Film. Music. Television.
I feel I say it every year, but damn 2023 was a great year for film. There are so many I liked that didn’t make the cut on these lists, even expanding them to 5 didn’t do it justice. And the Top 5? That was impossible to order. It’s fractions of fractions of fractions that separate #1 and #5.
Continue reading “Favourite Films of 2023: Part 1 – The Movies”
We still have to see how it will stand the test of time, but 2022 has been a great movie year, and it feels like the movies are rebounding from the pandemic. I will never not champion the movie-going experience, and here are my favourites from the past year in cinema.
Continue reading “Favourite Films of 2022: Part 1 – The Movies”
Florence + The Machine – Dance Fever
I went back and forth between several albums that could have gone here (see Honourable Mentions). But as a longtime fan of Florence + The Machine, it felt right to put Welch’s grand, beautiful epic of an album in the top slot. From the second the needle drops on side-one, track-one of Dance Fever, you’re captivated, lost in the music, dancing along and ignoring the world. Whether you’re physically dancing around your living room or mentally dancing at your office desk, the album grabs ahold of you and doesn’t let go. It perfectly encapsulates the musical spirit of Florence + The Machine without feeling like a “typical” effort from them.
Continue reading “Favourite Music of 2022”
Every so often, I see a random meme on social media or in a Buzzfeed-esque listicle about the curse in Beauty & The Beast. There are a lot of questions surrounding it. How old was Beast/Prince Adam when they were cursed? How long have they been cursed? How serendipitous for Belle to show up at the last minute after so many years! Chip… what’s all that about? All very good questions. And if you’ll allow me to speculate, I have some possible answers to the nature of the enchantress’ (fancy witch’s) curse.
Continue reading “What Exactly Did the Beauty & The Beast Curse Do?”
The movie-going and movie watching landscape continues to grow and evolve, against the industry’s will but for their benefit. 2021 saw the tail end of the extended awards season, while kinda-sorta embracing streaming as a viable option when faced with declining interest in the movie-going experience, which will more than likely become a niche endeavour, instead of a standard event. But across the board, great films continued to be released, here were my favourites from throughout the year.
Continue reading “Best in Cinema 2021: Part 1 – The Films”
Note: I’m writing this immediately after seeing the just-released fifth Scream film. I make passing mention of it, but I do take care to not discuss crucial plot points. There are no spoilers for the new one here. I promise.
Fans of the 90s horror franchise Scream are taking a stroll down memory lane this week with the release of… Scream. It’s the fifth one, but they’ve done away with the conventional numbering of sequels which may or may not have a meta in-film explanation, no spoiler (it does, kinda). I’ll refer to it as Scream 5 throughout this post, because I’m talking about the franchise, so it’ll get confusing to talk about the individual films without distinguishing between them.
Continue reading “What Would the Stab Franchise Really Look Like?”
This year saw two artists abandon their more downtrodden sounds and embrace a happier tone. Lorde had a more straightforward pop album in “Solar Power,” meanwhile the Michelle Zauner led Japanese Breakfast explored the facets of joy and happiness for one of her most personal and experiential records to date. It’s an album you can sit and envelope yourself in, or just have on in the background of a nice dinner, but it’s never disposable noise. It was certainly one of the top albums I had on repeat this year.
Continue reading “Best in Music: 2021”
I’ll make no apologies for my love of the big action epics that are the Fast & Furious films. It’s such a solid, workhorse of a franchise that always delivers exactly the movie you expect it to. Great stunts, big action, solid crime-turned-espionage narratives with warm & fuzzy family messaging thrown in for good measure. I dig it.
The 9th entry in the franchise dropped in theatres this past week to the biggest opening weekend box office since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. After a year long wait, and just a few days beyond the 20th anniversary of the first one, we finally got to see the next chapter in the franchise. If you’re wanting to binge the franchise before you trek to the theatres, you’ll have to bounce around streaming platforms, even spend a few bucks to rent them. I will put it out there, they’re all available to rent or buy digitally on the usual platforms, Amazon, Apple, GooglePlay/YouTube, whatever that’s looking like now. About $2-4 each to rent, so if you’re gonna binge them all, it’ll cost you, but about as much for one date night to see one film. But if you have multiple streamers, including the big ones, you’re set to stream most of them.
HBOMax
HBOMax has the streaming rights on the first two entries. That’s where you’ll start your binging journey. You’ll get introduced to Brian, Dom, Mia, Letty, the mainstays of the franchise. Tej and Roman enter the franchise in 2 Fast, 2 Furious.
This one is one of the hardest to find, as it’s only streaming on FuboTV, which I don’t know anyone who has it. Beyond that, you’re definitely renting on Amazon or AppleTV.
The fourth film in the franchise, which marked the gear shift from street racing and general crime to international espionage and car stunts, is slightly easier to track down, if you have AMC+. I happen to, because I love AMC’s programming, plus you get Shudder and IFC with it, so I can stream the movie. Otherwise, you’re looking at FuboTV for streaming, and everywhere else for digital rentals
If you’re one of the many who picked up Peacock now that it’s the exclusive home of The Office (I got it for Psych and Saved by the Bell), you’re in luck, because these two are on their home platform. Fast & Furious is a Universal Studios franchise, which is the same corporate entity as NBC, so Peacock is Universal. I’d imagine they had longterm streaming contracts for the various films, and that’s preventing the entire franchise from being under the Peacock umbrella right now, but as those contracts expire, all the films will eventually find their way home.
The most recent three (except F9: The Fast Saga) are all on rentals. You get lucky if you have Hulu live, you can stream Furious 7 there by way of FXNow, but otherwise, you’re gonna drop some coin on those.
This is a Fast & Furious adjacent film. It’s Justin Lin’s directorial debut, starring Sung Kang. Justin Lin started directing the Fast & Furious films with Tokyo Drift, through Fast & Furious 6, and just returned for F9. Those are also the films starring Sung Kang, as Han… who he also played in Better Luck Tomorrow. Both Lin and Kang have confirmed it’s the same character, making it an origin story for the Han character, and a canon yet unofficial Fast & Furious film. It’s streaming on both Amazon Prime and Paramount+.
May. The official unofficial start of summer and the summer movie season. We’re inching back toward theatrical normalcy and with some big movies hitting theatres this month, we’ll hit there soon enough. Let’s see what we’ve got this week.
Continue reading “New Films For The Weekend of May 7th”
The Empty Theatre 
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