Red Sparrow Flutters, Flaps, Finally Flies
Movie Review: Red Sparrow
Jennifer Lawrence has trouble with a Slavic accent, but she nails the emotional conflict and physicality of a ballet dancer turned sex spy in Francis Lawrence's Cold War thriller that feels like a return to the good old bad days
Look for McDormand, Three Billboards and Nolan for Oscar – Or Not
Movies: Oscar Picks 2018
A strange year without frontrunners leaves Oscar an open field with Three Billboards catching the eye of film critic Katherine Monk for best picture, and Jordan Peele for best original screenplay
By Katherine Monk
So a plumbing issue has delayed the publication of my picks which I made a few days ago, but never got around to filing because of my frikkin' kitchen sink. Buckets and shammies will have to do for now, and I'll write it all off to being part of a strange, strange year. I'm thinking The Shape of Water could be this year's Color Purple, a film that went in to the show with eleven nods for Steven Spielberg and came out without a single statuette. I don't think Shape of Water will go home without hardware, but most of the prizes will be on the technical side, with Canadian craftspeople coming up strong. But it's getting late. The red carpet it out... so here goes nothing.
Best Picture Nominees:
Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady ...
Death Wish Shoots Blank Point
Movie review: Death Wish
Bruce Willis is left to fend for himself in director Eli Roth's inept reload of the Charles Bronson groundbreaker that gave the Everyman a loaded gun and a will to kill
Sweetest Olympic Hangover I Don’t Want to Get Over
Entertainment: The Olympic Hangover Begins
The 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang get a five-star review from a career movie critic who laughed, cried and finally fell asleep on the couch as the Olympic flame shone a light on our nobler selves.
By Katherine Monk
So it begins. The Olympic hangover. A sad headache prompted by a cocktail of adrenaline, fatigue and extinguished propane fumes. For eighteen days, we couch potatoes put our bodies through the rigours of extended television viewing and all-night streaming. Now sleep-deprived, about three kilos heavier and feeling emotionally bereft without a need to channel hop across the grid, it's time to look back on the games that were -- and what made the PyeongChang Winter Olympics such fantastic entertainment. Obviously, the athletes and their individual feats were the highlight -- and the reason why the drama is so sincere, but sorting through the sporting achievements is for experts such as Bev Wake and Rod Mickleburgh. I see the ...
Black Panther Pounces on Prejudice
Movie Review: Black Panther
Hollywood dons its first pair of progressive lenses with Ryan Coogler's fiercely entertaining rewrite of superhero stereotype that helps correct old vision problems
Here Comes A Regular: A Photographic Archive of The Railway Club
Ex-Press Salon: The Railway Club Regulars
Natasha Moric tended bar at Vancouver's Railway Club for more than 20 years, in the days before selfies and Instagram, but she took her camera to work and captured the regulars -- in their comfort zone without filters
By Katherine Monk
VANCOUVER, BC — Shakespeare said truth was best found at the bottom of a wine cup, which is why bar life has always attracted the artistic eye. Jan Steen created a tradition with his paintings of rosy-cheeked drunkards in the 1600s, followed centuries later by Van Gogh and the Impressionists. Then photography came along and allowed what French writer Pierre Mac Orlan described as the ability “to capture the fantastic forms of life which require at least a second’s immobility to be perceptible.” In the world of street photography, these glimmering moments of truth come to us a flashes in the darkness: a frozen moment of euphoria on the dancefloor, the desperation of a lurid glance near closing ...
Black Panther Plays with Ancient Yarns
Movie Review: Black Panther
Hollywood dons its first pair of progressive lenses with Ryan Coogler's fiercely entertaining rewrite of superhero stereotype that helps correct old vision problems
In the Fade Rubs Out Boundaries of Moral Behaviour
Movie Review: In the Fade
Diane Kruger won best acting honours at Cannes for good reason: her performance as a grieving mother and widow in the wake of a terrorist attack takes us from a noble quest for justice to the cellar of revenge
Andrea Bang Sounds the Drum of Korean Identity
Andrea Bang is currently in PyeongChang as part of CBC's broadcast team. She's interviewing locals about culture, so we thought we'd repost our 2016 interview with the star of Kim's Convenience.
People: Interview with Andrea Bang
The Vancouver star of Kim's Convenience says the first Canadian sitcom to feature Asian leads is about transcending ethnic stereotypes through human universals
By Katherine Monk
VANCOUVER – Andrea Bang thanks the Toronto Blue Jays. Not only did the team win the required games to advance, they pushed back the network premiere of her new show, Kim’s Convenience. The new CBC comedy based on Ins Choi’s award-winning Fringe play airs tonight on the National Broadcaster, but it was originally slated to air last Tuesday – in the heat of the Blue Jays’ wildcard bid. The network wisely aired the ballgame instead, but Bang wasn’t depressed about the delay. It gave her another week to mentally prepare while promos whetted the public appetite ...
