True North Streaming is a semi-regular column highlighting some of the best new additions to Netflix’s Canadian service. Like many of you, every so often I get a pleasant surprise when I discover a cool movie or TV show that’s just popped up on Netflix’s often-maligned sister platform. These posts will help you filter through the often quirky mix of Netflix Canada’s offerings and find the most valuable ways to waste some time.
Read MoreHellboy himself is well-portrayed by David Harbour (Stranger Things), and there are some fun shout-outs to some of the more obscure characters and story threads from the comics. But that’s about all the good there is to say. The filmmakers are more concerned with grafting cringe-inducing scenes into an interpretation of the comic that might have had genuine promise in other hands.
Read MoreYet, it’s Shazam! that’s the first DC film to really explore this idea of a family, of how there really is a home for everyone and going solo isn’t always so cool. A large portion of the (pretty good) subplot deals with Billy’s attempts to find his birth mother, but when he finally begins to forge a new relationship with his foster family, it’s incredibly uplifting.
Read MoreTriple Frontier, with its all-male cast of ex-special forces operatives who decide to rob a drug dealer's stash of cash, made you believe with its marketing that it was an action shoot 'em up with cliched one-liners about duty, honour and how their own society has rejected them as a bunch of marginal contributors.
That's not this movie.
Read MoreBut like Wonder Woman and even Black Panther, it’s important to weigh the cultural role of the movie differently than its artistic role. Is Captain Marvel merely a series of boxes being checked, as if an H.R. rep were ensuring that everyone received equal consideration for the box-office domination job? Or is there more going on in this origin story?
Read MoreThere are plenty of actors and actresses who have yet to win, including Amy Adams, Willem Dafoe and Viggo Mortensen this year, though I’m sure they’ll get other chances. Here’s a list of actors with upcoming films that could net their first win.
Read MoreThe Scopies are a run-down of the awards we’d prefer to be giving out to the filmmakers, cast members and telecast participants, instead of the never-quite-satisfying real results.
Read MoreIn a world where mortal injuries can often be fixed as easily as sticking a severed head onto a robotic body, the movie contemplates what it means to be human, especially in a society filled with people who might pull off your arm (or even your head) and exchange it for profit.
Read MoreIt’s also intriguing how the message of the new film hews so closely to another recent example of wokenomics, the Gillette ad “The Best Men Can Be”. The spot, which questions toxic prevailing ideas about masculinity, seems to share some thematic DNA with The Lego Movie 2. Our hero, Emmet (Chris Pratt), spends much of the story contending with a belief that he’s not grown-up or tough enough to be the “special best friend” (re: boyfriend) of the movie’s female lead, Lucy (Elizabeth Banks).
Read MoreWhat we get in the movie is not at all what was suggested by the early production reports or the marketing – instead, it’s a thoroughly odd experience, a tonal mix that didn’t quite work for me, but something that definitely sets itself apart from the dime-a-dozen thrillers Neeson has made consistently for the past 10 years.
Read MoreTrue North Streaming is a semi-regular column highlighting some of the best new additions to Netflix’s Canadian service. Like many of you, every so often I get a pleasant surprise when I discover a cool movie or TV show that’s just popped up on Netflix’s often-maligned sister platform. These posts will help you filter through the often quirky mix of Netflix Canada’s offerings and find the most valuable ways to waste some time.
Read MoreIt’s by the far one of the messiest years in recent memory when it comes down to calling the Oscars. In the absence of sure-fire picks in many categories, and disruptive winners in some of the precursor guild awards, many races in 2019 come down as much to gut instinct as they do to statistics.
Read MoreBut we were never going to get anything but a watered-down version anyway when Sacha Baron Cohen left the project and Brian May and Roger Taylor insisted on protecting a part of Freddie Mercury’s past/legacy/aura (choose one). Biopics are controversial in nature because people are polarizing, and so much of what is considered fact is unfortunately determined by the court of public opinion.
Read MoreHowever, while parts of the movie don’t really work, Shyamalan’s ultimate goal is to make the audience doubt the truth of the characters’ abilities. In a climactic scene outside the facility, Shyamalan uses extreme wide shots, fish-eye close-ups, and clumsy staging to strip a fight between Dunn and The Horde of the thrilling, Marvel-style grandeur we might expect from the subject matter.
Read MoreIt’s fascinating to listen to Ted’s boss accuse Ted of letting his family distract from his job, a scene eerily reminiscent of the language used today to keep women from receiving pay equity or positions of power. The film proves how much of a mind warp gender politics can be; an argument that advances work over family is twisted and re-used to harm people regardless of gender, across whole generations.
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