For the past five years, I’ve been ranking every film I see- just the new releases, from January 1st to December 31st. The rankings are subjective, based entirely on how much I enjoyed and/or connected with or appreciated the film rather than on some sort of objective artistic criteria. Basically, this is a list of 105 films released […]
Musical theatre isn’t usually the first place you look for a modern horror story, but in this new short creation by Bella Barlow and A.C. Smith, the eclectic mix works incredibly well. While it could do with tightening up in some areas, particularly near the end, the plot moves along with intrigue and excitement, with […]
Britain’s housing crisis is an incredibly relevant premise for a play. Trap Street, a term also derived from cartographers designing fictitious maps in order to exploit plagiarists, addresses the housing crisis for the working class from the post-war period through to the current day (1967-2017). This Kandinsky production takes us on the journey of Valerie […]
I won’t lie to you: The last calendar year has been challenging for me as a reality TV fan. Survivor for the past couple seasons has been an unsavory combination of unstrategic, predictable, and devoid of likable winners. Big Brother 19 was ugly. The Amazing Race crowned two of the primary perpetrators of that same […]
I’m going to start this recap by talking about someone who may not have been the focus of this episode, but about whom I’ve been thinking a lot. Here is what I will say to the credit of Angela Perkins: I would not want to cross her in any sort of physical challenge or in […]
In the Backspace inch of your LIFE: episode 1/the pilot (The Theatre Circuit) The first episode of a three-part saga about Italian-Canadian (they might be American; Italian-North American at least) brothers who can’t get out of each other’s way, inch of your LIFE‘s pilot is a cleanly directed, excellently paced introduction to a memorable set […]
I didn’t get to see much this year at the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival but here’s what I did catch: Jon Blair Solo sketch feels like it maybe shouldn’t work but Jon Blair’s whole thing is making things that shouldn’t work work so of course this show works, performed completely alone with only one […]
This was a huge grower. On first listen I was ready to write it off as “better than Peep, worse than Wicca”, which I now see is wrong – he’s arguably the very best in this blossoming genre. Reaper has a highly polished sound that wears its influences in such a clear and effective way. […]