Toronto Film Scene

Jovana Jankovic

About Jovana Jankovic

Jovana is a critic, cultural worker, and student of media aesthetics. Her writing has appeared in Afterimage, C Magazine, and the Canadian Journal of Film Studies, among other publications. In addition to cinema, her interests include cheese, wine, etymology, tennis, celebrity gossip, and the politics of representation.

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Last entries by Jovana Jankovic

29 Mar 2013

Review:Spring Breakers

The saccharine Disney starlet Selena Gomez plays the least bad-ass of a group of four college girls who head out to Florida for spring break to get away from what they perceive to be the mind-numbing boredom of their nameless and nondescript hometown. The girls, however, don’t have enough money...

Archived in Major Theatrical Reviews RSS
21 Mar 2013

Who is she? Hollywood and the 1990s femme fatale

Look at her: she’s dangerous, sexy, probably lying to you, and lookin’ good doing it. Who is she? Well, she’s probably Sharon Stone or Demi Moore, and it’s most likely around 1994. I’ve never quite been able to figure out why, but there seems to have been a spate of...

Archived in Articles Issue 4 Volume 3: March 2013 - Women in Film Other Articles RSS
27 Feb 2013

Cinema Revisited: Gilles Groulx’ Le Chat dans le sac

Ah the sixties: a time of existential angst, political turmoil, and cultural revolution. OK, so I was born in 1983…but it doesn’t mean I can’t dream. Of course, the ’60s were a seminal moment globally and cross-culturally: the sexual revolution took hold in the West while films and music began...

Archived in Cinema Revisted Columns Issue 4 Volume 2: February 2013 - French Canadian Cinema
14 Feb 2013

Cinema Revisited: Denys Arcand (even masters make mistakes)

First of all, doesn’t Denys Arcand kind of look a little bit like John Waters? Hm. Despite this jarring similarity, let’s take a look back at the work of one of Canada’s most internationally-renowned auteurs. But when we aim to “revisit” cinema, what is it exactly that we are doing?...

Archived in Cinema Revisted Columns Issue 4 Volume 2: February 2013 - French Canadian Cinema
28 Jan 2013

A hard-hearted look at kids’ films

I stand before you ready to fully admit my perhaps excessive serious-mindedness. I’ve rarely been able to enjoy a film “just for fun”. There have been a few exceptions, of course: Wayne’s World (1992), The Cutting Edge (1992), and maybe even, on an exceptional day, something saccharine yet playful...

Archived in Articles Cover Stories Issue 4 Volume 1: January 2013 - Kid Cinema
15 Jan 2013

TIFF launches Trintignant-Riva retrospective to accompany release of Haneke’s Amour

Not only is Michael Haneke’s Amour destined to clean up at all sorts of glitzy awards shows, both Hollywood and otherwise, but the film itself is bringing two living legends back to the big screen. Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva were both pillars of French cinema across a span...

Archived in Articles Issue 4 Volume 1: January 2013 - Kid Cinema TIFF Programming
02 Jan 2013

Meet the TFS Writers: Jovana Jankovic

Here I am! When I was ten, my parents pressed pause and sent me to my room when Geena Davis’ character started to get raped in Thelma and Louise (1991). They, of course, didn’t know the scene was coming up, and they were just letting me hang out around the...

Archived in Articles Issue 4 Volume 1: January 2013 - Kid Cinema Meet the TFS Writers
28 Dec 2012

The Year in Movies: 6 films that were awesome in every way except for their weird politics

For those who know me well, you’ll know I hover around in a perpetual Marxist-Feminist vigilance. I’m also a hopelessly cinephilic sucker for a cool-looking, nail-biting thriller of a film. What happens when the former meets the latter? Can’t… process. Too… many… contradictions. Here’s my list of this year’s Films...

Archived in Articles Issue 3 Volume 12: December 2012 - Year-End Spectacular Other Articles
21 Dec 2012

Review: Jack Reacher

Jack Reacher is a recurring protagonist in the crime thriller literature of Lee Child. The film Jack Reacher (an adaptation of Lee’s novel One Shot) is confusingly named after the brooding anti-hero, and stars Tom Cruise, who also produced. Reacher is a highly-decorated former military cop who is now a...

Archived in Major Theatrical Reviews
21 Nov 2012

TFS Essential Canadian Cinema: Double Happiness

As we’re looking at Asian Cinema this month at TFS, it seemed appropriate to look at a Canadian film that wooed critics in the ’90s with its tale of Asia-to-Canada immigration and the adventures and woes of these immigrants’ Canadianized kids. Mina Shum‘s Double Happiness was released in 1994 and,...

