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‘Boyhood’: A long decade’s journey into film
Matt Lankes/The New York Times Syndicate/Redux Years ago, in a university survey of American cinema, a professor prefaced a screening of Robert Altman’s ambling epic Nashville with a bracing...
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Was Winnipeg right about Phantom of the Paradise all along?
20th Century Fox/Everett Collection It’s tricky to predict the patterns shaping a movie’s cult success. A few hardened horror fans import a Japanese flick about a haunted video tape and, next thing you...
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Interstellar: A cosmic love letter to the human spirit
Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers Entertainment In 1986, Canada’s first astronaut described the experience of viewing our planet from outer space. “It’s very, very beautiful,” said Capt. Marc...
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Hold onto your ruts: The consumerist nostalgia of ‘Jurassic World’
Photo illustration by Sarah MacKinnon and Richard Redditt Steven Spielberg’s best movies can be easily distilled into their high-concept summaries: “A shark attacks,” “A boy finds an alien,” “A man...
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Wet Hot American prequel worthy of a beloved cult flop
A still from Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp. Saeed Adyani/Netflix Poetry, for T.S. Eliot, was not an expression of the artist’s personality, but an escape from it. “The progress of an...
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Michael Bay brings scorched-earth politics to the big screen
Left to Right: Pablo Schreiber plays Kris “Tanto” Paronto, John Krasinski plays Jack Silva, David Denman plays Dave “Boon” Benton and Dominic Fumusa plays John “Tig” Tiegen in 13 Hours: The Secret...
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Why now is the time for the return of ‘The X-Files’
They’re back: Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. ©2015 Fox Broadcasting Co. (Ed Araquel/FOX) In the 1990s, something truly bizarre happened. Yes, the Iron Curtain dropped and neoliberalism surged...
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How to legalize marijuana? Go Dutch
People sitting inside a Coffee shop, smoking joints. (Yadid Levy/Anzenberger/Redux) Should you find yourself in Amsterdam, cycling along the city’s complex latticework of bike paths, be wary along the...
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A Scientology movie only Louis Theroux could make
Louis Theroux stands outside The Church of Scientology building in Los Angeles. (HotDocs) There’s a shot that pops up again and again in attempts to document the Church of Scientology: two people...
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‘I’m not black. I’m O.J.!’
Closeup casual view of San Francisco 49ers O.J. Simpson on movie set of “Firepower.” Bridgeport in 1978. (Lane Stewart /Sports Illustrated/Getty Images) In February 1995, Vanity Fair’s Dominick Dunne...
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‘Popstar’ exploits the fine line between stupid and Bieber
A still from the film POPSTAR: NEVER STOP STOPPING with Andy Samberg. (Glen Wilson/Universal/Everett Collection) From the start, the ascent of Justin Bieber, the self-styled bad boy of beautiful...
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Alan Moore and literature’s fascination with the fourth dimension
Alan Moore. (Kevin Nixon/SFX Magazine/Getty Images) Alan Moore’s comic Watchmen has a fairly simple conceit. It’s a superhero story with only one actual superhero: Dr. Manhattan, a mild-mannered...
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Nate Parker, rape allegations and The Birth of a Nation
Nate Parker attends the ‘The Birth Of A Nation’ Premiere during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles Center Theatre on January 25, 2016 in Park City, Utah. (Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images) “So you...
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Alan Moore’s Jerusalem is a failure—but perhaps the best kind
JERUSALEM By Alan Moore Alan Moore’s official bio claims he “is widely regarded as the best and most influential writer in the history of comics.” It’s the kind of just-vague-enough claim that can’t...
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Blair Witch follows the original’s creepy footsteps back into the woods
Video still from Blair Witch (Courtesy of TIFF) It was nearly two decades ago when strange posters started appearing in cinemas. In bold, white, typewriter-ish lettering, three young people were...
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The Skyjacker’s Tale and its plane-hijacking antihero
Still from The Skyjacker’s Tale. (TIFF) Cinema loves antiheroes. The cowboys and mobsters and bank robbers. The scoundrels, the miscreants, the libertines who stand up with conviction and...
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With ‘Mascots,’ Christopher Guest takes off the guise
Director Christopher Guest performs as Corky St. Clair in his new movie “Mascots”. (Scott Garfield/Netflix) In the final scene of the 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, dopey guitarist Nigel Tufnel...
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Why ‘Moonlight’ is fully deserving of its high-voltage buzz
A scene from the movie Moonlight. (David Bornfriend) Update, February 27, 2017: After a wild final moment at the 2017 Academy Awards, Moonlight won the Oscar for Best Picture. Early in Ralph Ellison’s...
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Warren Beatty’s worthy return to Hollywood
Writer-director-actor Warren Beatty in Los Angeles, Oct. 6, 2016. Beatty’s new film, “Rules Don’t Apply” is the first film he has written, directed and starred in since “Bulworth,” in 1998. (Emily...
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Why Paul Verhoeven’s ‘rape comedy’ is more complicated than that
A still from the film Elle. (Mongrel Media) The favourite film of Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, best known as a purveyor of blockbuster sci-fi (RoboCop, Total Recall, Starship Troopers) and sleazy...
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