Welsh movies — yes, and there are a lot of them — come to Ottawa
By Jay Stone
OTTAWA — The most famous Welsh film ever made is probably How Green Was My Valley, the sentimental 1941 portrait of a growing up in coal mining town that was directed by American-born John Ford and starred Walter Pidgeon, the pride of St. John, New Brunswick, and Maureen O’Hara from Dublin. Everyone in the movie spoke English with an Irish accent. It was, however, filmed in Wales. How Green Was My Valley — which won the Best Picture Oscar that year, beating Citizen Kane — was just one of many movies throughout the years that have been set, or sometimes just filmed, in Wales. Even more have featured Welsh-born actors: the country has contributed a mighty roster of stars to the world cinema, including Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ray Milland and a current Oscar nominee, Christian Bale. But there’s another Welsh movie industry as well, that tells stories of the country, often in the Welsh language. Those films ...
LEGO Movie 2 misses magical click but still sticks
Movie Review: The LEGO Movie 2 - The Second Part
The absurdist edge and creative intelligence that made the first LEGO movie a masterpiece is eclipsed by shallow self-awareness and plastic brick branding, but the Second Part still builds a world of enchantment by piecing together sibling rivalries with heart.
The pain of Glass
Movie review: Glass
M. Night Shyamalan’s latest is a self-conscious collage of comic book form and personal conceit that talks down to the viewer as the director congratulates himself.
Widows buries thriller formula and finds female power
#OscarCheck2018
Movie Review - Widows
Steve McQueen's follow-up to 12 Years a Slave is a female-driven heist film based on a beloved British TV series. For most directors, making a genre thriller would put them out of Oscar contention. But the award-winning McQueen isn’t your average director, and in the wake of #MeToo, Widows could still blow things wide open.
Top Ten Movies of 2018
Movies: Top Ten Movies 2018
Black Panther changed Hollywood for the better to earn top spot on 2018’s list, but storytellers sought to pry our weary eyes open and see past preconceptions through a broad range of protagonists that transcended expectation.
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch-alypse
Movie review - Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
Baichwal, Burtynsky and de Pencier are back with another gorgeously lensed documentary that almost comes too close to redeeming human ugliness through photographic acts of beauty.
Men and women at TIFF 2018
At some of the movies, it's not the same old story any more. As long as the ladies don't try to be in charge
By Jay Stone
TORONTO — Today’s topic is the question of men and women, which, despite many scientific advances — dermatologists have done an especially heroic job — remains a thorny one. As I understand the way things stand now, you can decide for yourself what sex you want to be, but if you pick female, you may not get your movie made. Or maybe that’s not it at all. In any event, we start our day with Widows, a heist thriller from a surprising source: the British visual artist Steve McQueen who became an accomplished filmmaker of intense art-house fare (Shame, Hunger, 12 Years A Slave) and has now moved closer to the mainstream. Widows is the story of a group of wives whose husbands died in a robbery gone wrong. Now the women have discovered plans for the gang’s next heist, and decide to do it themselves. The impetus for the ...