Archived in Columns Essential Canadian Cinema
16 Nov 2012

Reel Asian Review: Floating City

In Ho Yim‘s Floating City, we follow a young man on his lifelong journey from Chinese fishing boat to pedigreed employee of the East India Company. Bo Wa Chuen is abandoned as a baby, a mysteriously blue-eyed Asian tot (his mixed-race heritage is unknown), and taken in by a poor...

Archived in Festivals Reel Asian
12 Nov 2012

Unknowns: my own personal intro to Asian cinema

As a lifelong cinephile, I’m disappointed in myself because I don’t know very much about Asian cinema. I suppose we all develop our particular fandoms and traditions of viewerships based on something we’ve seen, loved, and chosen to follow (for me, it was Lynch, Haneke, and mid-century American film noir,...

Archived in Articles Cover Stories Issue 3 Volume 11: November 2012 - Asian Cinema
18 Oct 2012

Media Impact: Cronenberg crawls from low to high and back again

For better or for worse, the horror genre has been slapped with the reputation that it is somehow a “low” form of art, or that it is even thoroughly artless, which is perhaps why you often overhear surprised remarks that a certain horror film is “smart” (gosh, wow!). Among the...

Archived in Columns Issue 3 Volume 10: October 2012 - Horror Canadian-Style Media Impact
10 Oct 2012

Planet in Focus Review: The Carbon Rush

Among hot-button environmental issues, carbon trading perhaps doesn’t get the limelight as often as it should, as its one of the most environmentally (and socially) destructive practices going on today. Large (Western) corporations are allowed to emit set amounts of carbon, and if they wish to emit more than their...

Archived in Festivals Other Festivals
14 Sep 2012

TIFF Review: All That Matters is Past

All That Matters is Past is Norwegian filmmaker Sara Johnsen’s third film. It’s the story of rival brothers, one of whom displays distinctly psychopathic behaviour. The “evil” brother (Ruud), as he is referred to in the film, has always been obsessed with the “good” brother’s (William’s) other half, Janne (the...

Archived in Festivals TIFF TIFF 2012
14 Sep 2012

TIFF Review: Spring Breakers

The saccharine Disney starlet Selena Gomez plays the least bad-ass of a group of four college girls who head out to Florida for spring break to get away from what they perceive to be the mind-numbing boredom of their nameless and nondescript hometown. The girls, however, don’t have enough money...

Archived in Festivals TIFF TIFF 2012
11 Sep 2012

TIFF Review: Short Cuts Canada Programme #4

While the diverse themes in TIFF’s Short Cuts Canada Programme #4 showcase the variety of up-and-coming talent in this country, a common thread joins the films in this programme: all deal with weighty issues with a hint of humour, and even compassion. Reem Morsi’s Their Feast follows a post-Mubarak Egyptian...

Archived in Festivals TIFF TIFF 2012
30 Aug 2012

TIFF Preview: Show Stopper: The Theatrical Life of Garth Drabinsky

The documentary programming at the Toronto International Film Festival is thick this year, and included is a sure-to-be divisive biographical doc about Canadian entertainment/cinema mogul Garth Drabinsky. A divisive biographical documentary can only mean one thing: an even more divisive subject. Synopsis You can basically thank Drabinsky for what we...

Archived in Blog Festivals Festivals On the Scene TIFF TIFF 2012
20 Aug 2012

Building a movie wardrobe: insider tips on where Toronto’s costume pros shop

So, you live in Toronto. Great! And you’ve been reading Toronto Film Scene’s August issue on fashion in the movies? Great! But how can you incorporate all of the fantastical images and information you’ve gleaned into a practical application within this great city of ours? Are you a crafter or...

Archived in Articles Cover Cover Stories Issue 3 Volume 8: August 2012 - Fashion in Film
07 Aug 2012

All dressed up: on fiction, belief, and costume design

Take a minute to try to remember the last time you thought about the costumes in a film; surely, something fantastical pops into your head. The infamous yellow jumpsuit in Kill Bill? Sure. Maybe Dorothy’s ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz? For me, it’s always Jean Paul Gaultier‘s futuristic...

Archived in Articles Cover Stories Issue 3 Volume 8: August 2012 - Fashion in Film

Last Comments by Jovana Jankovic

This week from Grolsch Film Works

5 Reasons Why Christopher Nolan Is Hollywood’s Greatest Director

The Dark Knight Rises is without a doubt the most anticipated major release of 2012. In a little over ten years, Christopher Nolan has gone from exciting indie filmmaker (Following…

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