Arts & Culture

One sign of an excellent festival program is when you see entirely different crowds at various films. At last night’s nearly sold-out screening of American Hardcore, the architectural eyeglass frames (do all film people shop at the same store?) were replaced with shaved heads and studded leather jackets. Programmer Lee Anne Gillan thanked the crowd […]

Manufactured Landscapes left me feeling very strange. The doc, directed by Jennifer Baichwal, arrives from The Toronto International Film Festival with an award for best Canadian feature. What Baichwal does is attempt to replicate what photographer Edward Burtynsky does with his photographs, but with moving images. Ostensibly she’s following him around as he visits China […]

Here’s a quandary. I saw one of the films I’m not supposed to review, and once again, had a strong emotional reaction. Now, I know the embargo is really in place because the distributors don’t want any bad buzz to kill its chance of making some money during the commercial release, but they don’t mind […]

People are already calling to ask how the interview went. I’ll get to it, don’t worry. Let me go back a little: My day clambered to life on the air at CKDU. Thanks to Hillary for guesting again—we navigated the review embargo while still trying to blab about the movies at the festival. I’ve heard […]

Occasionally as a writer, I am lucky enough to observe incredible moments during an artist’s creative process (and to get paid for it!). Watching choreographer Sally Morgan and her crew of local and German contact dancers and skateboarders during rehearsals for the dance film decoding the undertow for a Coast cover story (see the archives–I […]

Well, I guess I can call myself a filmmaker now. Should get my passport updated? The Super-8 experience went pretty well, largely due to my great actors, Anthony Black, Ann-Marie Kerr and Jerry West. Listen to me, it sounds like I’m prepping my Oscar speech. It was a lot of fun, a real collaborative experience, […]

Last night’s laughs turn to tears (ok, bordering on right-out bawling) during the screening of Snow Cake, starring Alan Rickman, Signourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss, about a troubled Brit who, through tragic circumstances, ends up in Wawa, Ontario, with Linda (Weaver), a highly functional autistic woman. Directed by Marc Evans as a Canada-UK co-production, it’s […]

Last night I saw a whole whack of funny shit–but I can’t tell you about it due to the review restrictions placed on Young Triffie and Strangers with Candy. What I can tell you is that it’s pee-your-pants funny just to be in the same room with Mary Walsh and Andrea Martin, who were both […]

The program is called Attack of the 50ft Reels. I was press ganged by AFCOOP’s Walter Forsyth (well, to tell the truth, I went pretty willingly) into this, and now it’s Friday night, I’m desperately trying to come up with a compelling script. A couple of talented actor friends of mine have agreed to be […]

***I apologize for the late wrap-up…technical difficulties were encountered on Wednesday and Thursday.*** An older man turned around in his seventh-row seat to face me as I ate my overpriced untoasted bagel from Second Cup, no longer interested in quality breakfast. (Yesterday was popcorn.) “Were you here yesterday for the Dixie Cows?” “Oh, ha., ha, […]

Thanks Carsten, you’re the Ben Mulroney to my Tanya Kim. So after getting booted out of the (poorly marked) opening night party VIP line, we had to do the walk of shame down Barrington and back up to the other side of Argyle where we hung out with the sparkly Joe Halifaxs and city councillors. […]

A Bug and A Bag of Weed is a movie I was really looking forward to, having met and interviewed two of the producers and stars, Chris Cuthbertson and Drew Hagen. It is also on my reviewer gag list (see earlier entry) so I won’t say too much, but that Hagen and Cuthbertson’s enthusiasm for […]