At the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 14, Inuit filmmaker and co-founder of Isuma Productions, Zacharius Kunuk, received the Best Canadian Feature Film Award for his latest work, Uiksaringitara (Wrong Husband). This award recognizes his career’s continued influence—defined by innovation, community, and cultural reclamation. Over two decades after his[Read More…]
Tag: film review
The biblical mediocrity of The Phoenician Scheme
Wes Anderson is widely distinguished for his aesthetic style—features ranging from striking symmetry to eye-level points of view, pastels to vibrant hues. Highlighting ordinary objects in otherwise distinctive ways, viewers have even begun to excavate these aspects in their everyday lives. @Accidentalwesanderson on Instagram has amassed nearly two million followers,[Read More…]
‘Universal Language:’ A frostbitten Canadian comedy
If you’re from Winnipeg, you may be familiar with the Rod Peeler bench. For the uninitiated, Rod Peeler is a real estate agent whose distinctive bench ads—plastered with the phrase “I never sleep”—are considered a local legend. When the bench made its cameo appearance in Universal Language, several audience members[Read More…]
‘White Bird:’ A heartbreaking tale of courage and kindness in the face of mass destruction
How is it that we can enter a theatre dry-eyed and fresh-faced and emerge several hours later, eyes glistening with tears? It is not simply violence or harm that touches our soul. To elicit such a visceral reaction, something more is required: Injustice. Harm inflicted upon the innocent and kind[Read More…]
The poison drips through in ‘The Zone of Interest’
Minor spoilers for The Zone of Interest How would you depict an atrocity onscreen? What would you show, and perhaps more importantly, what wouldn’t you? In Jonathan Glazer’s new five-time Oscar-nominated film, The Zone of Interest, these choices are put at the forefront of the narrative. The result? Nothing short[Read More…]
Massimadi Festival highlights Black queer stories
From Feb. 15 to 18, the Massimadi Foundation held its annual Afro LGBTQ+ Arts and Film Festival at the McCord Stewart Museum in Montreal. In honour of Black History Month, this special edition of the festival, themed “Transcendence,” highlighted Black queer stories that are not often seen or heard by[Read More…]
‘American Fiction’: A movie about movies about books
Spoilers for American Fiction “Nuance doesn’t put asses in theater seats.” At least, that’s what fictional movie director Wiley Valdespino (Adam Brody) says in the final scene of Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction. In the Cineplex that I trekked out to on a Tuesday after class, the audience let out a[Read More…]
‘The Sweet East’: A tumultuous teenage odyssey
Underscored by chaos and life in flux, Sean Price Williams’ The Sweet East is a picturesque tale of a teenage girl’s voyage across the East Coast of the U.S. amid turbulent political and personal landscapes. Lillian (Talia Ryder) is a South Carolina native, separated from her classmates during a high[Read More…]
“Saltburn” is a cinematic scrutinization of opulence and obsession
Spoilers for Saltburn Opulence. Drugs. Midnight strolls. A hedge maze. Far too many shots of bathtubs. Welcome to Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s latest cinematic endeavour. Known for her bold feature-length directorial debut, Promising Young Woman, Fennell’s newest film takes a more ironic journey, enlisting a stellar cast to portray an “eat[Read More…]
The metamorphosis of Coriolanus Snow
Spoilers for The Hunger Games: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes; mentions of violence. A villain is made from an innocent soul shattered to the point their humanity is forgotten. An enraptured audience feels compelled to watch this slow descent into madness, the arc of a villain so brutally destroyed.[Read More…]
