It has been my long-held belief that everyone in North America should work at least one minimum wage job in their life, for a minimum of six months. Not just to understand how impossible it is to live on minimum wage, but also to understand how we treat people who provide us with necessary services, […]
As part of the former USSR, Estonia was geographically closer to (supposedly) democratic Finland than the communist powers in Moscow. When Finland began to broadcast television, they showed not only their own programs, but American ones as well. The north coastal Estonian city of Tallinn was only 80 km from Helsinki, and as much as […]
Rush is probably the strangest anomaly in rock music. They have sold the third most number of albums worldwide of any band (after The Rolling Stones and The Beatles), but have never had a number one single. Their fans are arguably the most devoted in the world, and yet (until recently), Rush has been panned […]
Alan Jones joins us for a guest spot review of A Nightmare on Elm Street . Alan is president of the University of Toronto Cinema Studies Students Union (CINSSU). This review and many others can be read on the official CINSSU blog . Walking into the new Platinum Dunes horror remake of A Nightmare on […]
Right from the get-go, The Losers makes damn sure to tell the audience that they’re watching a really cool movie. The movie has it all: shaky hand-held camera work, freeze frames, jump cuts and the requisite “group walking towards the camera in slow motion” scene—reassuring the audience that they are indeed watching an awesome film. […]
When the BBC announced five years or more ago that they would be remounting the classic Doctor Who series, I was both thrilled and scared. I was raised on British television, and Doctor Who was always my favourite. While it has its ups and downs, I longed to be the Doctor (never the companion – […]
No pressure with that title. I mean, yes I think this is a pretty good review, but the bar is set pretty high… Kick-Ass is director Matthew Vaughn’s film adaptation of the Mark Millar penned comic book of the same name. Set in New York, the story takes place in a world much like ours, […]
I have a new hero, and her name is Lizbeth Salander. She is smarter than most men give her credit for; tougher than her dark and heavily pierced exterior would ever lead you to believe; she is damaged, but she fights back. And she knows how to bring the most evil of men (and the […]
John Lennon is undoubtedly the most iconic of The Beatles, and his mythic status was solidified by his murder in 1980. But the man and the music should be separated, and while his music post-Beatles was arguably better, Lennon and McCartney together proved that the sum is often better than the parts. Photographer Sam Taylor-Wood, in her feature directorial debut Nowhere Boy , takes the audience back further, to Lennon's teenage years, his discovery of music, first meeting with McCartney, and his tumultuous familial relations.
Breck Eisner’s The Crazies is a film that makes no bones about what it is. I had expected another run-of-the-mill horror film going in, but left the theatre pleasantly surprised. The Crazies is a tightly wound ball of suspense that will manage to unsettle and entertain you. The film is loosely based on George Romero’s […]
Martin Scorsese is a name that is synonymous with great films. It is impossible to call yourself a cinephile and not appreciate the man’s filmmaking. It’s also seemingly impossible to review one of his films without a lengthy preamble discussing his legendary oeuvre; so I’ll spare you that. We all know the great movies he’s […]
The end is nigh, or so many on the planet believe. Whether it be terrorism, climate change, plague, or war, many people believe the human race has not long to live. Unless we adapt and fast, we’re pretty much screwed. Is it even possible for us to adapt? And should we adapt to suit the […]
When I was a kid Young Sherlock Holmes was one of my favourite movies (it still is). The young detective cut his teeth not on finding the family jewels, but on cults and devil worshippers. I have a feeling the screenwriters of the new Sherlock Holmes may have been as well. Which is not a […]
You may have heard of James Cameron’s new film, a little movie called Avatar . Cameron and others have hyped the film to no end, claiming that it will change cinema as we know it (and for $250 million, it had better!). Avatar features all the hallmarks we’ve come to expect from James Cameron: great […]
To slightly skew Marshall MacLuhan’s famous saying “the medium is the message”, I think it’s also fair to say that art should be designed for the medium for which it was intended. For example, a film like Where the Wild Things Are is meant to be seen on a big screen, where it is arguable […]
