One of my non-obnoxious Film Studies TAs was struggling to explain to us the basics of plot. We were first year film students, dying to do avante-garde and unique things, and the idea of using standard structural elements to construct our opuses felt confining and uncomfortably like selling out. Then, she walks in one day […]
The official Hunger Games trailer hit the world like a flaming District 12 tribute today after Josh Hutcherson (who plays fan favourite Peeta Mellark) introduced it on Good Morning America. The superb, pulse-pounding teaser kicks off with the serene Jennifer Lawrence as heroine Katniss Everdeen meeting her tried and true best friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth) […]
Ryan Gosling is on top of the world. With no fewer than 3 major major movies currently in theatres and Oscar buzz starting up again, Gosling is named-checked as The Guy right now, the one that all other men are stuck never living up to. But Ryan Gosling is a gangly Ontarian with floppy hair […]
What if the director of one of the most enjoyable superhero movies of the past ten years (Jon Favreau) and the charismatic star of the well-received James Bond remake (Daniel Craig) teamed up with a rough and tumble Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) to make a movies western that features extraterrestrial life, and whose title is […]
Watching Captain America feels a whole lot like watching a so-so pilot episode for a TV show you really want to watch. In there are all the elements that you know you’re one day going to love (more on that later), but the actual substance of the episode seems more about putting the pieces in […]
I’m officially nervous. It was sitting in the back of my brain during the post-credits sequence of Captain America. And as I breathlessly indulged in comic-con coverage on entertainment websites, it just sat back there, percolating, bubbling up into my cerebellum. It brings unbidden images of middling box-office numbers, critical dismissal, and fan eruptions of […]
I have a long history with Harry Potter. I got the first book when I was 11. I read the last one my sophomore year of college. The books and movies have been there for me from pigtails to braces to paychecks, and everything in between. Last year, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows […]
I have a theory. I like to call it the “panties of justice*” theory. It’s about what separates easily adapted superheroes from the ones who seem to struggle on their way to the multiplex. It’s basically the difference between Batman and Wonder Woman. Both are noble creatures with a complicated, fascinating backstory and great personal […]