Articles
2013 seems to be the year for great female characters written by savvy local writer/directors intent on capturing the coming-of-age experience in a way that’s rarely seen on the big screen. Sara St. Onge’s Molly Maxwell just recently concluded a successful month-long run at the Carlton and now Kate Melville‘s Picture Day is about to make its theatrical debut at TIFF Bell Lightbox. Melville, a seasoned writer with many TV credits, including Degrassi: The Next Generation and Being Erica, to her credit makes her feature debut with her story about a misfit named Claire (rising star Tatiana Maslany) who’s working...
Running a repertory cinema in the time of Netflix and mega-luxe home theatre systems is certainly an uphill battle that most of us–no matter how deep our love for the moving image–would not be willing to take on. When Charlie Lawton, Alex Woodside and Nigel Agnew decided to try their hand at running a rep theatre in 2010, that fight to get butts off their couches and into the seats at the Toronto Underground Cinema proved an insurmountable yet life-changing experience – one that Director Morgan White was documenting. The resulting film, The Rep, not only tails the Toronto Underground guys as...
He was unmistakably eye catching. There on my computer screen was a gun bearing goddess in a glittering mermaid shaped dress. His hair was wildly teased to the heavens. Divine’s photograph made everything else on my tumblr dashboard completely irrelevant. Was he a character? A murderer? A style icon? He was scary and beautiful. I had to know more about this man dressed in tulle. I found that I had something in common with Divine. In fact, I would argue that a part of Divine is in all of us. Born Harris Glenn Milstead, Divine is mostly known for his...
April 26 marked the opening of Chris Marker: Memory of a Certain Time, an exhibition of the legendary French filmmaker’s photographs. To accompany the exhibition, TIFF Bell Lightbox is throwing Remembrance of Things to Come, a mini retrospective of Marker’s films, which includes classics such as La Jetée and Sans Soleil. Cinephiles, Francophiles, prepare to flock! If you ever take (or have taken) a survey course on the French New Wave, you’ll spend a minute with Chris Marker. Well, probably 28 minutes, to be precise. In the tumultuous burst of expression that is post-war French film, Chris Marker gets a...
When we go to the movies, we see complex characters carefully crafted by screenwriters, studio executives, producers, directors and actors, but what makes it to the screen, and what it says about that person and their traits can have meaning beyond what we see. This has been true of the depiction of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people throughout the history of cinema. One of the most maligned groups throughout the 20th Century, queer cinema has had a long road. Here is a brief history of the path it has taken since the birth of the medium. Sissies on screen...
Blackbird is a film that explores many themes: parental involvement in the behaviour of their children, bullying in institutions like school and by the court and prison systems in Canada, and identity and determination and how the outward representation of that can be self-detrimental, just to name a few. In the film, Sean (Connor Jessup), a high school student living in a small maritime town dresses like a goth, listens to heavy metal and hides in his room (where the walls are painted black, of course). For these things he is bullied by his classmates and shunned by the town....
Toronto is home to many wonderful cultural events. At any given time in this eclectic city there is guaranteed to be something interesting going on. Summer is especially a busy time with NXNE starting us off in June, followed by Toronto PRIDE, Caribbean Carnival and then The Toronto International Film Festival, one of the largest film festivals in the world. But there are loads of lesser known festivals that offer unique world perspectives, something that this great city is known for. One of the lesser known but fascinating events going on this month is The Toronto International Deaf Film and...
Given the success of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012), I thought it might be interesting to go back and revisit Italian filmmaker Sergio Corbucci’s original treatment from 1966, but in short order found myself drawn further back to the earlier source materials that inspired it. Like an old fashioned hall of mirrors, Django Unchained is just the most recent image in a series of reflections that bounce back and forth all the way back to the early westerns of John Ford and the pulp novels of Dashiell Hammett. The original Django, released in 1966, was the first in a run...
It wasn’t until I started writing for Toronto Film Scene that I started seriously looking at who and what made me fall in love with film in the first place. It was then that I realised how much of an influence Steven Spielberg and George Lucas had on me as a kid. The earliest films I remember seeing that weren’t either a cartoon or less than 30 minutes long were Hook, Jaws, the original Star Wars trilogy, Indiana Jones, and Jurassic Park. My mom claims that when I was really young I tried to find George Lucas’ number in our...
In March of this year, Co-Chairman of Sony Pictures Amy Pascal made headlines for a speech she gave at the LA Gay & Lesbian Center gala. She talked about how the industry needs to start scrutinizing its depiction of LGBT characters in film and television. She said, “How about next time, when any of us are reading a script and it says words like fag, or faggot – homo – dyke – take a pencil and just cross it out”. Her comments caused quite a bit of controversy with calls of “censorship!” being the chief complaint amongst her detractors. Let’s...
Michelle Nolden is a true renaissance woman. Not only is she a steadily working actress (you might recognize her from the three TV shows she currently has on the go – Saving Hope, Republic of Doyle and Nikita or from movies like Men With Brooms) and filmmaker, she also somehow found the time to co-found Lakeshorts International Short Film Festival with film and television producer (and husband) Chris Szarka. The festival, which runs May 3 and 4, features two evenings of some of the best short films from around the world. On May 3, the focus will be on “Loved...
Opening Saturday, May 4, 2013 at The Royal, ChristCore is a documentary about the Christian hardcore scene, specifically two bands, Messengers and Sleeping Giant, as they tour across the country. Directed by Justin Ludwig, the film offers an unbiased look at Christian youth and how they’ve come to accept a form of music that would seem to clash with their faith. I had the chance to speak with Justin, a self proclaimed atheist, about ChristCore and its effect on his own way of life. At the beginning of the film, Justin shares a bit of his life, and how he...
