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, …
2020 Toronto International Film Festival
For what may be the third year in a row, I only saw 5 movies at TIFF. Every year I resolve to see more the next year but it never seems to happen. Now, this year is different, obviously. This year I watched TIFF films on my couch. And this year I only watched 5 …
Who Let the Dogs Out (2000) by Baha Men
I was dreading this. The chorus of the title track is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard and if I never heard it again that would be too soon. Â And then there’s the rating on Rate Your Music, which is insanely low, so I was really dreading it.
Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1
I don’t know if I can tell you who Jill Scott is, but I can tell you what she is: she’s ambitious. Scott wants us to both accept her as a very talented singer and a poet. That’s something very few people can pull off.
Nuevo orden aka New Order (2020, Michel Franco)
This is a very promising film about class conflict in Mexico that gets really confused and, for me, goes off the rails to the point where I am kind of astounded it won a Grand Jury Prize at a film festival. SPOILERS later in the review.
The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel (2020, Jennifer Abbott, Joel Bakan)
I saw the original Corporation sometime back in the aughts. I have no idea whether or not I would like it now. This film is infuriating, both because of the problems in the world it reminds us of, and because of how unfocused it is. In many ways, it feels like two movies, the sequel …
Parachutes (2000) by Coldplay
Imagine early Radiohead with none of the energy or edge (i.e. none of the alternative/grunge influences) and none of the aritness or idiosyncrasy, and imagine them playing mostly ballads (and the up-tempo songs are so soft they sound like ballads) and I guess you get some idea of what Coldplay sound like on their first …
E. 1999 Eternal (1995) by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
I have had a hard time getting into (and just plain getting) hip hop for basically my entire music-listening life. One of the major barriers to me has been rap – I am a fan of musicality in music, and rap is often not very musically interesting to me. This is especially true of early …
Elliott Smith (1995)
Allow me to get something off my chest: this record is not “lo fi”. If you think this is “lo fi”, please listen to early Smog or early Sebadoh or early Ween or anything that actually qualifies as lo fi and then come back and listen to this. Smith doesn’t need your help. He’s a …
Dreaming of You (1995) by Selena
I remember the singles from the music videos and the ether, I guess, but that was a bit of a surprise to me. Frankly, all I remembered about Selena was that she died young. Like anyone who died young, there has been a lot of hagiographic “what if” since. But I’ve paid little attention to …
Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home (1995) by The Geraldine Fibbers
YES Where has this band been all my life? I read about them ages ago and I just took my sweet time getting to them. And for that, I’m sorry.
Not a Pretty Girl (1995) by Ani DiFranco
Ani had used bands at times before this record, despite her full, percussive guitar style that easily lends itself to solo performances. But on this record she decided to full band more of the time (to my memory) but by recording just her an her drummer.
76 Days (2020, Weixi Chen, Hao Wu, Anonymous)
This is a harrowing but ultimately kind of triumphant fly-on-the-wall style documentary about COVID-19 patients and the frontline workers looking after them in China. If you are lucky enough to have not gotten sick but feel like this has been really hard, I strongly suggest you watch this movie. (And if you think this whole …
Boombastic (1995) by Shaggy
I remember the title track a bit but not well enough to remember the whole thing. (And I’m still wondering if a remix was bigger in Canada because, honestly, it doesn’t sound that familiar with me.) But otherwise, I had no idea what I was in for. And I sort of dreaded this.
…And the Circus Leaves Town (1995) by Kyuss
I really like this band and I really like this sound. In fact, you might say I’m a sucker for bands who play music like this, no matter when. (I remember getting excited about Black Mountain even though they were not doing anything new.) But this is probably the weakest Kyuss album I’ve heard for …
Brown Sugar (1995) by D’Angelo
So I sat down to write this thinking I was going to write something and then I skimmed some reviews and saw this record categorized as “smooth soul” and it got me thinking: this record sure didn’t strike me as “slick” or “smooth” when I listened to it. Why did it strike others that way?
Cowboys From Hell (1990) by Pantera
I know the legend of Pantera but I don’t know their early music. Regardless, it’s hard to believe this band was once a glam metal band. I guess you can hear touches of it here and there if you’re really, really paying attention but, if you listened to this first, and then were told their …
Lights…Camera…Revolution (1990) by Suicidal Tendencies
Back in 2012 I heard Prime Cuts and I was pretty damn impressed. I’d never heard the band before and I was thinking “Where has this been all my life”? But it took me a really long time to hear some more of their music and I must say that I might have grown out …
Heart (1985)
All I know of Heart is their ’70s hits, which used to get played on classic rock radio a lot. (I don’t know if they still are.) I’ve heard most (all?) of these hits but I had no idea that they were Heart, in part because they sound so different, and in part because I …
Shadow in the Cloud (2020, Roseanne Liang)
This is a bizarre film with a premise that kind of appealed to me in reading about it but, which, in execution, is a giant mess. SPOILERS
Dhobi Ghat (2010, Kiran Rao)
This is a pretty good slice of life drama about four people from four different backgrounds in Mumbai. Though it’s a debut, the film feels like the work of someone who’s been in film a while and there is a lot of thought both in the telling and the way it is shot. (Though there …
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 …
Le Genou de Claire (1970, Eric Rohmer)
Ah, the good old days, when European men could prey on little girls and everyone thought it was just great.
Man of Steel (2013, Zack Snyder)
I feel like I remember reading that this movie had too much origin story and they weren’t kidding. This film tries to both tell the origin story of Superman and of General Zod, and then pit them against each other. And there is just an absolute ton of stuff about Krypton. Honestly, if feels like …
10% Less Democracy: Why You Should Trust Elites a Little More and the Masses a Little Less (2020) by Garrrett Jones
This is a frustrating book. I agree with some of what he says and he inspired me to come up with some additional ideas. But I find the presentation ill-thought out, and I find his perspective limited, and rather traditional.
Citizen Ruth (1996, Alexander Payne)
This is a very funny movie about a pregnant drug addict and the war to get her to keep the baby or get an abortion. It’s dated a bit in terms of how we depict addiction but, otherwise, it feels like it is (sadly) still relevant and is definitely worth your time.
International Tax Compliance
The biggest problem the world faces should go without saying: climate change. Human behaviour is changing the climate to the extent that it will be harder for people to inhabit certain parts of the world, and that will cause all sorts of other problems. But that problem is long-term, no matter how immediate it seems …
Enemies of the State (2020, Sonia Kennebeck)
This is a masterful documentary about an American potential whistle-blower accused of child pornography and related charges, who took refuge in Canada. I paid no attention to the story at the time, so the entire thing was new to me. Before I get to the review: if you like documentaries about the nature of truth, …
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.
The Dark Tower (2017, Nikolaj Arcel)
I know nothing about the source material but this is one of those films which feels like things went wrong from the very beginning. Apparently a huge part of the problem is that it is a fairly normal length movie adapted from a novel series that is over 4,000 pages long. So no wonder.