2017 was one of the greatest years of filmmaking we’ve ever seen. On one hand, that made finding enough brilliant nominees to fill each category of the Critics’ Pick Awards a breeze. On the other hand, it made picking winners a nightmare. There were a few things on which consensus came easy (Outstanding Actor came […]

  Saiya Floyd

There’s too much TV for us to watch everything but we give it a hearty try and every year offer up our picks for what we thought stood out from the overwhelming and ever-expanding landscape. Below are our picks for the best of 2017, written by our TV staff writers Kelly Bedard (KB), Dane McDonald […]

  Saiya Floyd

Listening to Anaïs Mitchell’s gorgeous Hadestown recordings is the perfect way to spend a dark cold winter’s night. As of 2017, there are two recordings of Hadestown, a folk musical take on Greek mythology: a 2010 concept album, and a recording of the off-Broadway cast who performed the show at the New York Theatre Workshop. (The […]

  Saiya Floyd

Soulpepper’s Of Human Bondage features a strong cast of talented actors, and some truly innovative staging. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to save the production from a tiresome story filled with unlikeable characters. Of Human Bondage is a solid production. But if you don’t like stories about selfish people making selfish decisions while barely growing or […]

Immigrants. Gentrification. Two subjects that are inescapable when living in New York City. Sometimes it’s easy for New Yorkers to think we have the monopoly on them (as we like to think we have a monopoly on everything). But the Torontonian theater company Soulpepper proves otherwise with Kim’s Convenience, which handles heavy issues with sharp humor […]

The third story in A Series of Unfortunate Events is “The Wide Window” and it’s…fine. It is good at points, but never achieves any greatness. The pacing problems from “The Reptile Room” continued, and got worse. *Spoilers ahead* Overall, I liked “The Wide Window”, but I liked it less than “The Reptile Room”, which I […]

  Saiya Floyd

A Series of Unfortunate Events continues to delight with “The Reptile Room”. While this adaptation of the second book of the series was fun, some pacing issues and gaps in logic made it a little less solid than “The Bad Beginning” parts 1 and 2. *Spoilers ahead* Much of the success of “The Reptile Room […]

  Saiya Floyd

Other than Harry Potter, if there was a book series that dominated my childhood, it would have to be A Series of Unfortunate Events. The stories follow the Baudelaire orphans as they are pursued by the evil Count Olaf who wants to seize the orphans’ fortune. Despite the dark premise, the books were clever and […]