By John C. With the release of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse this coming Wednesday, (and from what I hear, it may just be the best of the series), and the popularity of Stephanie Meyer’s vampire saga only going up, the film’s central star, Robert Pattinson, has been a trending topic of interest amongst fans and non-fans. The… Read More Robert Pattinson: Bad Actor, or Just the Wrong Roles?
By John C. Since the Summer movie season began, people, mostly critics, have been commenting on the lack of originality, with most of the movies being sequels or based on pre-existing characters. And with some of these blockbusters underperforming, namely Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the end of movie-going is what they once… Read More Pixar’s “Threequel” is a Summer Success Story
By Erin V. Last year, five remarkable scores were nominated at the Academy Awards. Avatar, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Hurt Locker, Sherlock Holmes, and Up. Four of those got a CD release. One did not. Last year, Disney made the [unfortunate] decision to release the score from Up to digital download only. In all the… Read More What is ‘Up’ with digital download only releases? Pixar’s Toy Story 3 deserves better
By John C. People’s initial feelings for the film Cyrus, opening June 25th from Fox Searchlight, will likely be mixed, feeling that the film walks a fine line between funny and creepy. And that is true. These are the feelings I had throughout the first part of the film. But there is a certain sweetness to… Read More Cyrus – A Q&A With The Duplass Brothers
By John C. As many of you know, the Ashton Kutcher/Kathrine Heigl vehicle Killers opened this past Friday. The Canadian distributor, Maple Pictures, followed the lead of the American distributor, Lionsgate, and did not screen the film for press in advance of release. I found out about this 3-weeks ago, before the official announcement was… Read More “Killers” Wasn’t Screened, So Critics Couldn’t Kill It
By John C. It’s hard too believe it’s been nearly a year. Nearly a year since I sat in a less-than-crowded screening room at the Varsity on the morning of June 1st, watching David Bezmozgis’s wonderful coming-of-age story, Victoria Day, play out on-screen. Nearly a year since I interviewed the two main actors of Victoria… Read More Life Changes in a Flash: A Retrospective on “Victoria Day”
By John C. This news is already a few days out of date for us Pixar fans, but it seemed like the perfect subject for a Monday column. 2 years ago, Pixar announced their upcoming line up of films. It included Toy Story 3 (June 18th, 2010), Cars 2 (June 24th, 2011), The Bear… Read More And Then There Were None…Pixar’s “Newt” is Canceled
By John C. Iron Man 2 kicked off the summer movie season with a bang, grossing over 130 million dollars, over this past weekend. It was also a genuinely good movie, which is always a plus. But there are at least two or three new movies opening every week, each one vying for your time… Read More Summer Movies – Fun Times out of the Sun
By John C. It’s hard too believe we’re already a few months into the 2010 movie season. In a few short days, the summer season will kick off with Iron Man 2, and the wonderful films released so far this year will have to compete with more great ones if they are to be remembered… Read More 2010 – The Year in Movies, So Far
This week, March break events are in full swing at the Toronto Zoo, although for a group of Bendale PS students, the real excitement was last Tuesday, when they were treated to a special screening of the straight-to-DVD sequel Free Willy 4: Escape from Pirate’s Cove, and a Q & A with star Bindi Irwin. … Read More Bindi Irwin, star of ‘Free Willy 4: Escape from Pirate’s Cove’ talks to Students at Toronto Zoo
The Hurt Locker wins Best Picture. James Cameron never got a chance to get up on stage, the King has been replaced with a Queen. There were ten very deserving nominees for Best Picture, any one of them could have taken home the gold. The Hurt Locker is a great movie, and fits in perfectly… Read More Thoughts on the Oscars
Below are two of our writers predictions for what will win at the Oscars on March 7th. Come back tomorrow night for live coverage of the telecast. Last year I correctly predicted 17 of the 24 categories at the 81st Academy Awards. Below are my predictions for what will win tomorrow night at the 82nd… Read More Predictions for the 82nd Academy Awards
By John C. There were many great movies released last year. 2 Months ago, I published my list of the top 11 worst movies I saw in 2009, and it came to my attention that I still haven’t formally published what I thought the best movies of last year were. I saw many great ones,… Read More The Best Movies I Saw in 2009
By John C. It’s been an Oscar season like February 2nd in Groundhog Day. It’s one of the longest in recent memory, and just keeps going on and on and on. But in just over a week, it will be over. Though Avatar and The Hurt Locker are the ones to watch, Up and Up… Read More Unloading the Backpack: Why Up and Up in the Air are Two of the Most Important Films of 2009 (Part 5 of 5)
By John C. Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire was the front runner for a little while, but it proved to just not be strong enough to hold its own as Best Picture, as the season went on. The film will be honoured with a very deserving win for Mo’Nique come Oscar night.… Read More Contenders both Precious and Serious (part 4 of 5)
By John C. The Hurt Locker opened last July to critical raves, but meager box office revenue. Now it seems audiences are finally taking the time to see the film on DVD. Though Kathryn Bigelow will more than likely win Best Director, becoming the first woman ever to do so, The Hurt Locker is neck-in-neck… Read More The Basterds’ Hurt by the Locker’s Lock (Part 3 of 5)
By John C. District 9 is a gritty little sci-fi film from first-time director Neil Blomkamp. It serves as a harsh metaphor for South Africa during the Apartheid era, and that is surely what attracted voters to the film, despite the graphic violence. Though the film doesn’t really have a shot at winning Best Picture,… Read More Voters are Educated, but these Contenders are Relegated to the 9th District (Part 2 of 5)
By John C. Each day this week, Monday-Friday, I will be profiling two of the ten nominees for Best Picture. They are arranged in the official, alphabetical, order. If all goes as planned, we will be having capsule reviews of the ten titles following the same pattern next week. Avatar is so much more than… Read More Avatar so Popular that other Contenders are Blind Sided (Part 1 of 5)
There were some surprises tonight at the 37th Annual Annie Awards. First off, as I had expected a posibility to happen, Bruno Coulais’ music for Coraline beat Michael Giacchino’s Up score in the feature music category. The Music for Television award went to Guy Moon of The Fairly Odd Parents over Kevin Kiner’s score… Read More 37th Annual Annie Award Winners Announced!
By John C. It’s been an incredibly exciting and historical morning. So both The Blind Side and District 9 got nominated for Best Picture, instead of Invictus which was the one everyone was predicting. All in all, it’s a brilliant line-up. Invictus was a very good film, but you know what? I actually liked The Blind Side a… Read More Thoughts on the Oscar Nominees
The Joy of Movies 