With an opening, and an ending that reminds us that how we see stories is all perspective, The Wonder explores the line between fact and faith, science and religion. Based on the book by Emma Donoghue, The Wonder is beguiling, introspective, and moody. In the mid-19th century, an English nurse, Lib Wright (Florence Pugh) who…
Tag: fact
Purple Rain (1984) – Albert Magnoli
Prince was an icon on the verge and his film Purple Rain catapulted him to legend. Using his own life as the basis for the film, the story features electrical musical performances, sometimes subpar to adequate acting, and an engaging tale that highlights everything that he was capable of. Prince plays the Kid who tries…
The X-Files (2001) – Salvage, and Badlaa
These two entries in The X-Files, while solid, failed to engage me as the previous stories of the season, and the series did. It’s not for lack of performances, I just wasn’t captivated by them, and they both seemed to circle around concepts of revenge. Salvage was written by Jeffrey Bell, and first aired on…
The Hunger (2018) – Alma Katsu
There is a sense of dread and menace that seems to ooze off the pages of Alma Katsu’s retelling of the haunting, and infamous Donner Party expedition. Everyone knows, or thinks they know the story, and Katsu uses that troubling knowledge and lets it hang over every page – you know each of the characters…
Fake Blood (2017) – Rob Grant
Whether Canadian film-makers Rob Grant and Mike Kovac movie is fact or fiction isn’t the point of their latest cinematic effort. What is important is the film’s subject matter, and the commentary it makes on film, violence in cinema and the responsibility of the film-makers. Opening Friday at the Carlton here in Toronto, Fake Blood,…
Star Wars: The Last Jedi – The Visual Dictionary (2017) – Pablo Hidalgo
Available now from DK Canada is this amazing companion piece to the new Star Wars film. Filled with hints, that are now canon, about characters, both new, like Supreme Leader Snoke, and old, like Luke Skywalker. Leafing through the pages , I catch things that I didn’t see in the screening but ties in nicely…
Hot Docs 2014: In Country (Mike Attie & Meghan O’Hara)
Screening for the second time of the festival today at 12:30pm at the Lightbox is this reality blurring documentary about a group of veterans as well as some everyday people, who reenact the Vietnam War. Weaving through the footage shot in Oregon with newsreels, sounds and images from the actual war, the line between what is…
The Mind Reels 