin in northern B.C. -- and deep into the wilderness of mother-child dynamics -- in Never Steady, Never Still
Red Sparrow Flutters, Flaps, Finally Flies
Movie Review: Red Sparrow
Jennifer Lawrence has trouble with a Slavic accent, but she nails the emotional conflict and physicality of a ballet dancer turned sex spy in Francis Lawrence's Cold War thriller that feels like a return to the good old bad days
Bening Becomes Legend in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
Movie review: Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool Annette Bening pours pathos into a champagne glass as Gloria Grahame in Paul McGuigan’s moody portrait of the feminine mystique and its martyrdom at the grabby hands of Hollywood Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
4/5
Starring: Annette Bening, Jamie Bell, Julie Walters, Vanessa Redgrave, Kenneth Cranham
Directed by: Paul McGuigan
Running time: 1 hr 45 mins
Rating: Restricted By Katherine Monk
She had a starring role in It’s a Wonderful Life, but Gloria Grahame had anything but. As one of the leading femme fatales of the 20th century, Grahame was a prisoner of her pin-up image, sentenced to the shadows of sexually charged parts in an era that regarded a woman’s libido as a moral liability. Sexuality was her ticket to the gleaming world of Golden Age Hollywood, but in Paul McGuigan’s emotionally detailed portrait based on Peter Turner’s memoir, we can see how her biggest gift also became her biggest ...
War, Disasters and Quiet Passions: Jay Stone’s Top Ten Movies of 2017
Movies: Top Ten 2017
Greta Gerwig's coming-of-age gem, Lady Bird, garners big Stone praise amid a cluster of small diamonds about outsiders, loss and the elusive power of hope
By Jay Stone Lady Bird: Pretty well the best time I had at the movies this year came from this small, exquisitely observed story that we’ve seen a million times: a young woman comes of age in a small town, fights with her parents and dreams of glory in the big city. But writer/director Greta Gerwig — drawing on her own life — turns this familiar material into a sweet, caustic, and authentic tale of growing up, aided by great performances from Laurie Metcalfe as the exasperated mother and Saoirse Ronan as the complicated young woman. A true gem.
The Florida Project: Filmmaker Sean Baker takes a step up from his previous movie (Tangerine, which was shot on an iPhone) but doesn’t sacrifice any of the grit in the story of people living on the edge of the American dream, in every sense: they inhabit a ...
The Post Delivers Big Message Sans Emotional Stamp
Movie review: The Post
Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep play second fiddle to a 7,000-page stack of paper and an old Xerox machine in Steven Spielberg's well-intentioned history lesson about lying Presidents
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 ...
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 ...
