First things first; here in Toronto everything’s gone a little bit Burton since the announcement earlier this year of an exhibition spanning the director’s creative career at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Bell Lightbox, swanky new home to all things cinema in Toronto. The exhibit, which exceeded all expectations during its initial run at… [Read more…]
November 29, 2010
“Gone Baby Gone is pretty damn good too, even if it is directed by Ben Affleck” One should never quote oneself, I’m sure somebody once said that but appreciating the implied irony, decided to let their wisdom remain anonymous, uncredited and therefore a little more post-modern. The above words are the closing lines from last… [Read more…]
November 15, 2010
“This train is bound for glory, this train is bound for glory…don’t carry nothing but the righteous and the holy…this train don’t carry no gamblers, liars, thieves, nor big shot ramblers…this train don’t carry no smokers, two bit liars, small time jokers…this train don’t carry no con men, no wheelers dealers, here and gone men…this… [Read more…]
October 31, 2010
“Oh no! Here they come, The members of the Deadbeat Club.” Yesterday morning and again today I listened to an album on the way to work that bunted me out of my early morning ritual. Having listened to most of the ‘cool recent releases’ from bands such as Broken Social Scene, Crystal Castles, Titus Andronicus… [Read more…]
October 11, 2010
“If you win, you win. If you lose, you still win” Some weeks back I wrote a piece called Ten Reasons Why I Love You wherein I took a swipe at the American Film Institute’s Ten Greatest films in Ten Classic Genres. Reminding you of those ‘classic’ genres they examined Animation, Romantic Comedy, Western, Mystery,… [Read more…]
October 4, 2010
Two weeks ago I was prepared to sit down and write that La Belle et La Bete, Jean Cocteau’s 1946 interpretation of Madame Leprince de Beaumont’s 1756 telling of Beauty and the Beast, was my favourite film of all time. At the time I would have been right but I delayed writing because I wanted… [Read more…]
September 26, 2010
“That is why…we cannot consider fiction by periods, we must not contemplate the stream of time…Let us avoid it by imagining that all novelists are at work together in a circular room…The final test of a novel will be affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, and of anything else which… [Read more…]
September 14, 2010
“The list is a good thing” It is midnight on Sunday the 12th September 2010 and I cannot sleep. This week I should be attending the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), tomorrow night the gala unveiling of TIFF and Cinematheque Ontario’s commitment to film in Toronto, the Bell Lightbox, yet here I sit in my… [Read more…]
September 7, 2010
First and foremost, please do not take the title of this post to be in any way disrespectful of veterans, war memorials or epitaphs in general. Maybe mindful of some of my conversations about Schindler’s List this past week, the phrase, lest we forget, kept recurring while I was writing so eventually I gave in… [Read more…]
August 30, 2010
Ignoring the dearth of comments for Once a Great Notion and pausing for a moment to point out that of the 165 visits to this site so far the greatest number has been to the afore-mentioned non-discussed post, I am reminded once again of people’s reticence to stick their heads above the parapet and state… [Read more…]
December 12, 2010
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