This is one of those movies where the premise sounds really great – a rich family plays a game to welcome new members of that family, but when that game is Hide and Seek, things turn deadly – but where the execution is just not up to snuff. There are moments that are pretty great, …
Category: 2019
Your 2019-20 Toronto Raptors
There is a lot of disappointment in Toronto right now and I’m not sure it’s warranted. The Toronto Raptors won the title last year. They then lost two starters: one of the 3-5 best players in the entire league – and best Raptor ever in terms of pure two-way talent – and a candidate for …
Citizen K (2019, Alex Gibney)
This is a mostly excellent documentary about Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oligarch turned activist and his battle with Vladimir Putin. It’s particularly notable for two things: its attempts to portray Khodorkovsky as a flawed person, and its relative creativity at telling the story.
Sleepwalkers (2019)
I have long been stuck on what to do about reviewing podcasts: do I review them when I finish their first reason? do I review each season? do I wait to the end – like a TV show – and review? The solution I’ve come to now is to review the first season and maybe …
COMMONS: Dynasties (2019)
This is an interesting but flawed podcast about major recent familial dynasties in Canada. I have a bunch of reservations about it but, given that I know of no other coverage of this subject in Canada, I still recommend it to you if you are at all interested on the impact of inter-generational wealth and …
Hustlers (2019, Lorene Scafaria)
This is a pretty heavily stylized dramatization of a true story of strippers ripping off rich men in post crash New York City. I somehow never read the infamous article – though I’m going to now – so I can’t comment onto how accurate the depiction is. (Though that is not something I usually care …
Uncover (2018)
Uncover is a unique podcast series, in that it features different stories and different hosts each season. This has potential to make it eternally compelling but the truth of the matter is that CBC is not a podcast provider and doesn’t necessarily know the medium. The result is an incredibly uneven series, and your interest …
Giri/Haji (2019)
This is a creative, ambitious and extremely frustrating TV show about a Japanese police officer sent to find his AWOL brother in England in order to prevent a war among the Yakuza. There are things about it that are phenomenal and there are things about maddening, and I’m really not sure what to do with …
The Coldest Game (2019, Lukasz Kosmicki)
This is a confused and tonally inconsistent cold war spy thriller – hence the name – which markedly improves in its final act but which is pretty damn messy before it gets there.
BoJack Horseman (2014)
There’s something about animation that gives TV shows (and some movies) a freedom of tone which is not accessible to live action movies and TV. Something about animated characters lets us humans be more accepting of tonal shifts and sight gags. At least I think so. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered another show more …
Fear Inoculum (2019) by Tool
Tool goes Rush (circa late ’70s/early ’80s)!
Captain Marvel (2019, Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck)
As I have noted with Marvel movies, I only ever read X Men and related comics, so I have no skin in the game of whether or not Captain Marvel should be a man. But a quick Wikipedia search reveals that it’s not so controversial as some made it seem. But make no mistake, this …
Patient Zero (2019)
From the people that brought you Bear Brook, this is a podcast which looks at Lyme Disease, both the actual tick-borne illness, and “post-treatment Lyme syndrome”, which is the official name for the stuff that happens to people who claim they have “chronic” Lyme Disease.
The Missing Cryptoqueen (2019)
This is a very interesting podcast about OneCoin. If you don’t know about OneCoin, it’s a cryptocurrency. So let me just say that this is worth listening to before I spoil anything. SPOILERS
Against the Rules (2019)
I have yet to actually read a Michael Lewis book. (I know, I know.) But if his first podcast is any indication, I will probably enjoy them. This is a fascinating podcast about “the decline of the referee in American society”. I don’t agree with everything in it, and I think there’s a lot that …
1917 (2019, Sam Mendes)
This is an extremely well made film – a bit of a feat really – that uses a perhaps a too silly conceit to create a thriller cum war film that goes to pretty great lengths to remind us all of the horrors of World War I. (This is an under-filmed war compared to WWII.) …
Russian Doll (2019)
So let me try to tell you as little as possible: this is a funny show with lots of pathos that deftly balances dark comedy with strong performances of people with metal health problems. If any of that interests you, see this without learning anything else about it. Ideally, if you can even avoid knowing …
The Confession Killer (2019)
This is a frustrating, maddening and infuriating true crime miniseries about Henry Lee Lucas, a serial killer convicted of 11 murders, who has confessed to many more. At this point I will say that if you enjoy true crime, you should watch this miniseries. If you enjoy Netflix true crime documentaries that make you extremely …
The Laundromat (2019, Steven Soderbergh)
This is a bizarre, episodic and extremely stagey attempt to make the Panama Papers scandal more accessible and therefore of greater concern to the average American. It is a giant mess and only sporadic laughs and an excellent cast keep – and the film’s noble intentions – keep me from panning it. SPOILERS
Riley’s Best Films of the 2010s
I am an avid movie watcher. I have seen something like 5,000 movies in my life as well as countless hours of movie-quality TV. But my pace has slowed somewhat in the last decade, as life has gotten in the way. Moreover, because I see so few movies in theatres outside of my annual TIFF …
A Christmas Carol (2009, Robert Zemeckis)
This feels like an attempt to make a more faithful adaptation of A Christmas Carol using animation while, at the same time, taking the supernatural elements of the story to more fantastical heights.
Knives Out (2019, Rian Johnson)
For someone like me, there are few things more pleasing than a really well-done genre film. But genre conventions can be pretty tired, so that one thing that is more pleasing than that, is a genre crossover that really works. For me, comedy is often the most reliable genre to mashup. (I am a big …
Bundyville
This is an excellent podcast, initially about the Bundys, a ranching family in the American West, and more generally about the so-called “patriot movement”.
Republic of Lies (2019, Anna Merlan)
This is a survey of contemporary American conspiracy theories and the extent to which some of them can be found in mouths of the powerful in America. It is well-written, engaging and sometimes quite funny. But if you’ve read anything about American conspiracy theories before, there isn’t much new here.
Don Cherry
Many years ago I got in an argument with some family members about whether or not Canadian NHL players “wanted it” (the Stanley Cup) more than other (i.e. European) players. (Funnily enough, “other” didn’t seem to include Americans…)
Teardown: Rebuilding Democracy from the Ground Up (2019, Dave Meslin)
Full disclosure: I live in Toronto. I have met the author, Dave Meslin, at least once and possibly up to three times. Moreover, I used to volunteer for a group he founded (but no longer ran when I was a volunteer). So that both makes me likely biased in favour of his ideas and part …
On Trying to Publish My Fourth Book
I published my first book in 2011. I worked for five years on it and made a lot of stupid decisions, particularly with regard to the publisher. But in the next couple years I pumped out two other books, on some kind of crazy roll. All three were basically self-published, though my first book was …
Turandot live at the Four Seasons Centre October 27, 2019
I’ve seen a number of operas in my life, but I’ve listened to far more on CD or digitally. This is the first time, that I can recall that I have seen an opera I’ve listened to much ahead of time or at least, one I’ve listened to as many times as Turandot. So this …
Riley Goes to Vietnam
So I’ve been in Vietnam (and Cambodia) for the past three weeks. It was my first trip to that part of the world and basically my first time in Asia if you don’t count Asia Minor.
Riley Returns From Vietnam Day 21: Friday October 11, 2019 The Longest Day
In my mind, I had it that our flight was in the early afternoon. But it was in the morning. So we had to wake up early in Hanoi for the first time since we got to this hotel. It was a good thing because a large, inevitably noisy, Chinese family had joined us on …