REVIEW: The Twentieth Century [2020]

Sure as a winter’s day in springtime. It would seem by most accounts that William Lyon Mackenzie King was a middle-of-the-road politician who neither rocked the boat nor steered it towards any particular acclaim. That’s not to say he wasn’t popular—three non-consecutive terms as Prime Minister of Canada aren’t won without appeal. He just wasn’t as internationally revered as his World War II counterparts Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. To read about his legacy is to therefore see a man firmly entrenched in a gray area our incendiary day and…

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REVIEW: Suck It Up [2017]

… And she fell down. Grief is a strange, personal, and often entirely unexpected response to tragedy. It will differ depending on who you are, the point in life you’re at, the cause, and myriad details spanning scenario, age, love, hate, or surprise. To cope with a grandparent’s death for example is something we all know is coming. We prepare ourselves for the inevitability and therefore find ourselves able to push through the pain with little to no trouble—depending on your relationship, of course. Conversely, the passing of someone still…

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TIFF13 REVIEW: 2013 Short Cuts Canada Programmes

Programme 1 A far cry from the documentary short Joda—a visual letter to Jafar Panahi—that was included in the TIFF Short Cuts Canada Programme last year, graphic designer turned filmmaker Theodore Ushev’s Gloria Victoria is all about the visceral and aural capabilities of film without something as unnecessary as words. Full of sumptuous textured layers formed by sketch drawings, Russian Constructivist elements, what I believe were faces from Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, and more, the rising crescendo of Shostakovich’s “Invasion” from Symphony No. 7 helps spur on an emotive war in…

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