Travis Knight’s lively and kid-friendly holiday sci-fi Bumblebee has a lot going for it. Hailee Steinfeld, a southern Cali teen living in the 80’s, is attempting to separate from childhood and parental rules. She’s a skilled car mechanic who hangs out at a junkyard, dreaming of independence. One day she stumbles across a cute yellow VW bug that’s dusty and non-functioning and presto! her chance to put her skills… View Post
Opening next Wednesday Dec 19 is the marvellously entertaining Mary Poppins Returns, a nostalgic, low tech delight that finds Mary returning to the Banks siblings (Emily Mortimer and Ben Whishaw) just when she‘s needed most. It’s thirty years later and times are tough. Michael, now a banker with two children, has lost his wife and faces the family’s first Christmas without… View Post
The Favourite is a gloriously over-the-top and occasionally revolting look at England’s Queen Anne, 1665 – 1714. Director Yorgos Lanthimos who gave us The Lobster paints pungent pictures of a court that is equally funny and distressing and of Queen Anne, a woman in a permanent daze and occasional rage, surrounded by dangerously ambitious courtiers. She throws up quite a bit… View Post
Irish actress Amy Huberman who you may remember from the law drama Striking Out is shows us her funny side in a series she wrote and stars in called Finding Joy exclusively on Acorn TV. Huberman plays Joy, a newly separated, confused and yet somehow hysterically funny television researcher. When the host of a vlog show leaves, Amy’s thrown into the job, with no experience, no… View Post
A strong reminder that the sweeping drama and Oscar bait Roma is at TIFF Bell Lightbox this week and on Netflix Dec. 14. Alfonso Cuarón’s stunning black and white epic, which must be experienced in Lightbox’ Dolby Atmos sound takes us through a year in the life of a housemaid in Mexico City. Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) sacrifices everything for her “family” and puts herself to the test for… View Post
Alfonso Cuarón’s intense and personal Roma is in limited theatrical release Nov 29th and streams on Netflix Dec 14. It is a marvel, one of those rare, life changing, breathtaking masterpieces that challenges one’s worldview, pays attention to the tiny details that form our lives, and bathes us in compassion and love. First time actor Yalitza Aparicio is a housemaid living with a boisterous… View Post