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Nuremberg Review: Well-Acted Drama Misses Opportunity to Be More | That Shelf
“We are able to do away with domestic tyranny only when we make all men answerable to the law, so that it can never happen again.” A noble quote from a noble man, Justice Robert H Jackson, as played by Michael Shannon in James Vanderbilt’s new World War II legal drama, Nuremberg. The trials, held […]
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Old, Young and New Frankenstein | Contra Zoom
With the latest version of the classic Mary Shelly story Frankenstein coming out from director Guillermo del Toro, we look back at the history of this monster movie. Pairing the latest version with 1931’s Frankenstein directed by James Whale and 1974’s Young Frankenstein directed by Mel Brooks. Dakota, Jeff and Matthew discuss adapting the book to screen and how the […]
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2025 Vancouver International Film Festival | Contra Zoom
The 44th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival just concluded and we are here to talk about some of our favourite films that played! Joining Dakota and Matthew is Darren Zakus from Movie Scene Canada. The guys talk about Deathstalker and A Welcome Distraction (Dakota’s picks), Wrong Husband and Blue Heron (Matthew’s picks) and Blue Moon and Is This Thing On? (Darren’s picks). Listening Links
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VIFF 2025: The Arctic and Its People Shine in ‘Uiksaringitara (Wrong Husband)’ | Exclaim!
Set in the remote village of Igloolik circa 2000 BCE, Uiksaringitara (Wrong Husband), the latest from acclaimed director Zacharias Kunuk, tells the story of Kaujak (Theresia Kappianaq) and Sapa (Haiden Angutimarik), two young people betrothed since childhood and about to come of age. After the death of Kaujak’s father, a man (Mark Taqqaugaq) arrives from another village and […]
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VIFF 2025: ‘Peak Everything’ Finds Amour Amidst Our Modern Apocalypse | Exclaim!
The world is changing for Adam (Patric Hivon), and for us. Increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, weather events becoming more extreme — and there’s very little we can do at this point. We’ve gone past the point where anyone can reasonably deny that human activity has directly effected climate, and that’s cause for great concern. […]
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VIFF 2025: ‘Blue Heron’ Takes Flight with Tender Devastation | Exclaim!
Blue Heron will reach into the soul of anyone who has lost someone. It will pull out emotions long thought forgotten or moved past, and examine them through the small moments of half-remembered connection. Set in both the past and present, Blue Heron tells the story of a girl turned young woman named Sasha as she attempts to […]
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The IFSCA 100 Best Films of the 21st Century (So Far), #10 to #1
This is the fifth and final part of the IFSCA’s Best Films of the Century (So Far) list, which I administered and compiled for our membership. It was a lot of work to put together, requiring a ton of Excel tomfoolery, and then tracking down users to provide write-ups for the films. In addition to […]
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The IFSCA 100 Best Films of the 21st Century (So Far), #30 to #11
This is the fourth part of the IFSCA Best Films of the Century (So Far) list, which I administered. Welcome back to the fourth installment in the IFSCA’s Best of the 21st Century so far! We have so far counted down from 100 to 76, 75 to 51, and 50 to 31. Many of the films we’ve highlighted […]
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The IFSCA 100 Best Films of the 21st Century (So Far), #50 to #31
The third part of the IFSCA Best Films of the Century (So Far) list, which I administered. We’re crossing the halfway point in our Best of the Century list! We’ve already counted down from 100 to 76 and 75 to 51, and among them are many modern classics. Now, as we dive into the top half of the […]
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The IFSCA 100 Best Films of the 21st Century (So Far), #75 to #51
The second part of the IFSCA Best of the Century (So Far) list. In addition to organizing and administering this list, in this section I also contributed a write-up for Brokeback Mountain (#73). Welcome back to the IFSCA’s 100 Best Films of the 21st Century! In our last post, we counted down from number 100 to […]
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The IFSCA 100 Best Films of the 21st Century (So Far), #100 to #76
Inspired by the New York Times poll of the same name, I organized and administered a poll of the membership of the International Film Society Critics to determine the films that we consider to be the 100 best of the 21st Century so far. In addition to adminstering this list, in this section I also […]
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‘The Lost Bus’ Can’t Find Its Way Through the Flames | Exclaim!
On paper, this movie should work. Acts of heroism in dire circumstances make for good watching, but Greengrass fails to deliver on the film’s promise of tension and thrills. Meanwhile, there’s a whole crew of first responders actually fighting the fire who we almost never get to see in the movie. The story of how […]
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Eleanor the Great Review: An Excellent Showcase for June Squibb | That Shelf
Grief is among the most challenging of human emotions. It’s a coupling of despair at loss, the ennui of loneliness, and the fondness of memory. It is a persistence of love, but also an absence that can leave us scrambling to fill the void it has created. Eleanor the Great is a film marketed as a light-hearted dramedy […]
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‘Black Rabbit’ Series Review: Jude Law and Jason Bateman As Brothers | Movies We Texted About
We don’t choose our family. Love them, hate them, they are our families, and we are stuck with them. Some of us are blessed with living, supportive ones; others not so much, and the rest fall somewhere in between. Black Rabbit is a story of brothers who fall somewhere in between. Jake (Jude Law) and Vince (Jason Bateman) Friedken grew up […]
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Nika & Madison Review: TIFF 2025
In Canada, we have an ongoing crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women. According to research done by Statistics Canada, women of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit descent are six times more likely to be murdered than their non-Indigenous counterparts. They also face assault, both physical and sexual, at disproportionately higher rates, and the perpetrators are caught […]
I am a Rotten Tomatoes-approved, freelance film & television critic and podcast host from Vancouver, Canada! I am a co-founder of the Cascadia Film & Television Critics Association and a voting member of the International Film Society Critics, Pandora International Critics, and the Online Film & Television Association.
I maintain bylines at Exclaim!, Awesome Friday!, That Shelf, ForReel, Movies We Texted About, KeithLovesMovies, and I can be heard regularly on the Contra Zoom Podcast and The LAMBCast.
