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All the ingredients are there – a salacious crime and trial that captivated tabloids, centered around a man that has had the name genius about him for half a century. A quirky, charismatic dwarven weirdo that helped shape the sounds of a generation, caught up in a sordid celebrity case that L.A. is ground zero [...]

I think the only proper way to fully convey the power, the majesty, the sheer awesomeness of Olympus Has Fallen is to do so with the same level of bombastic hyperbole that the film exhibits. It’s as if the only way you can really sum up your experience of seeing this Die Hard-in-the-Whitehouse masterpiece is [...]

The story is so remarkable you almost can’t help but being skeptical that it wasn’t crafted just to be the basis of a film some day — massive international touring band loses their second main lead singer, and needs to find a guy to fill some pretty massive footsteps. Then, tooling around Youtube, one of [...]

It came as no surprise in retrospect that The Gatekeepers is a film celebrated by Errol Morris. Having missed the film when it played TIFF last September, I had assumed, incorrectly, that it’d be a dry piece, merely talking heads parsing out careful responses. Instead, we get something quite remarkable, a decidedly open and honest [...]

Color me surprised, because if Jack the Giant Slayer isn’t quite the best movie of the year so far, it’s at least a damn good one. It’s fair to say the movie had a stink about it. It was meant to come out last summer, and got pushed back for a variety of reasons, ostensibly [...]

Any film with a title as obnoxious as A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III seems resolutely unconcerned with actually getting wide audience acceptance. I’ve watched the film, and even interviewed the director, and still have a hell of a time keeping the title straight. That said, it does give you a sense of [...]

A sweet yet innocuous romance steeped in both Shakespearean motifs and shoegazing tropes, the saving grace of Warm Bodies (AKA ‘the emo zombie film’) is that it’s quite charming, never completely falling into a farcical take on the subject matter. We meet “R” (Nicholas Hoult) shuffling through an airport, intoning via a melancholy, sardonic voiceover [...]

Tonight I chatted with Scott Laurie about the abysmal Parker, the only slightly less abysmal Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, the “nerdgasm” felt by some when J.J. was announced as director of Episode 7, and yet more talk about Argo and how it keeps seeing success, even if Oscar win seems a mighty longshot. Click [...]

I like Jason Statham, I really do. I mean, sure, he’s got the best first name of any actor that has ever lived, but I like the guy. I like that whatever movie he’s in, he makes it his own. I like the old Statham from Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, I even like [...]

Another Sunday evening chat with Scott Laurie (dashing in his new glasses!), discussing GDT produced MAMA, Arnie in LAST STAND, and more love for Deakins to get his damn trophy again. Click image below to launch player

Another chat with Scott Simpson on News 957, talking Oscar Predictions! My predictions, many of which are likely to be very, very wrong. As always, actually having seen the films of often an impediment to actually correction predicting any of these awards shows. Best Picture Silver Linings Playbook Best Adapted Screenplay Lincoln Best Original Screenplay [...]

Another awards show, another visit up to CTV’s Agincourt studios, this time talking about last night’s Golden Globes show!

When I received notice that Guillermo del Toro would be back in town to talk about his latest project, Mama, I scoffed when it showed that we were to be granted 15 minutes for a roundtable. GDT is one of the world’s great conversationalists, and I knew that we’d quickly burn up a quarter of [...]

Gangster Squad has had a bit of a rough time of it, getting caught up in events well outside its control. Originally scheduled to be released last September, it was delayed due to the shooting in Aurora, Colorado. Not only is GS a Warner release like The Dark Knight Rises, with sensitivities for the studio [...]

A link to my Toronto Star article on how to pick out the best seat in a theatre, along with a list of my favs.

Another visit to the friendly people at CTV News Channel, talking Oscar Nominations with Dan Matheson and Jacqueline Milczarek

Appeared on CTV News Channel tonight to talk about this year’s slates of “Razzies”, or “worst film”, which included my (beloved) BATTLESHIP. Click image above to watch the video

We live in a time when winking, snarky, sardonic Cinema has become the norm, when things like subtext and subterfuge gloss over what are more often than not simply action movies gone wrong. We’ve seen pixels fighting pixels, groups of Avengers not really avenging anything, a rising Dark Knight that some found risible, all while [...]

An evening spent celebrating some of the highlights of 2012, and a couple of stinkers, including one that while released in late December 2011 still stank up the entire year. Flash required, may not work on some mobile devices…

Taking a slightly different tack that the normal calls to It’s a Wonderful Life or Elf,  here’s my list of Holiday movies for 2012.  Flash required, may not work on some mobile devices…  

Had the pleasure to talk with Scott Simpson about Apocalypse movies, including some of my favourites (Last Night, Tank Girl) and some less-thans (here’s looking at you, Day After Tomorrow).

Had a great chat with CBC stalwart Eli Glasner about the vagaries of frame rates in Peter Jackson’s latest Tolkienian opus (flash required). Here’s the text from their site: Questioning The Hobbit’s faster frame rate technology Will audiences flock to or flee from Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit in HFR 3D? Peter Jackson has been making [...]

Another CBC gig, this one discussing the pretty incredible circumstances surrounding the RED DAWN redux, including the decision to make the “bad guys” North Korean instead of Chinese. Special thanks to Carol Off, Jeff Douglas, Sara Martin and especially Producer Ben Edwards for helping to make this happen.

Had another early morning media call, this time a visit to the CTV News Channel set for a sit down conversation about Disney, Star Wars, and the future of the franchise. Thanks to Jacqueline Milczarek and Dan Matheson for being so welcoming, to the technical crew and back stage staff that were friendly and encouraging, [...]

Anna Maria Tremanti, Spencer Kornhaber (entertainment editor of Atlantic magazine ), Joe Utichi (The Guardian, Yahoo), and I discuss the latest big news about Disney buying Lucasfilm, and the announcement of Episodes VII, VIII and IX Flash player below – unlikely to work with some mobile devices.

Argo is a delightful throwback film, echoing the kind of “political intrigue” style that was commonplace during the Nixon administration. The fact that Argo shares many characteristics with the likes of The Ides of March might be no mere coincidence. Forgetting the obvious point, that George Clooney is listed as a producer on both works, [...]

ABCs OF DEATH – B- Like any anthology film, there’s good bits, decent bits, and awful bits. Luckily, you just have to sit back and wait for another letter to come up in, um, “cue”, and it all gets either better (or worse). FULL REVIEW THE ACT OF KILLING – A+ Stunning, unforgettable film about [...]

Ever since Paul Thomas Anderson announced that he’d be shooting The Master for large format celluloid presentation, many of us have been drooling at the prospect of a modern, epic 70mm masterpiece slipping out of Hollywood. It’s been 16 years since anyone had the chutzpah to shoot a feature film on 65mm neg (Kenneth Branagh’s [...]

Graham Chapman has been dead for almost a quarter century, but that hasn’t stopped him from starring in a brand new film. If that weren’t notable enough, this work is also the closest we’ll probably ever get to a legitimate Monty Python Reunion. Back even earlier, Chapman wrote (well, co-wrote) his so-called “Liars Autobiography”, a [...]

The TIFF programme guide breathlessly extolled the success of Thermae Romae in its native country, declaring the film, based on an extremely popular manga, “Japan’s biggest box office hit of the year”. This goes to prove a couple things – sometimes, what the masses choose to be their hit of the summer can be completely [...]