Categories
Arts

A Film Of Quiet Power

Terrance Odette’s Fall, scheduled to open in Toronto on Dec. 5, taps into the still simmering  pedophilia scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic church for the past decade. Father Sam Ryan (Michael Murphy) is a fine parish priest in Niagara Falls, Canada. He tends to congregants in a retirement home, dispenses advice to a […]

Categories
Travel

Mississippi Town A Faulkner Mecca

Jefferson, a town in Yoknapatawpha county, looms large in the novels of William Faulkner, a great Southern writer and a Mississippian. Jefferson, in fact, is modelled after the real town of Oxford, the home of the University of Mississippi, or Ole Miss, while fictional Yoknapatawpha county stands in for Lafayette county. Faulkner, a Nobel Prize […]

Categories
Arts

Heartbeat — Canadian Film About Self-Discovery

Andrea Dorfman’s Heartbeat, a low-key, occasionally moving Canadian film due to open in Toronto on Nov. 28 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, is about thwarted ambition, self-discovery, unrequited love and the pain of loneliness. Tanya Davis, the former poet laureate of Halifax, stars as an aspiring musician who’s upended by stage fright in her first […]

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Middle East

Iran Nuclear Talks May Yet Fail

There’s a strong possibility that Iran and the world’s major powers may fail to convert an interim accord, signed last November, into a permanent agreement on drastically curbing Iran’s covert, militarized nuclear program. On Nov. 24, the two sides acknowledged that they had failed to bridge the gaps in their respective positions and announced a […]

Categories
Middle East

Conflict Resolution Is The Answer

In accordance with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent promise that security in Jerusalem will be restored, following an upsurge of violence in Israel’s capital in the past month or so, the Israeli government has resurrected its policy of demolishing the homes of terrorists. On Nov. 19, only a day after two Palestinian cousins from East […]

Categories
Arts

Bing Crosby Fondly Remembered

The American entertainer Bing Crosby was a ball of fire. He was a singer of style and distinction who’s still the most recorded performer in history. He was also a Hollywood film actor, ranking behind only Clark Gable and John Wayne as the most popular male actor of all time. Crosby, who died 37 years […]

Categories
Arts

World’s Best Cities

What’s your favorite city? New York?  San Francisco? Montreal? Vancouver? London? Paris? Hong Kong? Tokyo? Rio de Janeiro? Buenos Aires? Shanghai? Jerusalem? Istanbul? Cape Town? It’s a tossup, of course. I’ve visited all these cities and each one offers something special and different. So, no, I can’t rate them like cars or cafes. But if […]

Categories
Arts

Foxcatcher: A Psychological Thriller

Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, which  opens in Toronto and Vancouver on Nov. 28, leaves you perplexed, stunned and horrified. It’s a film that snares and entraps you in its iron grip. An American billionaire summons a 27-year-old wrestling champion to his mansion in the Pennsylvania woods, and life is never the same again for either of them. […]

Categories
Middle East

Israel Should Cooperate With UN Probe

The Israeli government recently decided it would not cooperate with a United Nations commission charged with investigating allegations that war crimes were committed by Israel and Hamas during their 50-day war in the Gaza Strip last summer. This comes as no surprise. Last August, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, […]

Categories
Arts

Fascism In Colour

The rise and fall of totalitarianism in Italy is spelled out in elaborate detail in Fascism in Colour, now available on the Netflix streaming channel. Produced  and directed by Chris Oxley, this two-part film charts Benito Mussolini’s path from fiery socialist to arch nationalist. Mussolini, the world’s first fascist dictator, turned his back on socialism after Italy’s disastrous defeat […]