Kelly Bedard
Hello, Fellow Social Isolators! Like you, we’re determined…
Dom Harvey
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Thomas Gough is a staple of Toronto theatre, and a veteran of many shows at Campbell House, who has worked extensively with Outstanding Direction nominee Sarah Thorpe. In Soup Can Theatre/Three Ships Collective’s site-specific reimagining of […]
Dom Harvey
Christmas cheer is descending on the city, and nowhere more than at Campbell House. The historic museum is the perfect venue for The Three Ships Collective’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol, a rare example of a site that is from the same era as the story and retains its aesthetic. Most authentic Victorian buildings are […]
Amy Strizic
The opening night of Coal Mine Theatre’s improv holiday show, The Wonder Pageant, was a hit, a WONDER-ful success. All performers demonstrated comedic accomplishment, unlike your author, and were fully able to get a somewhat stilted audience to laugh and sing along to their new and inspired songs. While the whole cast thrived as an […]
Kelly Bedard
To celebrate the release of their new Classic TV Christmas DVDs, Paramount Home Entertainment has given us a copy Sabrina the Teenage Witch: The Christmas Episodes to give away to one lucky reader. For your chance to win, follow us on Twitter and tweet us your favourite holiday special (or movie or classic TV episode). Don’t forget to […]
Kelly Bedard
To celebrate the release of their new Classic TV Christmas DVDs, Paramount Home Entertainment has given us a copy A Very Brady Christmas to give away to one lucky reader. For your chance to win, follow us on Twitter and tweet us your favourite holiday special (or movie or classic TV episode). Don’t forget to mention why you […]
Kelly Bedard
To celebrate the release of their new Classic TV Christmas DVDs, Paramount Home Entertainment has given us a copy Frasier: Christmas Episodes to give away to one lucky reader. For your chance to win, follow us on Twitter and tweet us your favourite holiday special (or movie or classic TV episode). Don’t forget to mention why you love […]
Kelly Bedard
To celebrate the release of their new Classic TV Christmas DVDs, Paramount Home Entertainment has given us a copy The Honeymooners: Christmas Laughter to give away to one lucky reader. For your chance to win, follow us on Twitter and tweet us your favourite holiday special (or movie or classic TV episode). Don’t forget to mention why you […]
Amy Strizic
Facing the garlanded stage with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra warming up, looked down on by the Etobicoke School of the Arts Holiday Chorus, I can’t help but feel the buzz of holiday cheer. I have not had the privilege to attend the symphony since I was a child, and am enjoying the energy of Roy […]
Kelly Bedard
Netflix be damned, this month alone I raced through the first season of Game of Thrones, the third season of Mad Men and the fifth season of The Good Wife, all on the great and sadly dying medium of TV on DVD (Netflix, by the way, only has one of those three things available in […]
Chris Tsujiuchi and The Chris-terical Cabaret Crew are back for their annual Christmas festivities at Buddies in Bad Times this weekend. They’ve brought a lot of old material with them (and the departure of mainstay Vaughn Harris is sadly felt), but they’ve also got the strongest group of instrumentalists they’ve ever had… and a gospel choir. There’s one show […]
Theresa Perkins
Ah, the perennial holiday variety special. They just do not make Christmahanakwanzika specials like they use to – praise be to the great and powerful television executives! For those of you shaking your head as you fondly recall the holiday specials from your past, let’s assess that sentiment, shall we? The holiday variety specials of […]
Saiya Floyd
Merry Christmas, Whovians! In this year’s Christmas special ‘The Snowmen’, we got a brand new companion. Jenna Louise Coleman technically made her debut in the fall as the soufflé baking genius Oswin Oswald in ‘Asylum of the Daleks’. Oswin was actually a Dalek, and died at the end of the episode. Which is why it’s […]
Kelly Bedard
I generally go to Soulpepper openings alone but I was out of town when A Christmas Carol opened, so I had the pleasure of getting to bring my mother to an everyday evening performance of the biennial remount. I like to talk, in case you haven’t noticed, so I relish getting to explain things like how […]
Kelly Bedard
The stage adaptation of David Sedaris’ first person account of elf life at Macy’s is as smartly sarcastic and belly-shakingly funny as you’d expect from the famous essayist, but what struck me most is how not-so-dark the heart of his dark comedy is. I would even go all the way to sweet. Insofar as a […]
Rachael Nisenkier
I have only repeated two movies since last year, even though it’s been very tempting to pull out some old favorites (I miss you, Elf! See you next year!). Those two repeats were my essential movies. Every year, the Christmas season begins with Love, Actually, and ends when my whole family gets together to watch […]
Rachael Nisenkier
What if angels were real, and one of them wanted to bang your wife? Also… what if he looked like Cary Grant? For my second to last Christmas movie, I wanted something I knew nothing about. I wanted to be surprised. I wanted… well… Cary Grant. In The Bishop’s Wife, Grant plays Dudley, an angel […]
Rachael Nisenkier
As I sit down to take in the perennially marathoned A Christmas Story, I realize that I don’t believe I’ve ever actually sat down and watched A Christmas Story before. Normally, it is on the TV in the other room all day Christmas day, and when sullen child/teenager Rachael got bored of hanging out with […]
Rachael Nisenkier
These days, it is simply accepted that Adam Sandler movies are going to be difficult to watch and yet increasingly generic. He’s made a very comfortable living by continually playing to the lowest common denominator, whether it’s through paint-by-numbers romantic or over-the-top absurdist comedies. But there was a time, in the not-too-distant past, when it […]
Rachael Nisenkier
NOTE: It’s hard being Jewish at Christmas time, but nothing is quite as difficult as dealing with the complete dearth of Hannukah movies. In trying to put the “mukkah” into the 24 days of Christmas, I decided I needed at least two Hannukah offerings. Unfortunately, 8 Crazy Nights is the only one that even exists, […]
Rachael Nisenkier
One of my non-obnoxious Film Studies TAs was struggling to explain to us the basics of plot. We were first year film students, dying to do avante-garde and unique things, and the idea of using standard structural elements to construct our opuses felt confining and uncomfortably like selling out. Then, she walks in one day […]
Rachael Nisenkier
As a regular movie, Rent doesn’t exactly have classic status. With Chris Columbus’ stagey direction and lack of personal voice, Rent isn’t even a particularly good adaptation of the Broadway musical from which it’s based. The actors are all too old for their parts. The film lacks cinematic urgency. And the once-cutting-edge play about a group […]
Rachael Nisenkier
To say that A Charlie Brown Christmas is melancholy is not exactly a news flash, but it’s nonetheless affecting. From the first chords of Vince Guaraldi, you’re 100% into the existential despair that Charlie Brown finds himself in. It’s sort of strangely appropriate that I find myself watching a movie all about finding the meaning […]
Rachael Nisenkier
Aside from listening to the Bing Crosby tune “White Christmas,” I really knew nothing about the 1954 classic film by the same name. For example, I didn’t know it was a musical, didn’t know it starred Bing Crosby, had no idea it took place in a snow-less Vermont, and didn’t know it was in goofy […]
Rachael Nisenkier
Now that’s more like it. From the first frames of Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (fake newsreel footage of kids trying to get ready for the arrival of Santa Claus), I was sold. It’s filled with lush claymation landscapes, witty songs, a surprisingly complicated original plot, and themes that range from trying to be […]
Rachael Nisenkier
The second of our classic animation trifecta is Frosty. Shorter and less revolutionary than its reindeer brethren, Frosty looks less like Coraline and more like a classic Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon. A bunch of kids get together after school on the day before Christmas to make a snowman. A magician’s magic (and very argumentative) hat […]