More and more people are living in cities, and within 45 years, 80% of the world’s population will be city dwellers, compared to 50% today. But due to insufficient planning, modern cities — the growth engines of national economies — are increasingly becoming cold and bleak. Danish architect Jan Gehl believes that contemporary cities, like […]
Abdellatif Kechiche’s three-hour coming-of-age movie, Blue is the Warmest Color, unfolds over a period of three years and boils over with ardor and passion, signifying love and lust. The protagonists are two young women who meet by chance in a disco in a mid-sized town in France. Sexual sparks fly as their eyes meet, but […]
Gerard Jugnot’s Monsieur Batignole recreates the period in Nazi-occupied France when French collaboration with the German occupiers was not an unusual phenomenon. Many French men and women risked life and limb to resist the Germans. But some chose the path of least resistance and preyed on Jews, the objects of demonization and persecution, to gain […]
Films reflect historical reality, registering the feelings and attitudes of an epoch. As the American historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote,”The fact that film has been the most potent vehicle of the American imagination suggests all the more strongly that movies have something to tell us not just about the surfaces but about the mysteries of […]
He rocketed to earth from a dying planet and grew up with supernatural powers. Faster than a speeding bullet, he masqueraded as a mild-mannered newspaper reporter named Clark Kent. When called upon to perform a good deed or save the planet from nefarious enemies, he changed into the Man of Steel, wearing a blue costume […]
American democracy, its virtues notwithstanding, was deeply flawed for far too long. The stains that grotesquely blemished the United States for at least a century were slavery, segregation and Jim Crow racism, all maliciously directed at African Americans. While whites enjoyed the benefits of freedom and liberty in the land of the free, blacks bore […]
After reading Ray Robertson’s book, Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live, Toronto filmmaker Alan Zweig thought that the complexity of life might be better understood by organizing it into neat and accessible categories. Animated by this idea, he sought out real-life stories that were at once applicable to Robertson’s concept and transportable to the screen. […]
Mountaineers are under no illusions when they embark on a challenging expedition. Having weighed the risks, they know there is always a chance they may never return to their loved ones. These thoughts doubtlessly crossed the minds of 70 climbers from 15 countries who set out to reach the summit of K2, the world’s highest […]
The rise of the Nazi party in Germany in 1933 led to an outpouring of protest in the United States. Community leaders, politicians, trade unionists, writers and intellectuals, among others, took to the podiums, streets, airwaves and op-ed pages to denounce Adolf Hitler’s blatantly antisemitic regime. Strangely enough, the presidents of America’s universities and colleges […]
Israeli balladeer David Broza, who has been compared to Leonard Cohen and Bruce Springsteen and whose signature songs range from Yihye Tov to Belibi, will perform at Koerner Hall in Toronto on Saturday, Oct. 26 at 8 p.m. Returning to Toronto after a six-year absence, he will be followed by the Yemen Blues band after […]