By John H. Foote For as long as I can remember, during this crazy obsession with film, at year’s end I made my own 10 best list based on the films I had seen. Understand this was a difficult feat given I lived in the country, 30 minutes from a plethora of cinema, and an…
By John H. Foote He really did become a full-blown movie star portraying one of the most repellant, terrifying movie characters to ever grace the silver screen. Dr. Hannibal Lecter was brilliant beyond any known human measurement, his IQ soaring into the stratosphere too high to be measured. He was elegant, well read, possessed with…
By John H. Foote Who knows what to expect tonight? Diversity for sure, but beyond that? The second Oscar winning female director seems a given, Chadwick Boseman a shoo-in, but the Best Actress category? Who knows? Tonight brings to an end of the longest Oscar season in memory, eight long months since TIFF, so let…
By Craig Leask By the 1970’s, the American public had survived the shocking 1963 assassination of JFK with the implausible Warren Committee conclusion of a lone gunman having committed the deed – a simpleton by the name of Lee Harvey Oswald. Add to this: the murder of Oswald (televised live) by Jack Ruby (who perished…
By John H. Foote I freely concede it took a long time for me to recognize that the films made in this country are powerful worthy works, something the rest of the planet had discovered before most Canadians. The struggle to get Canadians to watch Canadian cinema is still an ongoing battle, but things are…
By John H. Foote In 2001 I lay in a hospital broken and in great pain, the result of a terrible head on car accident. Eighteen breaks in my legs, three in my pelvis, my entire rib cage shattered, my right arm badly broken through the elbow, my heart had been crushed, I had fixators…
By John H. Foote If you think it does not help to pass away before the Oscar nominations are announced, think again. I am not trying to be either crass nor vulgar and I too mourn the loss of Chadwick Boseman, especially after seeing his astounding range in two films this year – Ma Rainey’s…
By John H. Foote 8. THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994) Watching The Shawshank Redemption for the first time at TIFF, my breath was literally taken away three times in the film. The first time was with the two lead performances, Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins, as two men serving long sentences in Shawshank Prison, the second…
By Marie-Renee Goulet Available on Prime “It’s the one constant in life. If you build something worth having, someone’s gonna try and take it.” – John Dutton We see a cloudy blue sky and slowly, a hand gets into the frame. We hear a horse in distress and gradually, the images make sense. John Dutton (Kevin…
By John H. Foote Usually by now all the major acting races are decided long before Oscar night. The only surprise we have had in the last 10 years was Olivia Colman winning Best Actress in The Favourite (2018). Everyone, including me, figured it would go to Glenn Close in The Wife with a shocker…