The Academy Awards are awful. This is not up for dispute. They’re trying to get better—this year’s nominees present a definitively more inclusive list than in years past—but at its heart, the event is a self-congratulatory, out of touch, typically-discriminatory money grab that almost always awards the wrong thing. Nevertheless,[Read More…]
Film and TV
“Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance” explores a conflict still unresolved
During the summer of 1990, a centuries-long land dispute between Mohawk members of the Kanehsatà:ke community and the Canadian government developed into an armed confrontation that would last for almost three months. The conflict broke out because of a proposed golf course expansion in Oka, a small town roughly 60[Read More…]
Sam Rockwell shines in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Writer-director Martin McDonagh’s (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths) world is inhabited by broken souls; well-intentioned but flawed people who hurt the ones they love because they have not found any other way to cope. Pain passes between individuals in an endless cycle of violence, and we watch as it grows, infects,[Read More…]
On Armie Hammer’s shoes in Call Me By Your Name
Shoes don’t often scream your name from across a crowded room. Unlike the peacockish hat, the ostentatious bifocal, or the presumptuous earring, the humble shoe does not boisterously salute you at eye-level. Often concealed, or at least partially so, by a brashly uncuffed pant leg, shoes maintain a measured distance[Read More…]
The Disaster Artist—or ‘How to Bring Tommy Wiseau to the Oscars’
In 2003, a man created a film that came to be known as the best worst movie of all time: The Room, written and directed by Tommy Wiseau, who also stars. Despite its lackluster premiere and absence of a theatrical release, it has garnered a cult following complete with midnight[Read More…]
Phantom Thread finds hilarity in toxicity
Don’t be deceived by its trailers: Phantom Thread, the new Paul Thomas Anderson (Inherent Vice, Boogie Nights) film, is possibly the funniest thing he’s made yet. It’s also one of the most impeccably-crafted movies of 2017. Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Reynolds Woodcock in what he claims will be his last[Read More…]
Thirty years of queer art and activism at image+nation
Thirty years ago, Canada’s first LGBTQ film festival held its inaugural screening. Today, the image+nation festival continues to share queer cinema with Montreal’s wider community, supporting the producers and artists who create these spellbinding stories. Bringing all of this together is no easy task. Programming director Katharine Setzer and her[Read More…]
Short guides to active viewership and listening
Active Viewership Throw your cellphone, food, and “friend” out the window Rather than splitting your time between different distractions, do one thing at a time! Ask “Why?” Take for granted that filmmakers know what they are doing, and that all things happen for a reason. Questioning every artistic decision will[Read More…]
Cielo: Alison McAlpine’s conversation with the sky
Among the 142 films featured at the latest Montréal International Documentary Festival (Nov. 9 – 19), one of the most memorable was Cielo, the first feature film by Canadian director Alison McAlpine. Set in the Chilean Atacama Desert, Cielo is an exploration of the night sky’s hold over the people who[Read More…]
The Killing of a Sacred Deer brings original formal approach to derivative subject matter
The Killing of a Sacred Deer opens with Schubert’s grandiose “Stabat Mater” playing over an extreme close-up of a human heart mid-operation, followed by a conversation between two surgeons about wristwatch straps. Within minutes, director Yorgos Lanthimos sets the tone for the film: Darkly eccentric, fearlessly macabre, and meticulously choreographed. However,[Read More…]
