Opening this Friday is the next instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ant-Man and The Wasp. While lacking the originality of the first film (and its desire to repeat the beats and moments that made the first one such a unique success), this one still succeeds and does so best when it focuses on the…
Tag: beats
Saving Private Ryan (1998) – Steven Spielberg
I was stunned when I first saw Saving Private Ryan on opening day, 24 July, 1998. I had never seen war depicted so realistically, so heart-breaking, graphic, and impactful. I held onto the names of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks like a mantra through the film, to guide me through it, to make everything be…
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) – Ernst Lubitsch
Remade in 1998 as You’ve Got Mail, the original classic, The Shop Around the Corner, starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan is the next title on the What Else to Watch list following the recommendation from The Movie Book, available now from DK Canada, for the screening of To Be or Not To Be. Stewart…
Annabelle: Creation (2017) – David F. Sandberg
Over the course of four films, Warner Brothers has created a cinematic universe that imbued studio horror movies with a sense of fun. And now, the fourth film in the Conjuring Cinematic Universe comes home with the release of Annabelle: Creation to blu-ray and DVD. Serving as a prequel to the previous film, the first…
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) – Sergio Leone
The Great Movies – The 100 Years of Film book returns me to the western genre with this Sergio Leone epic that stars Jason Robards, Chalres Bronson, Henry Fonda and Claudia Cardinale. Playing against type, Fonda is the villain, Frank, who is working for the railroad, and trying to drive a woman, Jill McBain (Cardinale),…
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1988) – 11001001, and Too Short a Season
Captain’s log: stardate 41365.9 11001001 was written by Maurice Hurley and Robert Lewin and is one of the high points of the first season. Airing on 1 February, 1988, the story sees the Enterprise arriving at a space station for a computer update (Here’s where I have one of my only real problems with the…
Village of the Damned (1995) – John Carpenter
John Carpenter’s take on the Midwich Cuckoo’s tale is next up in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book, and boasts a pretty fine cast in the form of Christopher Reeve, Kirstie Alley, Marlk Hamill, Linda Kozlowski and Michael Pare. The location has been changed to small town America, but the basis of the story remains the…
Fringe Toronto: Meet Cute
Taking up residence at the fantastic space of the Annex Theatre, Erin Norah Thompson, wrote and stars, alongside Jesse Bond, in this wonderful, funny, and romantic look at one moment, two lives, three versions. A meet cute is a plot device most often employed in rom-come to introduce the romantic leads in a cute (why doesn’t…
Crimes of the Heart
In the tiny, intimate space of The Theatre Machine, Toronto’s Sterling Theatre Company is presenting a production of Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart. Under the able direction of Miriam Laurence, the audience is transported back to the 1970s, and the lives of the Mississippi born and raised MacGrath sisters. We were interested in…
The Mind Reels 