So, obviously, Dirty Grandpa is terrible. Let’s get that out of the way right off the bat. Terrible. Don’t see it. It’s gross and stupid and embarrassing. But, like anything, if it catches you in the right mood (and comes out in a barren movie landscape filled with Oscar dramas you’ve already seen) it theoretically […]
Right up front, I have to say that I just don’t love Wagner. I’ve tried, I’ve tried so hard (I was well-rested, well-fed, well-Mentos’d to keep me alert during this latest interminable Wagnerian ordeal), but I cannot force myself to invest in overblown German dramatics about trolls for five hours at a time. The plot […]
I knew the show was pushing the right buttons when a third of the audience left at intermission. Company One and ArtsEmerson do not offer half-baked theatre, and playwright Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins doesn’t write for the fainthearted. This production of Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon did not flinch as it relentlessly pushed its audience to confront unpleasant historical […]
When you sit down to watch What an Idiot (currently playing at the Kingsway Theatre in Toronto), make sure you commit. Five minutes into this Canadian comedy (that annoyingly pretends to be American), I wanted to turn it off. Tired “women never like nice guys” tropes, humourless fat jokes and a band of the most […]
Please allow me to cut to the chase. Antony Raymond’s Yeah, I Met This Girl . . . is a gem of a play with fantastic layered writing and an outstanding cast of actors. Go see it. The above recommendation felt necessary because, at first glance, the premise may seem worn, familiar and uninspiring (after […]
Legends of Tomorrow has its work cut out for it. Not only does it have to distinguish itself from every other superhero TV show or movie, it specifically has to distinguish itself from its sibling series. Legends of Tomorrow is the third show in Greg Berlanti’s CW superhero universe, its predecessors being Arrow and The […]
The second season of this wacky medieval musical came as a surprise to everyone, most of all the show’s creators who proceeded to pepper those unexpected 10 episodes with references to the fact that they assumed they were dead before being quite randomly revived (at one point they literally killed their title character and brought […]
There’s something of a false hierarchical narrative around Shakespeare performance that suggests the grander the stage, the stronger the performer, the mecca that is the Stratford festival theatre serving as the (Canadian) pinnacle where only the best of the best are allowed to tread the boards. If you’re somehow unconvinced that this narrative is nonsense, […]