In 1969 Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government pondered changing laws regarding the use of marijuana. In 1970 the Le Dain Commission delivered its report on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs and recommended the decriminalization of all drugs. It was a polarising moment in Canadian history. And in 1972 a conservative group set in motion a 98-day live-in research study of the… View Post
By Anne Brodie One of the many pleasures of the weighty and entertaining Nobody is witnessing Bob Odenkirk’s Hutch emerging from a self-created shell of restraint. He’s a family man with no hand with his wife (Connie Nielsen) or son (Gage Munroe) but adored by his daughter (Paisley Cadorath). He’s the guy garbage trucks bypass while flipping him the bird… View Post
Culture and class clash in BritBox’ new comedy series Kate & Koji. Brenda Blethyn is Kate, a seaside cafe owner who bonds with a man just as outspoken and hardheaded as she is, Koji, a wealthy and accomplished asylum-seeking doctor who lands in her cafe and stays. Besides the bumpy journey of their sometimes volatile relationship, the series looks at… View Post
American twins sisters and filmmakers Laura Wilson & Lisa Wilson share many things, including a passion for that literary puzzle to end all literary puzzles, the riddle of who wrote the plays and sonnets of William Shakespeare. Their thoroughly researched documentary Last Will. & Testament featuring expert interviews plays like a thriller, as they rip the lid off a conspiracy… View Post
By Anne Brodie Nomadland on Disney+ is hard to talk about without disturbing its profundities. Since seeing the film last fall, and many times since, I’ve not looked forward to writing a review. It is a shame to reduce this incredible artistic achievement to a paragraph. There’s no way I can do it justice. It defies distillation because it is a VAST film on every… View Post
Benedict Cumberbatch appears to be an espionage film fan; he’s often played a spy. In Dominic Cooke’s fact-based spy thriller The Courier he is Greville Wynne, an English businessman who agrees to undertake secret missions in Moscow on behalf of the British spy agency and the American CIA. Things go swimmingly for a while until the Russians come after him…. View Post