By Anne Brodie Not long now till TIFF 20, pandemic edition, the 45th Annual Toronto International Film Festival Sept.10-19. It will be vastly different but with the creative use of digital resources and socially distanced in theatre screenings, as well as digital, it will still feel like Toronto and the world’s unique celebration of film. David Byrne’s American Utopia kicks things… View Post
Acorn’s miniseries The Sounds, finds a Canadian woman excited to travel from Vancouver to New Zealand to join her husband and launch a business. But just days after her arrival he disappears, and the body of a woman murdered 15 years earlier is discovered. The idyllic, majestic New Zealand landscape can’t hide the dark secrets that lie below the surface… View Post
By Anne Brodie Two major releases this week, as different as chalk and cheese, Bill & Ted Face the Music, and Christopher Nolan’s long-awaited Tenet. And yet so very similar. Both depend upon the plastic nature of time and space, as our protagonists time travel to find, hide, and fix things. What a spectacular co-incidence! Denzel’s boy and potential award season… View Post
By Anne Brodie Auli’i Cravalho nailed Disney’s singing islander Moana, and she uses that wonderful voice again in Netflix’ All Together Now based on Matthew Quick’s novel Sorta Like a Rock Star. She’s musical prodigy Amber and lives with her mother in a school bus because they are homeless. Amber represents the thousands of young people living in unstable environments,… View Post
By Anne Brodie Justina Machado and Judy Reyes are best friends in Netflix’ All Together Now based on Matthew Quick’s book Sorta Like a Rock Star, and they share a problem. They are mother and mother figure to Amber, played by Auli’i Cravalho, a rising star in her high school drama class. Amber’s mother Becky – Machado – is struggling… View Post
By Anne Brodie David Arquette loves wrestling, has all his life. He’d had no training when he entered a professional competition to promote the 2000 film Ready to Rumble. And he won the WCW Heavyweight Champion title. His win raised the ire of wrestling fans because he was an actor, not a wrestler, a fake. He took it to heart,… View Post