Top 10 Movies of 1987

Three years ago this week I started this blog, and I'm still getting a lot of pleasure out of contributing to it. For me, the conversation after seeing a film, being part of a community of film enthusiasts, is as essential as taking in the movie itself. This space allows me to collect my thoughts…Read More

The To Do List review

Written and directed by Maggie CareyOh, the damage to my own innocence from having given up 100 minutes of my life with Tom Cruise and Shelley Long in 1983's Losin' It. The movie belonged to a genre of teen comedy that has very happily gone the way of the dodo: the devirginizing romp. Oh, it still comes…Read More

Elmore Leonard RIP

Here's Toronto film reviewer Norm Wilner's look back at some of the movies that sprung from his mind. I've always wanted to see Killshot and 52 Pick-Up, and Justified is on a (long) list of TV shows needing to be seen by me.What a great writer. He will be missed.Read More

Blue Jasmine review

Written and directed by Woody AllenJasmine is actually Jeanette. Somewhere along the way she changed it, because Jeanette didn't have the requisite flair. Jasmine married up, to Hal, a New York one-percenter if there ever was one. Except Hal is crook and when he's arrested, the lawyers take everything. Jasmine, desperate, heads to San Francisco…Read More

2 Guns review

Directed by Baltasar Kormákur Written by Blake Masters, adapting the Steven Grant graphic novels When I saw the generic poster and trailer, looking like another boilerplate action thriller from Denzel Washington, this time with Mark Wahlberg along for the ride, there wasn't much about it that grabbed me. The director has 101 Reykjavik and Contraband on…Read More

Elysium review

Written and directed by Neill Blomkamp | 109 min | Netflix Blomkamp impressed everyone—including Academy voters, who nominated the film for a Best Picture Oscar—with his first movie, District 9. The South African-born, Vancouver-educated filmmaker made a slam-bang science fiction movie with definitive visual flair that even offered a tang of political allegory in the…Read More