TV on DVD is one of my favourite things. Long before Netflix, it revolutionized the way we consume television and, for the first time ever, made it possible for a show to be remembered (or even discovered) long after it was canceled (most likely by FOX). At least half of all hardcore Whedon fans seem […]

 

Cineastas I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this Spanish-language exploration of the lives of filmmakers but what I found was a profoundly moving and wonderfully inventive piece of ensemble theatre. The cast was extraordinary in their versatility and emotional depth (Javier Lorenzo in particular pulled at my heartstrings in multiple roles) while the […]

Million Dollar Arm isn’t really a movie smart, discerning people are supposed to love. It’s Disney live-action feel-good goofiness starring a beloved actor who’s being paid exorbitant amounts of money to put his good name on a silly piece of fluff (the actual acting required- at least from Jon Hamm- is minimal). But I liked […]

  This is already a crazy-good season of The Bachelorette, and we’re only 4 episodes (plus an unnecessary clip show) in! Andi still has 11 guys left (I usually do this when she gets down to around 8) but I’m already so invested in- and so opinionated about- this season that I couldn’t wait even […]

I just spent an hour and a half with Shakespeare Bash’d Artistic Director James Wallis and his wife/collaborator Julia Nish-Lapidus. The conversation sprawled- I asked them what fans of their previous Fringe hits The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing could expect from their upcoming Love’s Labour’s Lost; they sung the praises […]

 

Please excuse the vulgarity of this review’s title; Kat Sandler‘s immersive dialogue has a tendency to catch on and affect my vocabulary for a few hours after I leave the theatre. The upsetting news is that, having just taken in her thrilling new work about three rough-edged foster brothers looking to break into the cockfighting […]

Clock Tower’s <em>The Harrowing</em>

For their inaugural production, socially conscious Clock Tower Theatre chose a contemporary Canadian play limited neither by its time nor its place. Rather, The Harrowing is one of those no-frills political thrillers that could just as easily be about Jesus as about Maziar Bahari or a dystopian hero of the future. Designer/AD Justin Büyüközer embraces […]

At the Papermill Theatre last week, the East Side Players premiered one of the most ambitious and beautiful works in the Canadian theatrical canon- Timothy Findley’s Elizabeth Rex. The complex hypothetical places the “virgin” Queen rather outlandishly in the barn where Shakespeare’s troupe The Lord Chamberlain’s men are lodging after performing Much Ado About Nothing […]